Constellation Energy Group (CEG)

vSphere Beta Presentation

Presented By: Steve Krasic

Date: 20 May 2009

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Agenda• High Level Overview of CEG’s Production

Virtual Infrastructure

• High Level Overview of CEG’s vSphere Beta environment

• Review vSphere Features tested during Beta– Simplified Management– Power Management with Fully Supported DPM– Storage Optimizations– Networking– Availability

• Why Constellation will migrate to vSphere

• CEG’s Migration Strategy

• Questions

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CEG Production Virtual Infrastructure•81 Production Hosts•1100 Virtual Servers (40% Prod)•300 Virtual Desktops•75TB EMC Clariion SAN Storage

•In Excess of $3,500,000 savings just in Server Hardware purchases alone

•Future Projects•P2V 700+ servers

•Migrate Test/Dev to lower tiered storage

•Thin provision VM’s

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CEG vSphere Beta environment

•4 x HP BL460 (2 at each DC)•2x Dual Core 2.66GHz•6GB Ram•Dual Nic•2x FC Cards

•2 vCenter’s - One in each DC (Linked Mode)•10 Virtual Machines•200GB EMC Clariion SAN Storage•100GB EMC Symmetrix SAN Storage (SRDF)

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vSphere Features tested during Beta

Simplified Management•vCenter 4

•Host Profiles

•vApp

•Licensing

•Performance Charts

•Events and Alarms Enhancements

•Centralized Datastore Management

Simplified Management with vCenter 4

Host Profiles

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Host ProfileMemory Reservation

StorageNetworking

Date and TimeFirewallSecurityServices

Users and User GroupsSecurity

ClusterReference Host1

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3

4

6

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Simplified Management with vCenter 4

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• vApps are multi-tier application services that you can manage as a single inventory item.• Provides for single-step

management• Eliminates complex setup

and configuration

…

App Server

VM

vApp

OVF Descriptor

App Server

VM

Database

VM

Resource PoolDistributed Virtualization

Layer

vApps

Licensing• Simple license keys instead of flex

1 license per edition 1 key for many hosts

• New centralized license key administration in vCenter No separate license server to manage or monitor Centralized host and license monitoring through vCenter enabling easy

compliance

• New license portal provides more accurate view of entitlement

Simplified Management with vCenter 4

Performance Charts

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Simplified Management with vCenter 4Events and Alarms Enhancements

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Simplified Management with vCenter 4

Centralized Datastore Management

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vSphere Features tested during Beta

Power Management with fully supported DPM

• DPM consolidates workloads to reduce power consumption– Cuts power and cooling costs– Automates management of

energy efficiency

• Supports three wake protocols:– Intelligent platform

management interface (IPMI)– Integrated Lights-Out (iLO)– Wake-On-LAN (WOL)

• Configure and test wake on every host in cluster

Resource Pool

Power Optimized

Standby Host Server

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vSphere Features tested during Beta

Storage Optimizations

•Thin Provisioning

•Volume Grow

•Hot VMDK Extend

Datastore

60GB

20GB

100GB Capacity80GB

Used

20GBThick

40GBThin

100GBThin

20GB160GB

Allocated

Virtual Disks

40GB20GB

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vSphere Features tested during Beta• Networking

• Distributed Switch

• 3rd Party Virtual Switch Support (Cisco Nexus1000v)

Virtual Machines Service ConsoleVMotion

Hidden vSwitches (IO plane)

Distributed Switch(Control Plane)

DistributedPort Groups

Service Console

ESXi Host 1 ESX Host 2

Virtual

Physical

vCenterServer

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vSphere Features tested during BetaAvailability

• Fault Tolerance (FT)

• vCenter’s Linked Mode

VMkernel

Log Buffer

VMkernelVMM VMM

PrimaryVirtual Machine

SecondaryVirtual Machine

Log BufferHeartbeat?

Record Logs

Read/Write Read

Single Copy of Disks on Shared Storage

Log Update? Log Read?

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Why Constellation will migrate to vSphere

• Free with an active support contract• Thin Provisioning • Administration Improvements

– Linked Mode vCenter– Host Profiles– Distributed Switch– Performance Charts– Events and Alarms

• Distributed Power Management (Full Support)• Improved Storage Management (EMC Power Path)• Fault Tolerance

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CEG’s Migration Strategy

• Upgrade vCenter 2.5 to 4.0• Create distributed Switches and configure all VLAN’s• Enter one host from each cluster into Maintenance Mode• Rebuild each of those hosts with vSphere and HP

management agents• Configure them to connect to the correct Storage and

Distributed switch• Relicense them with the new licensing scheme• Create Host profiles based on these new hosts• Then one by one enter host into maintenance mode,

rebuild, install HP Management agents, and apply appropriate host profile

• Upgrade all VM’s Vmtools via SMS

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??Questions??