1. VT Central Computing Infrastructure
Increasing Virtualization
William Dougherty
Director of Systems Support
Network Infrastructure & Services

2. William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08
Past: Big Blue
Mainframe, Mainframe, Mainframe
MVS VM
Very small UNIX (mostly DEC VAX) and other proprietary Operating Systems and equipment.
Proprietary systems
HP MPEiX
DEC VMS
SGI Irix
Windows NT
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

3. Present: Distributed and Varied
Administrative, HPC/Research, and Instructional Computing spread across a variety of vendors’ servers and storage; no common ground.
Over 350 individual servers and devices, many in load-balanced clusters, dedicated to specific administrative services.
Most major vendors’ equipment represented.
Several Linux/UNIX blends, Windows, and proprietary Operating Systems in play.
Research systems running on Apple (PowerPC), SGI, and Sun.
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

4. Present: Advantages (on the Administrative Side)
Plenty of platforms for specific application needs.
Similar computing power in different tiers; development, test, pre-production, production.
Ample cycles for day-to-day operations and cyclical/seasonal peaks.
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

5. Present: Disadvantages
No way to centrally administer servers.
No way to recover or capture “spare” cycles.
Electric power and cooling = high impacts.
Managing power is complicated.
Data Center space dwindling.
Specialization required for each server platform.
Not enough computing resources for research; primarily aimed at Graduate and Faculty needs. Undergrads mostly disenfranchised.
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

6. Current Virtualization Efforts
UNIX/Linux environment:
Solaris Zones
Linux VServer
Xen
VMWare Server (have started testing ESXi)
Windows environment:
Windows Virtual Server 2005
Windows Hyper-V: can now use multiple processor cores on a “Guest” OS (now only SuSE Linux supported)
Tried VMWare, but potential support issues caused concerns.
More specifics will be fleshed out here
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

7. Current Virtualization Efforts; Details:
Solaris Zones
Application: ITA Purchasing and related applications
OS: Sun Solaris 10
Hardware: Sun V440, Sun V490
CPU: SparcIII, SparcIV+
Count: 2 Physical systems, 3 Solaris Zones
Notes: The base systems also run application components. This effort consolidated 5 physical systems into 2.
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

8. Current Virtualization Efforts; Details:
Linux VServer (case #1)
Application: Middleware Java Servlet Hosting environment
OS: Debian Linux
Hardware: Dell 1850, Dell 1950
CPU: Intel Dual-core Xeon
Count: 6 Physical systems, 18 Virtual systems
Notes: This is a hosting environment for Java servlets. The goal was to provide in a fashion that protects hosted servlets from one another.
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

9. Current Virtualization Efforts; Details:
Linux VServer (case #2)
Application: Middleware infrastructure support/Java J2EE
OS: Debian Linux
Hardware: Dell 1950s
CPU: Intel Quad-core Xeon
Count: 3 Physical systems, 10 Virtual systems
Notes: Virtualized development and preprod J2EE services, primarily for server consolidation.
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

10. Current Virtualization Efforts; Details:
Linux Xen
Application: Banner Luminis Portal
OS: RedHat Linux
Hardware: Dell 1950
CPU: Intel Quad-core Xeon
Count: 6 Physical systems, 9 Virtual systems
Notes: The Banner approach to application reinstall requires a reinstall of the OS. This configuration allows us to quickly deploy a base system preconfigured to our security and management standards.
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

11. Current Virtualization Efforts; Details:
VMWare Server
Application: Learning Technologies Projects/Services
OS: Debian Linux
Hardware: Dell 6950, Dell 2950
CPU: AMD Dual-core, Intel Dual-core Xeon
Count: 2 Physical, 9 Virtual systems
Notes: Long term, the 2950 will be replaced by another Dell 6950.
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

12. Current Virtualization Efforts; Details:
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005
Application: Windows Administration support (Domain controllers, CITRIX, etc.)
OS: Windows 2000 Server
Hardware: Dell 1950, Dell 2950
CPU: Intel Quad-core Xeon
Count: 3 Physical systems, 8 Virtual systems
Notes: Plan to migrate to Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V.
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

13. Current Virtualization Efforts; Details:
Microsoft Implementation Group Pilot
Virtual Dedicated Windows Servers (VDWS)
Running Windows 2008 Datacenter, System Center Enterprise Suite, and Hyper-V.
One-half of university’s production Active Directory Domain Controllers will migrate.
Base “Guest” systems:
1.86GHz x86 CPU
1GB of RAM
30GB RAID-5 disks
1GB Ethernet NICs
Twenty guests “invited” into Pilot; A.D. Child domain controllers would be best candidates.
Pilot will run from Nov 2008-June 2009.
Platform will be a Dell 2960 (Dual Quad core 3.16GHz/64 bit CPU; 32GB RAM; 6X450GB 15K SAS drives in RAID 1+0).
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

14. The Future: Consolidation and Increased Virtualization

15. Reasons for the Project
Resources: Dwindling; more with less. Funds, personnel, space, etc.
Research: Increasing need for computing; strategic goal of university, etc. etc. Currently maintaining System X, plus SGI and Sun hosts centrally.
Utilization: Estimates for utilization of admin servers 5-30% leaving 70-95% free cycles, but still paying for electricity and cooling even if the machine is idle. HPC equipment is on average 70-95% busy.
Virtualization: Already investigating and some in production. Project with IBM would be to broaden scope to support research use. Part of a “greener” data center.

16. Future: Consolidation and Virtualization
Desire to reap spare cycles associated with off-peak operations; dedicate to research applications where possible and practical.
Desire to control electrical power and cooling requirements.
Desire to extend life of Data Center.
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

17. Funds Space/Power Resources
Contribution toward Strategic Advantage
And Research Competitiveness
Increased Overall Capacity
High Performance Computing
And Storage
Virtual services for both research and administrative applications. Secure, isolated and insulated.
National / International Research Networks – direct connection with specialized access
High Performance Storage
over utilized
under utilized
RESEARCH
APPS
Virtualized
Architecture
Admin Application Servers
ADMIN
APPS
Research Computing
Desire to reap spare cycles associated with off-peak operations; dedicate to research applications where possible and practical
Desire to control electrical power and cooling requirements
Desire to extend life of Data Center
Funds
Space/Power
Resources
Programming / Operations / Maintenance
jmc090308

18. Virtualization Advantages
Most servers do not come close to peak operating capacity on any given day. In fact, according to Gartner’s white paper Data Center Power and Cooling Scenario Options for the World Ahead, (April 2007) during a 24 hour period less than 10% of the typical x86 /x64 server computing capacity is used.
By decoupling the physical hardware from the operating system and applications, virtualization allows server consolidation, thus improving utilization and manageability. This can yield cost savings and benefits including: 1. Reducing server and networking costs; fewer servers, fewer connections. 2. Reducing growing power, cooling, and facilities costs. (Server performance tripling, while energy efficiency only doubling every 2 years.)
3. Improving business agility; as computing resource needs or an application’s needs change, resources can be more quickly deployed.
4. The possibility of decreasing Disaster Recovery time as less equipment would require replacing and Hot Site/Cold Site setup is simplified.
Gartner, et. al. Uptime Institute's Kenneth Brill estimates that if something isn’t done about IT power consumption, 10 major power plants will need to be constructed over the next 5 years, and another 20 the next 5 years after that. (Innovations; Fall 2008; Issue 6)

19. Applications Queued for Virtualization
GIS related Google Earth Enterprise-Google Fusion
Digital Repository/Image Archive DB
Sakai instance for Instructional Technologies
Web app for communications billing system
Center for Creative Technology & the Arts
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08

20. Challenges of Virtualized Environment
Migration of existing applications.
Need for utilities/tools to aid central management of servers:
Configuration, day-to-day administration, security (both host-based and network related).
Root cause analysis, capacity/performance monitoring and planning, accounting.
Managing a mix of physical and virtual servers.
Software Licensing compliance (ORACLE).
Specific requirements of commercial applications and chip architecture. (Power PC versus Intel versus AMD; the Ring 0 issue)
Standardization versus Diversification
Overcoming institutional anxiety and “tradition.”
What about cloud services?
Placement of service consoles on special, sometimes private VLANS, may be necessary.
William Dougherty-VT: CSG 01/08/08