SERVER CONSOLIDATION AND VIRTUALIZATION Joanne M Kossuth Vice

SERVER CONSOLIDATION AND VIRTUALIZATION Joanne M. Kossuth, Vice President for Operations and CIO, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

DEFINITIONS: CONSOLIDATION • • • Implies combining workloads from separate machines/applications into a smaller number Combine heterogeneous workloads from multiple servers into a single larger server Multiple workloads may be combined under a single OS, reducing OS images. Multiple applications such as email or databases can be combined into a single system Centralized, physical, operational

DEFINITIONS: VIRTUALIZATION • • • Virtualization tools include: Partitions Virtual machines Resource management software All enable multiple workloads to run simultaneously on larger servers

APPROACH Alternate approach to growing the data center • Implications: • Real estate • Use less space • Potential cost savings • Requires fewer resources for renovations • Allows for reclamation of space for other institutional needs •

IMPLICATIONS, CONT. • Energy usage • Improves efficiency • Uses less electricity • Requires less cooling equipment • “Greener” approach

IMPLICATIONS, CONT. • Flexibility and agility Increases responsiveness to customers • Allows for increased development and test opportunities • • Simplification Standards • Images • Support • • Hardware utilization Increased utilization • Better metrics •

IMPLICATIONS, CONT. Costs • Reduced TCO • Reduced support • Licensing? • Disaster recovery/business continuity • Increased opportunity • Improved reliability and uptime • Reduced recovery time • Others? •

QUESTIONS TO ASK • • • Licensing Life time costs Compatibility Shared storage requirements Network hardware requirements (GB? ) Support • Internal • External

PLANNING THE PROJECT • • • Understand your goals Assess the existing environment Work with vendor partners on potential designs Evaluations and assessment of vendor solutions Staff training Make sure to work with YOUR potential configurations and software

PLANNING II • • Deployment plan Ongoing evaluation and support Don’t forget about backup planning Multiple front ends, one backend storage array? Standards Implications for user experiences Planning for change and next gen

OLIN COLLEGE EXPERIENCE • Goals • Increase development and testing environments • Reduce the total number of servers supported • Improve agility • Reallocate costs • Streamline operations

YOUR EXPERIENCES • Share your experiences • Positive • Negative • Lessons learned?

OTHER OPPORTUNITIES Network virtualization • Storage virtualization • Desk top virtualization •

THANK YOU