Building a large virtual data centre

Presented byRoss SmithICT Strategy and ArchitectureAustralian Taxation Office

July 2008

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IntroductionRoss SmithSenior Technology Architect Australian Taxation Office

The ATO is Australia's major collector of revenue and is responsible for effectively managing and shaping systems that support and fund services for Australians and give effect to social and economic policy through the tax and superannuation systems.

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Plan, Build, RunICT in the ATO utilises a model known as:

Plan

Build

Run

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Strategy & Architecture roleIn the context of virtualisation:

A strategic PLAN was developed to progressively virtualise data centre servers

An architectural endorsement of virtualisation technology

A blueprint for EDS and ATO to BUILD for a 2010 architecture

A way for optimised efficient data centres to be RUN by EDS

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Drivers for virtualisationIncreased flexibility

High availability

Simplified change management process

Increased platform utilisation

Lower environmental foot print

Cost reduction

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Architectural considerationsData centre with production and pre-production servers running in a virtual environment– virtualised server environment managed automatically

– single suite of software tools– applications run on a virtual server image

– independent of physical hardware type and location

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ImplementationATO support staff have access to server management tools

– rapid provisioning according to agreed standard

– visibility of server farm for assurance purposes

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Server growthCurrently, the ATO is paying for about 2800 billable servers. This number is expected to grow to 3100 in 2010

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Virtualisation: phase 1AJune 2005: projects started with pre-production environmentDecember 2007: – over 30 ESX hosts– over 300 ESX guests– managed manually (v2.5)

Received approval to upgrade existing virtual infrastructure to VI3

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Operational impactGuests use shared resources of a group / farm of serversSAN connectivity and reliabilityManagement console centralised (virtual centre)Conversion tools

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Increased flexibilityAdditional virtual servers from an established resource pool Can move virtual servers to different physical hardware without affecting applications Can move servers between data centres

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High availabilityIncreased availability and decreased time to repairShifting of virtual servers from failing devices

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Simplified change management process

Resource allocationImproved agility through self service– separating

server provisioning tasks (ATO) and hardware maintenance (EDS) tasks

Removes physical barriers

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Virtualisation: phase 1BVirtualisation: phase 1BTo virtualise midrange Wintel servers (both CP and Non-CP) 850 small servers/blades virtualised onto 110 medium serversPower saving: 50,000 (330,000) watts– 85% reduction

Heating and cooling saving: 165,000 (1.1million) BTU/hr – or 85% reduction

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Phase 1B: tangible benefits$4.2m annual reduction in infrastructure costs

Zone and level boundaries maintained

Pre-production virtualised at a ratio of 15:1

Production virtualised at a ratio of 5:1

$7m annual saving in other virtualisation options

ATO gains virtualisation experience

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Project approachCrawl–walk–run approach

– start with low risk applications

Demonstrate capability first

Implement DRS and VMotion – dynamic resource allocation

Virtualise within current architecture – security zones and layers

Virtualise COTS applications as vendor support becomes available

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Progress to datePhysical to virtual– 116 completed– maximum throughput 24 servers / day (4-person team)– biggest delay: manual reconfiguration of application centre in P2V

Virtual to virtual– 67 completed– biggest delay: number of clusters in V2V with pilot using only one

clusterInfrastructure deployed– 67 hosts using 34TB SAN

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Blocks to further progressActive project virtualisation scheduled not finalised

VC & SMZ decision

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Questions?

© COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 2008This presentation was current in July 2008