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Small Shop, Big Ideas VMs as Swiss Army Knife

Small Shop, Big Ideas VMs as Swiss Army Knife. Christopher Keane American Geological Institute 15 July 2010. AGI’s Basic Overview. 65 Employees 50 onsite 15 remote – US, Canada, Russia, China, etc. No formal IT budget (ever) IT deployment historically episodic

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Small Shop, Big Ideas VMs as Swiss Army Knife

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  1. Small Shop, Big IdeasVMs as Swiss Army Knife Christopher Keane American Geological Institute 15 July 2010

  2. AGI’s Basic Overview • 65 Employees • 50 onsite • 15 remote – US, Canada, Russia, China, etc. • No formal IT budget (ever) • IT deployment historically episodic • No dedicated IT staff – 1.5 FTE • Core revenues highly dependent on legacy systems

  3. Inherited Spagehetti Multiplatform/Multimission Mix • Platforms • NT4 • Server 2000 • Novell • Fedora • Missions • Critical production system (GeoRef Bibliographic Database) • Vestiges of iMIS • Contract web services (DoD, NSF, JOI) • Webservers • Email servers • Fileserver

  4. Core Challenges • Stabilize legacy systems • Facilitate modernization • Provide sandbox testing environments • Position for special case offsite interactions • Demand to move from IMAP to Exchange 2007 • Server room HVAC insufficient, old building limited options • Offsite options not viable • IT budget was exactly $0.00 • All expenses directly discussed and evaluated by the Exec Dir.

  5. Legacy SystemsRocks from the Sky • GeoRef • NT4-based, utilizing AREV (netbios services with DOS clients) • Downtime measured in $10K+ per day • Position for migration/codeployment of Windows-based client and server • iMIS – the remains • NT4 + SQLServer 6.0a(!) version • Botched and abandoned install – but custom frontends built inhouse • Hit hard limits on data storage running on an 8-year old Pentium Pro server

  6. Webserver Issues • Traditionally in-housed most webserving • Contracts with US Army, NSF, etc for access to restricted parts of GeoRef. SLA’s in place • Downtime allowances required co-deployment • Webservers a mix of old linux installs and old NT4 installs • The growth in # of webservers inhibited by heat issues

  7. Virtualization as the Enabler • Needed co-deployment with minimum increase in heat • Needed sandbox options to test migration paths • Needed wide backward compatibility with legacy Oss • Need to provide client access to legacy production system to remote (China, Russia, South Africa) workers. • Not punching a hole in that firewall! • Remote Desktop environments within the perimeter

  8. VM Offerings Evaluated three VM platforms • All platforms would meet our needs, but always with tradeoffs • Xen • Preferred platform (I’m a unix/linux person) • Issues with legacy OS support at the time • Command line interface a problem with broader staff support • VMWare • Rapid deployment and ability to run on both Windows or Linux servers • GUI improved staff support • Workstation version ideal for sandbox testing • KVM • Similar issues to Xen • Not as mature as Xen at the time

  9. End Solution • Deployed ‘free’ version of VMWare Server 2 on a single dedicated 2x Xeon server with 48GB RAM (Linux) • Utilized 1 workstation license to prep and test sandboxes on standalone machines • Utilized VMWare’s migration tool to live image the legacy NT4 systems • Expanded capacity after the VM was installed • Rebuilt the linux systems using current distributions and redeployed software/application stack • Sandboxed new Windows Server installs • Migrated GeoRef/AREV production system • iMIS was not migratable with hard dependencies on SQLServer 6.0a

  10. End Solution Cont. • Additional VM server installed for remote client case • Enable thin client access to legacy systems from workers in hostile environments • Enabled ‘safe’ work for local employees who harvest data in hostile environments (China, Vietnam, Korea, etc.) • Quick and easy replacement of virgin VM images for clients • Now evaluating VMWare View

  11. Realized Benefits • Reduced 14 physical servers to 1 • Realized a 32% drop in total building power demand • Legacy systems substantially easier to manage • Migrated some system in a co-deployment environment without additional hardware and functionally no downtime • Individual VMs appear much more resilient to unexpected “issues” • Risks…. • Load management in the free environment is more art than science • Host failures impact more systems (but only 2 in 2.5 years)

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