enabling next gen multi-datacenter resilience at kennards hire richard fox-smith it manager,...
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Enabling Next Gen Multi-Datacenter Resilience at Kennards HireRichard Fox-SmithIT Manager, Kennards Hire
Michael ChanterGM Cloud Services, Frontline Systems
VIR322
Kennards HireAustralia’s leading hire company
All-Australian family-owned business Simple business model: hire tools, equipment and vehicles Over 125 branch stores900 employees38,000 Customers850,000 TransactionsAnnual revenues > $200 millionwww.kennards.com.au
Kennards HireA potted IT history
2008 : Mixed Technology stackA bit of everything:
Databases: DB2, LOTUS NOTES, SQL Server 2005/2000, MySQL….Operating Systems: Server 2003, Server 2000, Linux – RedHat Enterprise, Fedora Core 3/6,VMware for VDI….Email: Lotus Notes
Server Infrastructure at every branch (100+ servers Fedora Core 3 or 6, DB2, Propriety POS)
TAKE OUT: Extremely difficult to manage
Kennards HireA potted IT history
2008: Frontline Systems engaged as strategic partner Frontline roadmap adhered to 2 underlying principles
Drive reductions in complexity and costEmbrace Infrastructure Optimisation approach
BasicStandardis
edRationalis
edDynamic
Kennards HireWhere we are today
Key decisionsMove to Microsoft stack – adoption of “Microsoft first” Move to highly virtualised DC (Frontline & Citrix)Over 3 years, have achieved a Rationalised environment
Basico Starting Pointo Non-
Homogenous
Standardised
o Microsoft Stacko Move to Data
Centre
Rationalised
o Virtual DC (Citrix)o System Center
2007
Dynamic
Kennards HireCurrent state eye chart
Kennards HireCurrent state
Core
Infr
ast
ruct
ure
Tier
1 A
pplic
ati
ons
(mis
sion c
riti
cal)
Tier
2 A
pplic
ati
ons
Kennards HireMission Critical Applications
Tier
1 A
pplic
ati
ons
(mis
sion c
riti
cal)
Core
Infr
ast
ruct
ureCore infrastructure is enabler
Baseplan ERPPOSCore to hire ops
Payroll
Kennards HireCurrent state
Core infrastructure is enabler
Microsoft core infrastructureServer 2008 R2Active DirectoryExchange 2007SQL Server 2008 R2System Centre 2007Forefront Data Protection
Citrix Virtualisation StackXenApp 5.0Xen Server 5.6
Core
Infr
ast
ruct
ure
Kennards HireIT team
IT Manager
CIO
Change Manager
TesterSenior Developer
InfrastructureEngineer
DeveloperHelp Desk 1 Help Desk 3Help Desk 2
Current architecture allows 900 Employees : 10 IT Folk
Kennards HireIT team
IT Manager
CIO
Change Manager
TesterSenior Developer
InfrastructureEngineer
DeveloperHelp Desk 1 Help Desk 3Help Desk 2
Operations
Current architecture allows 900 Employees : 10 IT Folk
Kennards HireIT team
IT Manager
CIO
Change Manager
TesterSenior Developer
InfrastructureEngineer
DeveloperHelp Desk 1
Operations
Help Desk 2 Help Desk 3
Current architecture allows 900 Employees : 10 IT Folk
Kennards HireIT team
IT is very flat, very lean
IT Manager
CIO
Change Manager
TesterSenior Developer
InfrastructureEngineer
DeveloperHelp Desk 1
Operations
Help Desk 2 Help Desk 3
Kennards HireNext Steps in our Strategic Program
4 business driversReview virtualisation platformIncrease manageability across the whole IT environmentDeliver multi-datacentre DRMove to a ‘Cloud First’ architecture
Basico Starting Pointo Non-
Homogenous
Standardised
o Microsoft Stacko Move to Data
Centre
Rationalised
o Virtiual DC (Citrix)o System Centre
2007
Dynamic
Kennards HireServer 2012 RDP program
Scenario #2: “Moving Beyond Virtualisation to Build Cloud Optimised IT”
Test out Server 2012 – working with RedmondGet a hands-on feel for how ready it isWhat it can do for Kennards @ the Datacentre?
Looked at the followingHA on VM’s HyperV ReplicaLive Migration (Shared Nothing).Storage Options
Kennards HirePilot Setup
Layer 3 (Routing)HP ProCurve 2510G-24
Switch
IBM x3650 M3 – Node 2
2 Node Hyper-V Cluster Windows
2012 RC
IBM x3650 M3 – Node 1
NIC Team
NIC Team
Production – vlan 300
Cluster \ live – vlan 200
Management – vlan 100
iSCSI – vlan 400
NIC Team or MPIO for iSCSI
.BI N .VSV .XML
.VHD
Quorum + CSV
.BI N .VSV .XML
.VHD
CSVsiSCSI Target \ File Server
ClusterWindows 2012 RC
iSCSI Storage
IBM x3465 x 300GB for Storage
Spaces
SMB Share\\fileservername\
sharename
Kennards HireHigh Availability on VM’s
VM’s highly available across the cluster: in the event of a host failure, the VM will automatically restart on the available host.
Would improve our uptime to the branch, have had a small number of incidents where this feature would have saved 20-30 mins of outage on certain applications.
Builds on our commitment to the branch/business
Key features from VMM 2012 (requires SP1) will allow us to leverage the full capability. e.g. intelligent placement for capacity optimization.
Kennards HireHigh Availability on VM’s
Learnings:For Pilot utilised LACP : Native NIC teaming within Server 2012. No need for 3rd party NIC teaming supportMoving to DC (older switch architecture) utilised switch independent mode to achieve same outcomeSupport for both options provided flexibility in different environmentsEase of configuration and portability between different switching environments
Kennards HireHyper-V Replica
Allows the publishing of a VM to a DR Hyper-V Server which replicates all changes and keeps the copy in sync.
Allows prior snapshots for fall back to a previous point in time.
Successfully tested and demonstrated Capability missing from our current Hypervisor – costly and messy to work with what we already had. Made DR a tough nut to crack.Next steps for us are move some of our critical VM’s to Hyper-V so we can replicate them to our lab.
Enabler for our DR vision, and will remove complexity/cost in this area.
Kennards HireHyper-V Replica
Learnings:Pilot was run within single AD domain : Set up and workedFor integration with external service provider, there will be other authentication complexities (certificate requirement)Target for replica must be same RCMove paging data to separate VHD
Kennards HireLive Migration
Shared Nothing
Able to do live migrations between Hyper-V servers that share nothing in common. i.e. no cluster, no shared storage
Tested in the Lab across two hosts with no shared storageVery impressive to see in actionDropped maybe two packets, with no visible stoppage on the VM being migrated (watching YouTube)
Over time the “clean” DC architecture gets messy (unbalanced workloads & storage)
Live Migration means we can move VM’s with maximum flexibly going forward. (e.g. difficulty moving VM’s between our two XenServer farms)
Kennards HireLive Migration
Learnings:
3 scenarios:Within clusterWithin local networkAcross the WAN
Need to contemplate performance\bandwidth implications in each case
Kennards HirePowershell
Powershell cmdlets providing direct access to Hyper-V
Our experienceEarly days – but lets us quickly setup VM’s in a repeatable, tested mannerXen was hard to report on with VM lists and settings, simple PowerShell command to extract the VM list with properties.
PowerShell is starting to really help us automate routine tasks – now we have a bit more power to get to Hyper V, build out our IT process via scripts.
# Build out 4 VM’s from a BaseImage.
$VMNames =@(1..4) $BaseImage = "C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\vCTXBase01.vhd"
Foreach ($VM in $VMNames) {
$VM = "vctx31"+$VM $VMPath = "C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\Children01\$vm.vhd"New-VHD -ParentPath $BaseImage -Differencing -Path $VMPath New-VM -VHDPath $VMPath -VMName $VM -MemoryStartupBytes 8192MB
-SwitchName "vSwitch"set-VMNetworkAdapterVlan -VMName $VM -Access -vlanid 5Set-VMProcessor -VMName $VM -Count 4
}
Powershell
Kennards HireStorage Options
Loads of storage options with Server 2012SMB 3.0 is a much improved file sharing protocol allowing VM’s and SQL workloads to be run from a UNC pathStorage Spaces – like a mini SAN, cut up cheap raw direct attached storageAlready using it to create working space in our production environmentSimple to use and highly flexible targets ( UNC FileShare, iSCSI target)Plan to leverage SMB3 in our future cluster design
Kennards HireStorage Options
Learnings:Storage capabilities of Server 2012 are extremely useful for virtualisation scenarios where storage volume is an issueTest without SAN6TB storage serversIn production has created storage headroom
Kennards HireProduction Architecture
Hyper-V Replica
WAN 10Mps
Kennards HireServer 2012 Overall Impressions
We used two version of Release Candidates and both felt ready.Installs were clean Performance has been good Provides multiple options for NW, storage, managementHyper-V 3.0 the right choice for our next hypervisor
Next gen hypervisorLeverage our windows skills and knowledge
RDP was great experience technical deep dive provided confidence that our strategy was rightInsight into how big a release Server 2012 is with may optionsLeverage our relationship with Microsoft and Frontline to get into the next generation server OS.
Kennards HireOutcomes
Truly moved into the Dynamic IT delivery modelImproved manageability of entire IT environment via SC 2012Rationalised further to single stack – Microsoft is our Hypervisor platform of choiceProvided ‘ready made’ Cross-DC DR solutionImproved resilience and agility by removing HW reliance (no storage lock -in)Delivered a ‘Cloud Ready’ infrastructure built to scale
Basico Starting Pointo Non-
Homogenous
Standardised
o Microsoft Stacko Move to Data
Centre
Rationalised
o Virtiual DC (Citrix)o System Center
2007
Dynamic
Kennards HireOutcomes
Truly moved into the Dynamic IT delivery modelImproved manageability of entire IT environment via SC 2012Rationalised further to single stack – Microsoft is our Hypervisor platform of choiceProvided ‘ready made’ Cross-DC DR solutionImproved resilience and agility by removing HW reliance (no storage lock -in)Delivered a ‘Cloud Ready’ infrastructure built to scale
Basico Starting Pointo Non-
Homogenous
Standardised
o Microsoft Stacko Move to Data
Centre
Rationalised
o Virtiual DC (Citrix)o System Center
2007
Dynamico Cross-DCo Automated
Failovero Cloud Ready
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to
be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS
PRESENTATION.
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