University College Cork one of Ireland’s premier universities with excellent research programmes sought ways to improve the performance of its overstretched IT department through processes of simplified management and improved utilisation of its IT assets.

The IT department supports over 21,000 users spanning students, academic staff and administration. The extensive IT infrastructure contains over 7,000 components including switches, access points and access computers that encompasses a very broad wireless network. Before the implementation of the new system there were over 70 Windows servers plus various Linux and HP Alpha servers in the data centre that had reached the limits of the physical space available. This problem combined with an unsustainable workload for the IT staff required improved staff productivity and better utilisation of IT assets.

Situation

Managing a large IT installation is never a trivial task especially when the number of servers threatens to overwhelm the available physical space and IT staff is involved with a constant stream of reactive processes rather than a planned approach to their tasks. University College Cork was one of thousands of large IT installations round the world that struggled with the day-to-day challenge of attempting to meet the needs of its users with insufficient resources. Resources are finite thus the only avenue open to UCC was to find a way to better deploy those finite resources.

About four years ago UCC started to examine the possibility of deploying VMware Workstation to assist in the virtualisation of its hardware infrastructure. In comparative studies with Microsoft’s virtual PC UCC found that its objectives could be met by deploying the Microsoft solution at a lower price. The Microsoft approach was further strengthened by the announcement of Hyper-V that was to become part of Windows Server 2008.

One way to solve the problem of the lack of physical space available for servers is to add more space and facilities – even where the real estate is available this is an expensive solution that requires additional power, cooling and buildings. Apart from the on-going additional impact on the carbon footprint more servers require more management time and the associated costs thus aggravating an already difficult situation. The need to enable IT staff to be more proactive rather than reactive is an industry wide problem that was particularly acute in UCC.

Solution

Today’s solution to these problems involves many elements that appear to be counter intuitive. Reduce the number of physical servers by installing more powerful servers in less space. Free up IT management time by enabling more virtual servers to be deployed that require far less human intervention and time. While these solutions have only been running in UCC for less than a year the number of physical servers has not increased due to the deployment of virtualisation. Microsoft’s System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 beta has been used to perform physical to virtual server conversions. Servers that were running on unsupported hardware and servers that would only be required for a short time are ideal candidates for server virtualisation with its minimal impact on costs.

The pursuit of new solutions to management problems especially those involving complex IT technology is fraught with many potential pitfalls. The key to success is preparation and training. Anthony Crotty, the lead analyst/programmer at UCC enrolled in Microsoft’s Longhorn Academy Program and gained the necessary confidence and qualifications by completing the relevant MSCE and MCITP exams. Knowledge and confidence combined to enable Crotty and his team to implement Windows Server 2008 and its associated components in a heterogeneous environment that included Windows Virtual Server 2005 and Linux Red Hat.

Windows Server 2008 enabled a greater level of functionality to be implemented compared to previous versions such as Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 and Linux environments. While virtualisation is often featured as the main highlight of Windows Server 2008 it is but one of many new features that make Windows Server 2008 into a very powerful solution that enables huge increases in productivity and cost reduction. Some applications are more amenable to virtualisation than others.

Non-mission critical applications that were deemed to be suitable virtualisation candidates were the first to be brought over to Windows Server 2008. Combining these software migrations with hardware upgrades enabled space pressures in the data centre to be reduced as the new 2u servers replaced the older 5u servers in the congested racks. Further benefits accrued by running multiple applications on one server instead of having a separate server or servers for each application.

The data centre in UCC is a 24 x 7 operation that handles a very high volume of data traffic. Windows of opportunity for backup and maintenance tasks are very limited. The need to provide server resources without interruptions has been met by deploying four Microsoft failover clusters. As Crotty explains “One is a test Hyper-V cluster which is running two Linux Virtual Machinesand a Windows system running a Community web site for computer center staff. A Windows 2008 cluster is being used as a print server for the student printing environment. There are plans to deploy a 3 node cluster running SQL cluster with the front end IIS server virtualised on Hyper-V”. This approach provides a very resilient system with the failover servers located in a separate building.

Benefits

Scalability
The complexity surrounding the management of a large IT environment with many thousands of users continues to grow with the ever increasing proliferation of devices and the demand for an increasing number of new services. Scalability in traditionally managed IT environments can only be achieved by providing additional resources and incurring additional costs. This has to be balanced against the need to reduce IT costs and simplify the management of the IT environment that inevitably continues to grow. These contradictory objectives can be managed by deploying the correct software installed on the appropriate hardware.

Enhanced performance
The benefits from deploying Windows Server 2008 far exceed the improvements that an IT manager would expect from “just another server operating system update”. Windows Server 2008 with virtualisation capabilities enables a completely new paradigm to the age old problem of network and application management. Naturally there are the new features that enhance the performance of the operating system but more importantly there are additional functions and capabilities that are outside the scope of the traditional server operating system.

A different IT management paradigm
The traditional approach of one application per server or group of servers has been superseded by multiple applications per server given the necessary server capacity. Perhaps more importantly is the ease with which applications can be moved from one server to another deploying a manual management system or an automated rule based system. Naturally this flexibility gives rise to many beneficial opportunities.

Reduced costs
The wasteful deployment of grossly underutilised servers has many negative cost implications. There is unnecessary capital or leasing charges tied up in hardware and more real estate or rack space is consumed. The day-to-day running costs are inflated by higher energy costs, higher cooling costs and higher and more complex administration costs. The deployment of multiple applications on one server simplifies IT management administration as well as reducing a broad range of costs. UCC were already knocking on the ceiling of their data centre and the reduction in the size of new servers combined with the need for fewer servers freed up badly needed space.

Flexibility
Applications running on Windows Server 2008 in virtualised mode are isolated from both the hardware and the underlying operating system. This isolation simplifies the movement of applications across hardware platforms providing a high degree of resilience and flexibility.

Knowledge & Training

The greatest set of tools is of very limited value if the users do not know how to deploy them. Anthony Crotty was very complimentary about the Microsoft Longhorn Academy Program and the MSCE and MCITP exams that are built around Windows Server 2008. He said “The Longhorn Academy was a program that introduced participants to Windows Server 2008. It was a great program as it gave participants a great introduction to Windows Server 2008 and gave us the confidence to want to be able to deploy Windows Server 2008 as soon as was feasible. Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 is a management tool that allows the Computer Centre to monitor its Windows Servers. Operations Manager allows the Computer Centre to monitor the availability, performance and it can also be used to evaluate whether servers are suitable candidates for virtualization.”

These courses and the information made available round the products instilled the necessary of confidence to implement the systems. The new systems were implemented on a case by case situation having examined the likely benefits that would accrue from virtualising each of the applications. Crotty and his team implemented Windows Server 2008 including deployment of the virtualisation features without employing outside experts or consultants.

Improved Management
The move from discrete application servers to a virtualised environment changes the management goal posts requiring a different approach to ensuring that the benefits of virtualisation are realised. Microsoft’s System Centre Operations Manager enables a more proactive approach to be adopted that ensures that most problems are identified before they start to have an impact on system performance.

Summary

The size and the complexity of the UCC IT infrastructure is testimony to the scalability and agility of the Windows Server 2008 platform. While cost savings cannot be quantified it is clear that space utilisation in the data centre has been brought back under control and that IT staff are more proactively involved in the management of the IT infrastructure.

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published February 2009