macleans - nz business taking on the world with a world class it infrastructure solution

Taking on the world with a world class IT Infrastructure SolutionInfrastructure SolutionAdam Zame & Gerhard RichardsMaclean Computing

Make change work for youIBM Insight Forum 09®

A d2

Agenda• Who is our client?• Prior state of their IT?• Client’s requirements?C e s equ e e s• What Maclean Computing did?• Then what happened?...Then what happened?...• How we fixed it?• The future?The future?...


A f ti ?3

A few questions?• Who has had to press the “BIG RED BUTTON” and p

initiate a disaster recovery process in the last 2 yrs?1 = Yes 2 = No

• Do you think virtualisation is still too expensive for a 25 – 75 user small to meduim business?

1 = Yes 2 = No• Have you moved your data centre in the last 2 yrs?

1 = Yes 2 = No


Wh i th li t?4

Who is the client?• Southern Hemisphere’s leading textile and interior p g

design company• Operates in US , NZ and Australia• 100 users globally, 6 locations• Invited Maclean Computing in to assist with technology p g gy

recommendations and strategy


P i St t f IT5

Prior State of IT• Main IT services ran on separate aging hardware, some p g g ,

servers 4+ yrs old

• Terminal Server dependent globallyp g y

• Large WAN with limited redundancy

MS Dynamics NAV site supported by Intergen ISV• MS Dynamics NAV site supported by Intergen, ISV Partner

Limited backup and no Disaster Recovery planning• Limited backup and no Disaster Recovery planning

Business Risk and High Maintenance


P i St t f IT6

Prior State of IT

EmailServer

DomainController

Server

Terminal

NAV Server

Server

FileServer

Backup tape


Cli t’ i t7

Client’s requirements• They needed to replace their old hardwarey p

• Also needed flexibility, due to nature of their business

DR and “Backup and Restore” was critical to reduce• DR and Backup and Restore was critical to reduce risk

Virtualisation and Consolidation proved successful• Virtualisation and Consolidation proved successful

• Site needed some infrastructure upgrades with regards to the server roomto the server room


Wh t M l C ti did?8

What Maclean Computing did?• Maclean Computing proposed a phased virtualisation p g p p p

solution to reduce business risks

• IBM x3850 and x3650 hardware, DS3400 SAN, TS3200 , ,Tape Library and VMware ESX Enterprise 3.5

• DR provided by all production systems now VMs and p y p yeasily restored to any hardware

• Solution completed in early Dec 08p y


Wh t M l C ti did?9

What Maclean Computing did?

DomainController

EmailServer

T i l

FileServer

TerminalServer

TerminalServer

NAV Server

IBM x3850Virtual Host

IBM x3650 Mgmt Server

T LibIBM

Fibre Switch

Server

Tape LibraryIBM DS3400

SAN


Wh t M l C ti did?10

What Maclean Computing did?• Key technologiesKey technologies

• IBM x3850 Virtual Hosts

• Highly redundant hardware, with built in remote management

• Vizioncore vRanger Pro

U d t t b k i f VM• Used to create backup images of VMs

• Client has a week of backups on disk for fast precovery



What Maclean Computing did?IBM x3850 Server Overview :

• Mission-critical availability to help prevent interruptions in day-to-day enterprise operationsday enterprise operations

• Hot-swap power supplies, fans, memory, hard disk drives and 2 x PCI-Express adapters.

• Active Memory™ with features such as Memory ProteXion™, hot-add memory and Chipkill™ memory provide a level of reliability and availability that helps reduce downtime and maintain data integrity.

• Up to 4 sockets able to be installed and 32 DIMM slots allowing up to 256GB of RAM

• Predictive Failure Analysis® on hard disk drives, processors, VRMs, fans and memory.

• http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/data/flash/systemx/hardware/enterprise/x3850m2/tour/



What Maclean Computing did?IBM x3850 Server Overview :

• Ability to upgrade to scalable system with the ScaleXpanderOption kit allowing customers the flexibility to scale as theirOption kit allowing customers the flexibility to scale as their business needs change.

• Six-core and four-core processor options with up to 2.66 GHz (six-core) and 2 4 GHz (four core) speeds with up to 16 MB L2 cachecore) and 2.4 GHz (four-core) speeds with up to 16 MB L2 cache.

• Seven PCI-Express x8 high-performance I/O expansion slots, two support hot-swap capabilities.

• ScaleXpander Option kit offers customers the flexibility to scale from 4 sockets all the way to 16 sockets.

• Memory options are 4 GB or 8 GB/256 GB max PC2-5300 DDR II

REMOTE SUPERVISOR ADAPTER OVERVIEW


RSA Sli li II O i13

RSA Slimline II Overview


RSA Sli li II O i ?14

RSA Slimline II Overview?


Th h t h d?15

Then what happened?• Air conditioning unit failed and water flooded the server g

rack

• IBM x3850 hardware, DS3400 SAN, x3650 , ,management server, tape library and fibre switches all water damaged

• The impact is company wide, authentication being the main problem. There was no backup domain controllers other than those at head officeother than those at head office

• Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane couldn't even work with just locally stored documentsjust locally stored documents.


Th h t h d?16

Then what happened?


Th h t h d?17

Then what happened?


Th h t h d?18

Then what happened?


H fi d it?19

How we fixed it?• A replacement server was sourced, the offsite tapes p , p

were retrieved

• An ESX host was provisioned in 30 minutes.p

• Vizioncore vRanger Pro was used to restore images to bare VM’s.• 5 Servers were restored in less than 5 hours. This

included Exchange 2007, DC, F&P and two Terminal Servers.

• Client predicted that recovering the 5 physical servers ld h k 4 d d ld h iwould have taken up to 4 days and could have cost in

excess of $50,000 lost business and productivity


Th F t ?20

The Future?• Client is discussing the possibility of office relocationg p y

• Physical hosting is an option which will reduce risk of system outages due to power and environmentalsy g p(water)

• Investing in a second virtual host and fibre switching g gwhen expansion is required, improving redundancy and high availability further

• Migrations/upgrades are now very easy, testing and development can be achieved on cloned “live” systems tootoo


Thi t t k21

Thing to take away• Virtualisation is affordable and can give instantVirtualisation is affordable and can give instant

benefits

Management tools shouldn’t be overlooked• Management tools shouldn t be overlooked

• If you are virtualising your systems, definitely look at imaged based backup solutions

• Phased deployments are achievable but youPhased deployments are achievable but you need to balance risks and have a DR plan

Redundancy is key but if you can waterproof• Redundancy is key, but if you can waterproof servers that’s better....


22

Thank oThank you

Questions?

IBM Insight Forum 09®

Make change work for you

macleans - nz business taking on the world with a world class it infrastructure solution

Technology

hard disk

maclean computing

ds3400 san

tape library

memory

2 yrs

virtualisation

core