A Case Study in VMWARE
Case study: NetApp/Vmware Our client is a midsize organization whose objective was to consolidate both storage and servers. Their environment consisted of several dozen Windows servers running various tasks including file servers, web servers, domain controllers, print servers, etc. Two mission critical applications, an industry specific application running a SQL database, and Microsoft Exchange were among the applications the customer wanted to migrate onto an intelligent, scalable storage array, and consolidate the servers into a virtualized infrastructure. The current direct attached scheme was becoming increasingly difficult to mange; servers were running low on space, space in the server room was at a premium, as was power and cooling. This was a classic case where the customer was experiencing all the pain points that have made a NetApp/Vmware solution a perfect fit for many organizations. We met with the customer to understand the current environment, what the challenges were, and what issues were a priority. It was very clear from the outset that NetApp and Vmware would fit nicely into this solution. With NetApp's ability to run multiple protocols, we could consolidate the Windows file servers onto the arrays by enabling CIFS. The other servers could easily be virtualized using Vmware's Virtual Infrastructure 3 enterprise solution using the same NetApp controllers for the backend shared storage platform. Since the customer was budget conscience, we chose iSCSI as the protocol to connect the Vmware ESX servers to the datastores on the NetApp contollers. After conducting a site survey and performance sizing evaluation, we determined that the large SQL application was not a good virtualization candidate. We recommended that application continue to run in its current configuration. The rest of the environment, including Exchange, could be migrated onto the new platform, a clustered NetApp FAS3140. We planned to move the file servers and the other low utilization applications into the new configuration as part of phase I of the project. Once the client became more familiar managing the NetApp array and Vmware, we would proceed to phase II; migrating Exchange. Future enhancements will include NetApp's SnapMirror to replicate data to a remote site. The Alliance PS team, consisting of certified NetApp and Vmware engineers, completed phase I of the deployment in a little over a week; installing and configuring the FAS3140, standing up the Vmware environment, and providing the customer with informal knowledge transfer during the course of the deployment. Follow up configuration documentation was delivered as well.
