Virtualisation @ CIT

1. Virtualisation @ CIT HEAnet National Networking Conference 2009 Aidan McDonald

2. Programme 1. Introduction 2. VMWare ESX 3. SAN and ESX 4. Today and Future 5. Pitfalls 6. Additional work in CIT

3. 1. Introduction

4. 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.

5. 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

6. VMware ESX • 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);

7. Computer Dept. SAN • 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

8. Fiber channel switch • 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.

9. Value of VM – AD Project • 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. Future • VSphere • CIT plans to upgrade its Virtualisation Infrastructure to VSphere 4.0 in 2010 • VDI • 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 • 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

13. Questions • Aidan McDonald – IT Network Manager(aidan.mcdonald@cit.ie) • Aaron Krawczyk – Virtualisation Administrator(aaron.krawczyk@cit.ie) • Pat McCarthy – VMWare Academy Coordinator(pat.mccarthy@cit.ie) Thank You