Question:

Regional Gardens Ltd is a company that runs a number of related gardening enterprises. It has a large display garden that it opens for public inspection a number of times a year. These enterprises include the Regional Gardens Nursery which sells plants and garden supplies to the public, and Regional Garden Planners which provides garden advice, design and consultancy services.

Regional Gardens Ltd has a small data centre at its main site in Bathurst where the company’s servers and data storage is located. The company has the following server infrastructure:
•    2 x Active Directory domain controllers on Windows Server 2008 R2, (2 x Xeon 3.6GHZ, 8GB RAM, 140GB HDD);
•    3 x SQL Server 2003 database servers on Windows Server 2003 (2 x Xeon 2.8GHZ, 4GB RAM, 250GB RAID-5 array);
•    1 x Exchange 2007 email server on Windows Server 2008 R2 (2 x Xeon 3.6GHZ, 8GB RAM, 250GB RAID-1 array);
•    4 x Windows Server 2003 File and Print servers (2 x Xeon 2.8GHZ, 4GB RAM, 250GB RAID-1 array);
•    2 x Red Hat Enterprise 5 Linux servers running Apache and TomCat (2 x Xeon 2.8GHZ, 16GB RAM, 140GB HDD).

The management of the company is concerned about the increasing costs of power and cooling to operate their data centre. The management also wants to increase the reliability of the services, reduce their desktop support loads and accelerate desktop provisioning to the staff. They are also investigating whether they should employ a virtualisation technology in their data centre to enhance data centre efficiency while keeping costs low. They are considering whether they should also use virtualisation to provide an updated desktop environment to their staff.

Your Report
You are to consider how to implement a virtual infrastructure for the company and prepare a report for the board of Regional Gardens. Your report should include:
1.    A one page executive summary,
2.    Your proposed virtual infrastructure for the data centre. This is to include:
a.    Which virtual technology you recommend to be deployed, and
b.    Your reasons for that recommendation.
3.    An analysis of how virtual applications and desktops, or both, will be delivered to the user’s desktops using the new infrastructure.
4.    Your designs for:
a.    Data and configuration backup, and
b.    Disaster recovery.
5.    Any Information Security changes required and the steps required to implement / monitor these changes

Answer:

1.        Introduction

Regional Gardens Ltd uses costly physical servers for the domain infrastructure, databases, email infrastructure, file and print and Linux based apache and tomcat application servers. They are using physical desktops for the end user computing and for the day to day operations of the company. They are using four Xeon 3.6 GHz with 8 GB RAM and four Xeon 2.8 GHz servers with 4 GB RAM. They are using two Xeon 2.8Ghz servers with 16 GB RAM for Linux based applications. They are using many physical desktops. The cost of the physical IT infrastructure is keep going up (“Regional Gardens Ltd – Research paper”, 2017). The physical IT infrastructure is showing lot of disadvantages now and then. The management of the Regional Gardens Ltd is investigating the virtualization technologies to decrease the ever growing hardware IT infrastructure costs along with lot of other benefits like faster desktop provisioning for the normal da-to-day operations. The technology selection, overall design considerations and proposed design specifications will be discussed. The advantages of using virtual infrastructure will be discussed. Backup design and DR Design details will be investigated.

2.        Virtual Technology Selection

The Regional Gardens Ltd management can go for VMWARE virtualization technology. They can go with ESXi 6 servers with compatible vcenter server setup. High level design is given below (Chen, 2012).

They can go with ESXi 6.5 only one datacentre. One resource pool for infrastructure servers. Since they got only one data centre all the physical servers needs to be converted into Esxi 6 servers. The virtual infrastructure will be having 4 Xeon servers with 3.6 GHz. These servers will be converted into ESXi 6 servers. Two Xeon 3.6 GHz ESXi 6 servers will form DOMAIN Cluster. This cluster will be kept inside the resource pool.

• Two Xeon 3.6 GHz ESXi 6 servers will form EXCHANGE Cluster.
• Two Xeon 2.8 GHz ESXi 6 servers will form DATABASE Cluster.
• Two Xeon 2.8 GHz ESXi 6 servers will form FILE AND PRINT Cluster.
• Two Xeon 2.8 GHz ESXi 6 servers will form LINUX Cluster.
• Two 140 GB Datastores will be provided to DOMIAN cluster.
• Two 250 GB Datastores will be provided to DATABASE cluster.
• Two 250 GB Datastores will be provided to EXCHANGE cluster.
• Two 250 GB Datastores will be provided to FILE AND PRINT cluster.
• Two 140 GB Datastores will be provided to LINUX cluster.
• Two Virtual servers will be created in DOMAIN Cluster. These servers can be installed with windows 2008 R2 OS and can be used as a ADS, DNS servers.
• Three Virtual servers will be created in DATABASE Cluster. These servers can be installed with windows 2003 R2 and can be used as SQL Servers 2003 servers. The OS and database can be upgraded to windows server 2008 R2 and compatible MS SQL RDBMS can be installed in these servers and can be used with lot of advanatages.
• Two Virtual servers will be created in EXCHANGE Cluster. These servers can be installed with windows 2008 R2 OS and can be used as the EMAIL servers.
• Four Virtual servers will be created in FILE AND PRINT Cluster. These servers can be installed with windows 2003 OS and can be used as file and print servers. The operating system can be upgraded to windows 2008 for better performance later.
• Two Virtual servers will be created in LINUX Cluster. These servers can be installed with Redhat Enterprise 5 OS and can be used as Apache and Tomcat servers.
• One Virtual server will be created in DOMAIN cluster. This server can be installed with Windows 2008 R2 OS and VCENTER 6 Application. This virtual server can act as a VCENTER server for the whole VMware infrastructure.
• Simple vSwitches can be created for managing the infrastructure (Shacklett, Bio, Research, & Parizo, 2017).

The virtual infrastructure details are tabulated below.

3.       Reasons Behind the Technology Selection

VMware ESX server is introduced for Intel x86 and x64 architecture computer systems to partitioning and consolidating in the much needed environment. It is a high-end virtual machine software. It made the enterprise to treat that computer as a collection of independently managed virtual machines. The created virtual machines are easy to isolate from each other, secure and easily portable. It is low cost and highly scalable through which IT administrators guarantee their service level beyond the enterprise due to the advanced resource management controls provided by the virtual machine platform (“Selecting the Right Virtualization Technology”, 2017).

Adaptation to the needs of mission-critical applications is provided by VMware ESX server due to fine-grained resource controls while running directly on the hardware. VMware ESX server’s resource management capabilities has placed a limits to networking, disk I/O, CPU and memory for every virtual machines.

Virtual Centre can do improved data centre management and reduce cost by uniquely leverages virtual computing, storage and networking. Vmotion provide rapid reconfiguration and optimization of resource across the virtual infrastructure by allowing dynamic changes without impacting users (“5 Reasons to Switch to Virtual Servers”, 2017).

The resource allocation for all hosts and resource pools are improved with the help of Distributed Resource scheduler. The usage of all hosts and virtual machines in a cluster is monitored and collected by the DRS and using VMotion recommendations are given to the both initial placement and load balancing for migration (“VMotion and Storage VMotion : What These Are and How They Work – opvizor”, 2017).

Host failure is protected by high availability. On other physical servers virtual machines are automatically restarted that have spare capacity within the cluster when affected during the server failure. The live migration of the virtual machine disks between two different shared storage locations will occurs in storage VMotion without any disruption or downtime to application user (McDonald, 2017). The updates for physical ESX servers/patches as well as guest operating systems, securing IT infrastructure and enforcing compliance are managed by the update manager (“Selecting CPU, processors and memory for virtualized environments”, 2017).

4.        Desktop Analysis and Vdesktop Infrastructure

At present the company is using physical desktops. The existing physical hardware create lot of IT Infra problems. VMware Horizon 7 can be selected and used as a virtual desktop technology. In virtual desktops applications, VMware Horizon 7 has the leading platform. Through a single digital workspace, it provides access to all of their online services, applications and virtual desktops to end users. It converts the static desktops into safe, digital workspaces that can be provided with demands. Providing virtual or remote desktops and applications through a single Virtual desktop infrastructure and end users are entitled to use app virtualization platform to streamline management easier (“Virtual Desktop Infrastructure – National Computational Infrastructure”, 2017).

The end users computer resources with policies, consolidate control, delivery and protection are adapted dynamically to his computing environment. Data centre infrastructure and workloads are protected for simply and dynamically through leverage virtual networking. It provides great experience to the end users beyond locations, media, devices and connections for mobile users, knowledge users and 3D developers. It delivers an uncomplicated application packaging and installation and delivers the desktops in seconds, operational costs with truly stateless and reduced storage desktops are the advantages of the modern desktop and application delivery architecture (Harbaugh, 2017). Virtual compute, virtual networking, virtual storage resources are allocated dynamically to reduce management and drive down costs. The virtualization from the data center to the device is extended by the reduction of routine operations costs with single platforms (Jeong, Park, Lee, & Kang, 2017).

In a few clicks, the end users have made access to all their virtual desktops and applications in Horizon 7 through a single digital work space. Through this streamlined approach the end users can made access from anytime, anywhere, across any device by managing VDI and apps while containing costs (“Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Solutions | Riverbed | US”, 2017).

In this desktop solution, end users will be having a thin client with at least Pentium i3 processor with 2 GB RAM.

Think clients will boot from storage, load the desktops from VMware infrastructure. The end users will be getting the following screen after the thin clients starts. The end users need to login to the virtual desktop.

5.        Backup Design

Veeam backup can be used in this infrastructure. Separate ESXi configuration backup needs to be taken. Veeam Backup Replication gives the “Always-On Enterprise” facility and can give “Recovery time and Point Objectives (RTPO)” of less than 15 minutes. This can be achieved for all the applications. This backup solution can be used for Microsoft Virtual Environments like Hyper-V too. This backup solution supports recent VMware vSphere 6.5 too and hence makes use of all the modern technologies and their benefits (“Top 5 benefits of server virtualization technology”, 2017).

The Company Veeam also provides the availability of platform for the Cloud provided with various functionality like modern storage space, delivery recovery time with high speed, leveraged data and point objectives of all the application provided are less than 15 minutes, server Virtualization (Nair, 2017). The data, application provided by the company Veeam are flexible, reliable, fast and recoverable. It’s overall a complete all in one single solution with unifying backup for the environment like VMware and Microsoft Hyper –V virtual (“Veeam Backup & Replication Best Practices · Veeam Backup & Replication Best Practices”, 2017).

Veeam support VMware vSphere version 6.5 by providing the confidence to the users to upgrade with latest version of VMware. Thus by taking full advantage on the most modern technology and functionality we assure that the business will remain Always-On (“vSphere Application Performance & Availability”, 2017).

We need to have three VMs with 2 vCPU , 4GB , 50 GB servers for backup purpose. The three VMs will act as Veeam Backup Server, Veeam Backup Repository Server and Veeam Backup Proxy server. Veeam Backup Server uses 500 MB for each concurrent job. Backup Proxy Server uses 200 MB for each concurrent task. Backup Repository Server uses 2 GB RAM for each concurrent job. The RAM selection should be increased based on this requirement in the later stage.

How to backup

Initially the all the veeam servers should be installed with Veeam backup software. Initially the VCenter of the virtual infrastructure needs to be added. ESXi servers also can be added. For ESXi servers only configuration needs to be backed up using VCenter server. For backing up of the VMs and Restoring the VMs, backup wizard needs to be used.

All the VMs needs to be backed up daily. The backedup VM Data should be retained for 30 days. Storage level replication can be enabled with the storge of other data centers kept in different country. This will give remote backup storage facility.

Daily incremental backup should be taken. Weekly once the full backup needs to be taken. Type of backup can be set in Advanced settings in the New Backup Wizard.

Restoring a VM

Restore wizard needs to be started for this activity.

Virtual Machine that needs to be restored should be selected.

Restore point should be selected.

Restore destination should be selected.

6.        DR Design

Lot of DR solutions are there in the market. Business needs to figure out the critical applications and the critical servers which are hosting those critical applications and should finalize the DR Solutions. The given environment can go for the following DR Solutions (vSphere, Infrastructure, & Components, 2017).

Veeam based Restore

Using Veeam , the VMs can be restored. The hard disk data of the VMs can be obtained from the local data stores or remote data stores that are under storage replication with the local data stores. Here data stores represent SAN.

VMs can be restored in 10-20 minutes depends on the disk size of the VM.

VMware vSphere Replication is ductile and convenient replication technology and at the virtual machine level is configured and managed then the storage is made independent, data mobility can be enabled between heterogeneous storage systems.

VMware Site Recovery Manager has simplifies disaster recovery management for all virtualized applications by providing a centralized recovery plans of automated orchestration and non-disruptive testing (“Backup solution for Small Businesses – Veeam Backup Essentials”, 2017). At present there is no cloud in the given infrastructure. In later stage the number of VMs that needs to be backed up can go up. In that condition, for quick restore of all the VMs private cloud based DR solutions can be applied.

Private Cloud disaster recovery

VMware offers this DR solution to the organizations who like to build out their own private clouds for DR. VMware offers a portfolio of products for DR operations that does effective replication and DR Orchestration. Some of the important applications are VMware vSAN and VMware vSphere Replication. VMware vSAN brings lot of facilities to the exisiting storage environment. vSAN can offer hyper-converged IT infrastructure and software controlled data center. VMware offers highly resilient shared data storage, cluster of storage devices and flash-optimized storage facilities. When the organization grows well they cna opt for the following DR facilities.

• Cloud-based DR as a service.
• Mixture of private cloud and DR as a service.

Information on Private Cloud Disaster Recovery

VMware provides a portfolio of products and services including DR orchestration, data replication for the organization that like to build their own private cloud setup for disaster recovery. The Hyper-Converged infrastructure reduces the cost of implementing DR solution.

VMware vSAN: It’s the key term for VMware Hyper –Converged Software which brings benefits of the infrastructure and data centre for data storage. Flash provided is optimized and the data store provided is designed for the virtual environments.

Disaster Recovery-as-a Service

In Disaster recovery-as-a-service solutions, costs of purchasing software needed for a secondary or tertiary disaster recovery site and the infrastructure are avoided and pay only for the disaster recovery solution for operating budget. VMware vCloud Air Disaster Recovery is a recovery as a service  solution which is retained and operated by VMware in which it has recovery capabilities for native cloud disaster in vSphere environments. The robust, asynchronous replication capabilities at the hypervisor layer are meant to provide by service leverages vSphere Replication.

7.        Information Security

The DC will be there same for the initial physical servers and proposed ESXi servers and VMs. All the requests should pass through the same security devices like firewall like before. So there won’t be any information security changes in the virtual infrastructure.

VMware offers the following frameworks and platforms for Information Security.

• VMware Compliance Reference Architecture Framework
• Secure and Compliance Capable platform

The frame work manuals can be referred from the VMWARE websites and the necessary best practices needs to be followed while adopting the above said frame work and platforms. VMware Compliance and Cyber Risk Solutions follows the above frame works and plat forms and thus facilitates the Information Security. VMware Compliance Reference Architecture Framework defines the programs for creating highly secured, information security compliant environments. Software, Hardware requirements and specifications are well defined in this frame work. The Secure and Compliance Capable Platform is the results of Reference Architecture Framework. These two frame works and plat forms gives lot of facilities to install and run highly secured IS compliant private, public and hybrid cloud environments. The above said frameworks can be followed for better information security in the virtual environment.

8.        Conclusion

The physical servers used by Regional Gardens Ltd and the virtual servers requirements are discussed. The current scenario of physical IT infrastructure are analysed and the disadvantages are discussed. The overall technology section of Regional Gardens Ltd management is studied. Among them VMWARE virtualization technology and its high level design are discussed.  Resource pool, cluster, data stores, exchange cluster, File and print cluster, domain cluster, Linux cluster and how virtual servers are created in these clusters are studied. The brief study about vSwitches is done and how they are created to manage the infrastructure is done. The reasons behind the technology selection is analysed. Nowadays, the physical desktops are used in most of the organizations. Due to some infra IT problems, the virtual desktop technology is preferred to use. The infrastructure and working of vDesktop is analysed. The backup design applied in the vDesktop infrastructure is discussed. In business environment, there are lot of DR solutions available for some critical hosting applications. The solutions are private cloud disaster recovery, disaster recovery, Information on Private Cloud Disaster Recovery and Disaster Recovery-as-a Service solutions are discussed. The information security and its frameworks are studied. VMware offers the frameworks and platforms for Information Security such as, VMware Compliance Reference Architecture Framework and Secure and Compliance Capable platform.

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