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Virtualisation @ CIT
HEAnet National Networking Conference 2009
Aidan McDonald
Programme
1. Introduction
2. VMWare ESX
3. SAN and ESX
4. Today and Future
5. Pitfalls
6. Additional work in CIT
1. Introduction
Introduction
 Instead of CIT planning a Virtualisation project,
CIT’s Infrastructure evolved from various small
IT initiatives in the college.
 Now, it represents a sizeable virtualised
infrastructure and our reliance and dependency
on it has grown enormously.
 Administration, student services, IT services,
academic departments all now depend on this
infrastructure.
In the beginning ….
 Cisco Academy’s Netlab
System - introduced support
for virtual PCs in the pods
using VMWare GSX, capable
of supporting 8 virtual PCs per
server.
 VM Workstation used in
network labs, to allow students
experience installing OS’s and
configuring administration
settings without effecting
underlying lab PC.
 Approached VMWare to
customise ESX for Netlab –
introduced to our neighbours in
Ovens, MD ex-CIT graduate
VMware ESX
CIT’s Cloud
ESX SERVER 1
PowerEdge
2950
 Initially, installed ESX for
research, had no interest in
large scale virtualisation
agenda.
 CIT became a VMware
university allowing academic
licensing to be used for
creating ESX servers.
 Research includes
virtualising an existing server
– i.e. our TACACS server, as
well as creating some new
servers for NM (e.g. Nagios,
Squid, DNS);
Computer Dept. SAN
CIT’s Cloud
VM ESX CLUSTER
Virtual Infrastructure Center Server
ESX Management Server
PowerEdge 2950
2
5
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3
6
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ESX SERVER 1
PowerEdge
2950
SAN
DISK STORE 2
DISK STORE 1
EMC 2
EMC 2
 Initial ESX server was
running out of local
disk space.
 School of Computing
invested in a SAN.
 EMC Clarion CX300
 Initially used in
computing as storage
Fiber channel switch
CIT’s Cloud
VM ESX CLUSTER
Virtual Infrastructure Center Server
ESX Management Server
PowerEdge 2950
2
5
0
3
6
1
4
7
ESX SERVER 1
PowerEdge
2950
ESX SERVER 2
PowerEdge
2950
MDS 9124 MULTILAYER FABRIC SWITCH
CISCO
CONSOLE
MGMT 10/100
STATUS
P/S
FAN
RESET
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DS-C9124-K9
MDS 9124 MULTILAYER FABRIC SWITCH
CISCO
CONSOLE
MGMT 10/100
STATUS
P/S
FAN
RESET
1
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SAN
DISK STORE 2
DISK STORE 1
EMC 2
EMC 2
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DS-C9124-K9
 A colleague in Finance
managed an internal WWW
server which crashed.
 Convinced him to buy fibre
channel switch instead of new
server, if we hosted
finance.cit.ie – 1st Production
server
 An upgrade to phone
management server required
new server – we took this
server as our 2nd ESX server
and virtualised.
 Provided high speed link to
SAN for storage and retrieval
of data from VMware servers.
Value of VM – AD Project
CIT’s Cloud
VM ESX CLUSTER
Virtual Infrastructure Center Server
ESX Management Server
PowerEdge 2950
2
5
0
3
6
1
4
7
ESX SERVER 1
PowerEdge
2950
ESX SERVER 2
PowerEdge
2950
ESX SERVER 3
PowerEdge
R900
MDS 9124 MULTILAYER FABRIC SWITCH
CISCO
CONSOLE
MGMT 10/100
STATUS
P/S
FAN
RESET
1
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DS-C9124-K9
MDS 9124 MULTILAYER FABRIC SWITCH
CISCO
CONSOLE
MGMT 10/100
STATUS
P/S
FAN
RESET
1
2
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SAN
DISK STORE 2
DISK STORE 1
EMC 2
EMC 2
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DS-C9124-K9
 College undertook to
centralise AD – 13
different departmental
ADs to two central ones –
Staff and Student
 Impossible to build new,
parallel infrastructure
while old existed
 Virtualised the whole old
AD estate, all 13 ADs,
and in this test
environment, mocked up
the AD migration
 Implemented VMMotion
CIT Today
 Server consolidation – ban on new physical servers
 SAN upgrade, CX400 – i-SCSI, mirroring
 4 ESX Servers, 63 VMs, 15Tb Disk, in two centers
Pitfalls – Server for server sake
 VM Servers/machines have an undoubted
value and can be created instantaneously
 However, there is a danger in creating
VMs for the sake of it
 This can lead to unstructured and
unmanageable growth of virtualisation
infrastructure
 Network admin looses visibility of “the
port” which servers attached – vSwitch
Future
 VSphere

CIT plans to upgrade its Virtualisation Infrastructure to VSphere
4.0 in 2010
 VDI
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CIT plans to investigate VDI as a means of rapid desktop
deployment
It will be also used to deploy individual desktops to Staff and
Students
Most likely pioneered in Dept of Computing and IT Services
Project Students and CIT’s Open Access facility for Students
could benefit.
 EMC/VMWare/CIT Academy
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CIT over the years has enjoyed good relations with EMC and
VMware
Recently CIT have created a VMware Academy
Built a VMware Training Infrastructure to support delivery of
VMware courses
Plans to offer a number of courses including the VCP in 2010
Questions
 Aidan McDonald – IT Network Manager
([email protected])
 Aaron Krawczyk – Virtualisation Administrator
([email protected])
 Pat McCarthy – VMWare Academy Coordinator
([email protected])
Thank You