4-page Case Study - Posted 3/21/2008

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Hillsboro School District

School District Improves Availability of Critical Files with Clustered Servers

The Hillsboro School District in Hillsboro, Oregon, wanted to simplify access to 20,000 personal data directories belonging to students and staff. These directories were scattered across 11 file-server computers in the district; when a server failed, users couldn’t access files, which interrupted classroom activities and individual work. Also, the IT staff wanted to provide faster file recovery when users accidentally deleted files. The district became an early adopter of the Windows Server® 2008 operating system in order to evaluate the technology’s new failover clustering capabilities. With Windows Server 2008, the district consolidated the 11 home-directory servers to two clustered servers. The district has eliminated server downtime and associated interruptions to user productivity, reduced file recovery work by 15 hours a week, and decreased cluster management chores by 50 percent.

Situation

The Hillsboro School District serves the rapidly growing community of Hillsboro, Oregon, located 20 miles west of Portland. The district has approximately 20,100 students and 3,000 administrators and teachers. The Technology Services Group, directed by Chief Technology Officer James Harrington, manages IT operations for the district headquarters, 4 high schools, 4 middle schools, 23 elementary schools, 2 alternative schools, and 5 new schools under construction. The district is committed to implementing leading-edge technology where financially feasible, to enhance learning and keep the district current.

Using a Windows Server 2008 cluster, we’ll be able to eliminate server downtime altogether. If a server fails, users will immediately fail over to the backup server. James Harrington Chief Technology Officer, Hillsboro School District

Harrington directed staff to provide uninterruptible and resilient access to these home directories, which led the IT staff to explore options for consolidating the 11 distributed servers. ”The solution had to reduce cost, improve performance, and eliminate points of failure for the entire district,” Harrington says.

This led the team to consider clustered servers. The district already ran its Microsoft® SQL Server® 2005 databases and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 messaging software on clustered servers running the Windows Server® 2003 R2 operating system. However, setting up and managing file shares within clusters had not been previously considered, as it was time consuming and would’ve required considerably more server resources in the distributed environment.

While it considered ways to make its home directory server computers more resilient, the IT staff also sought ways to provide faster file recovery to users. About six to ten times each week, users accidentally deleted or lost files that the IT staff had to recover—a time drain of approximately one to eight hours per incident.

Solution

The district had investigated different ways to centralize its home directories, but most were cost-prohibitive. The options involved purchasing storage gateway devices that would sit in front of a storage area network (SAN) and provided redundancy. However, the district would have required two of these devices, which cost U.S.$100,000.

Searching for better alternatives, Hillsboro School District decided to become an early adopter of the Windows Server 2008 operating system, to evaluate its advances in failover clustering. ”There are many features in Windows Server 2008 that will be of value to the district, but providing a fault-tolerant environment for user directories became the target implementation,” Harrington says.

Hillsboro School District worked with Microsoft Services to design the cluster architecture, deploy Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, and test the cluster. Microsoft provided prompt resolution of all technical issues and worked directly with other vendors, such as EMC, the district’s storage provider, to ensure smooth interaction of all cluster components.

The district chose to set up a home-directory cluster that consists of two Dell PowerEdge 1950 server computers, each with two quad-core Intel Xeon processors and 8 gigabytes (GB) of RAM. The two-node cluster is configured in an active-active arrangement, with one server containing staff home directories and the other containing student directories. The cluster is connected to a back-end fibre channel EMC CX500 SAN that contains 1.5 terabytes of storage for staff and another 600 GB of storage for students. The district uses McAfee VirusScan security and anti-virus software, and Symantec Backup Exec as its backup software.

Benefits

The Hillsboro School District has taken advantage of the new failover clustering capabilities in Windows Server 2008 to consolidate 11 file server computers to a single two-node cluster and create a highly available solution for its users. The IT staff has been able to eliminate lengthy server downtime and up to 15 hours a week in file-recovery work and lost productivity for users. Using new tools in Windows Server 2008, Hillsboro School District has also has been able to reduce cluster management chores by 50 percent and create sufficient scalability to support future expansion.

There are many features of Windows Server 2008 that will be of value to the district, but providing a fault-tolerant environment for user directories became the target implementation. James Harrington Chief Technology Officer, Hillsboro School District

Critical Servers More Available

By consolidating its 11 home-directory server computers to a two-node cluster running Windows Server 2008, Hillsboro School District has achieved a cost-effective high-availability solution for its critical home directories. “As the district moves to implement service-level agreements with users, Windows Server 2008 is a critical component,” Harrington says. “Using a Windows Server 2008 cluster, we’ll be able to eliminate server downtime altogether. If a server fails, users will immediately fail over to the backup server.”

The solution also lays the foundation for improved disaster recovery functionality. Improved server uptime has a direct impact on educational excellence, since teachers have the resources they need at their fingertips without frustrating interruptions and calls for technical assistance.

Users Recover Their Own Files

Also, when users inadvertently delete files, they’re able to circumvent the lengthy helpdesk process that used to require hours. The IT staff took advantage of improved integration of Windows Server 2008 with the Volume Shadow Copy Service to allow users to recover their own files. The Volume Shadow Copy Service is a feature introduced with Windows Server 2003 that takes manual or automatic backup copies, or snapshots, of a file or folder on a specific volume at a specific point in time.

The network group wants to transfer file restoration duties to users. "Today, we get six to ten requests a week for file restores,” says John Goucher, Senior Network Engineer for Hillsboro School District. “We’re hoping that Volume Shadow Copy Service will eliminate those. We didn’t have this service enabled before because of the back-end storage required to complete the snapshots. But with the Windows Server 2008 cluster, we’ve been able to configure our existing storage to handle five days worth of snapshots.”

The Technology Services Group estimates that the IT staff will save up to 15 hours per week in handling file-recovery requests. “We want our technical staff focusing on high–value infrastructure initiatives,” Harrington says. “System specialists were spending significant time responding to support requests such as file restoration. Using Windows Server 2008, users are empowered to restore their own files, and our network team is back on task.”

Cluster Management Reduced by 50 Percent

The IT staff also gains efficiencies from easier cluster management. Windows Server 2008 features a new management interface to create, manage, and use clustered servers. “Things that used to cause problems have been simplified by the new wizard,” Goucher says. “The initial cluster setup with Windows Server 2008 is much easier, so regular management takes 50 percent less time. With the new interface, we can see which services are running, any errors that have occurred, and so forth. It makes for much easier troubleshooting.”

Hillsboro Technology Services staff finds it much easier to build a cluster and manage file shares from within the cluster. “We didn’t create clusters for user home directory solutions before, because we didn’t want the hassle of managing file shares in a Windows Server 2003 clustered environment,” he says. “With Windows Server 2008, it’s quite easy to maintain files using the new interface.”

The initial cluster setup with Windows Server 2008 is much easier, so regular management takes 50 percent less time. John Goucher Senior Network Engineer, Hillsboro School District

Using the new Server Manager console, Harrington’s staff can more easily manage the consolidated file server storage through quotas and file screening. “Using Windows Server 2008, the district is able to effectively implement quotas for students and staff. While student home directories have always had quotas, we never implemented staff quotas due to a lack of granularity and management efficiencies,” Goucher says. “Now, using Windows Server 2008, we can implement staff quotas, and the network team will be able to easily manage the process.”

Improved Scalability for Future Growth

The district’s powerful two-node cluster can handle the load once handled by 11 servers, and then some. “We have plenty of horsepower in our new cluster to handle future district growth and even accommodate new projects down the road,” Harrington says. “As a public entity, it’s important to make all our technology assets last as long as possible, and the Windows Server 2008 cluster is a great example of extending our budget wisely.”

 
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008, with built-in web and virtualization technologies, enables you to increase the reliability and flexibility of your server infrastructure. New virtualization tools, web resources, and security enhancements help you save time, reduce costs, and provide a platform for a dynamic and optimized datacenter. Powerful new tools like IIS 7.0, Server Manager, and Windows PowerShell, allow you to have more control over your servers and streamline web, configuration, and management tasks. Advanced security and reliability enhancements like Network Access Protection and the Read-Only Domain Controller option for Active Directory Domain Services harden the operating system and protect your server environment to ensure you have a solid foundation on which to build your business.

For more information, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Hillsboro School District, call (503) 844-1500 or visit the Web site at:
www.hsd.k12.or.us