Creating Microsoft Private Cloud with System CenterA Technology Overview

Student’s DescriptionName: Abhijit KunduCourse: BSCHNTSemester: 6Enrollment No.: MGU/132/RNS280177/007University: Mahatma Gandhi UniversityInstitute: Aptech Computer Education

Table of CONTENTS1. Introduction To Cloud Computing2. Cloud Service Models3. Cloud Deployment Models4. Introducing Private Cloud5. Private Cloud & Public Cloud Comparison6. Benefits of Private Cloud7. Requirements for Moving to a Private Cloud8. Overview Of System Center 2012 Components9. Overview of Private Cloud Architecture10. Prerequisites for Installing Private Cloud11. Preparing the Private cloud Infrastructure12. Installing windows server 2012 hosts13. Installing System center 201214. Configuring the Shared storage15. Installing the Microsoft failover Cluster16. Configuring the Microsoft failover Cluster17. Configure Hyper-V Replication18. Installing SQL Server 201219. Creating a Private Cloud in VMM 201220. Preparing the Private Cloud Infrastructure.21. Creating the Private Cloud22. Final Thoughts23. References24. Acknowledgement

Introduction to Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing has recently emerged as an attractive model of providing Information Technology (IT) infrastructure (i.e., computing, storage, and network) to large as well as small enterprises both in private & public sectors. An enormous surge in the popularity of cloud computing is partly driven by its promise of on demand scalability and flexibility without making upfront investment in Setting up and running large scale computing infrastructures and data centers.

Like many practitioners and researchers, we also use the following definition of cloud computing provided by the US National institute of standards and technology (NIST).

“Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider Interaction.”

Simply put, cloud computing provides a variety of computing resources , from servers and storage to enterprise applications such as email, security, backup/DR, voice, all delivered over the Internet. The Cloud delivers a hosting environment that is immediate, flexible, scalable, secure, and available – while saving corporations money, time and resources.

The Next Frontier - On Demand Solutions For Your BusinessCloud

WebClient-Server Computing

Personal ComputersMainframe

Cloud Service ModelsA service is defined as a fine-grained reusable resources (i.e., infrastructure or business processes) available from a service provider; this is now what is popularly called ―as a service‖. Services should have low entrance barriers (making them available for low budget enterprises), large scalability, multitenancy (same resources shared for many user, without interference), and support for variety of access possibilities concerning different types of hardware infrastructures and operating systems.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a kind of application that is available as a service to users; it delivers software as a service over the Internet, eliminating the need to install and run the application on local computers in order to simplify the maintenance and support. One of the main differences of using such an application that the application is usually used without being able to make a lot of adaptations and preferably without tight integration with other integration with other using a thin client interface such as a web browser; the service provider does all the operation and maintenance from the application layer to the infrastructure layer. The applications those are good candidates for being offered as SaaS are Accounting, Video Conferencing, Customer Relation Management and IT Service Management. One of the main benefits of SaaS is lower cost, web availability and reliability.

SaaS Examples-

Platform as a Service (PaaS) supplies all that is needed to build applications directly from the Internet with no local software installation. The PaaS service model enables the deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the Underlying hardware and software layers. A customer can deploy an application directly on the cloud infrastructure (without managing and controlling that infrastructure) using the Programming languages and tools supported by a provider. A customer has the control over its applications and hosting environment’s configurations. It supports web development interfacesand hosting environment’s configurations such as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Representational State Transfer (REST). The interfaces allow for the construction of multiple web services (mash-ups), and are also able to access databases and reuse services available within private network.

PaaS Examples-

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) delivers a computer infrastructure that is a fundamental resource like processing power, storage capacity and network to customers; instead of building data centers, purchasing servers, software or network equipments, a customer buys the resources as a fully outsourced service; a customer does not manage the underlying infrastructure but has full control over the operating systems and the applications running on it. IaaS models often provide automatic support for on demand scalability of computing and storage resources.

IaaS Examples-

Cloud Deployment Models

Public Cloud• Public cloud (off-site and remote) describes cloud computing where

resources are dynamically provisioned on an on-demand, self-service basis over the Internet, via web applications/web services, open API, from a third-party provider who bills on a utility computing basis.

Private cloud• A Private cloud environment is often the first step for a corporation prior to

adopting a public cloud initiative. Corporations have discovered the benefits of consolidating shared services on virtualized hardware deployed from a primary datacenter to serve local and remote users.

Hybrid cloud• A Hybrid cloud environment consists of some portion of computing

resources on-site (on premise) and off-site (public cloud). By integrating public cloud services, users can leverage cloud solutions for specific functions that are too costly to maintain on-premise such as virtual server disaster recovery, backups and test/development environments.  

Community cloud• A Community cloud is formed when several organizations with similar

requirements share common infrastructure. Costs are spread over fewer users than a public cloud but more than a single tenant.

Introducing Private Cloud Every organization wants to use its resources well. One way to do this is by running applications in virtual machines (VMs) rather than directly on physical machines. Virtualization has real value, and most organizations haveadopted this approach in their datacenters. Useful as it is, however, the next step in the evolution of virtualization has become clear: its private cloud.

A private cloud provides a more effective way to deploy, use, and manage VMs, applications, and other IT resources on hardware that’s dedicated to a single organization. Microsoft’s private cloud technologies, embodied in System Center 2012 and Hyper-V, make this possible. This project provides a basic overview of this technology, explaining what it is and why it’s useful.

What is a Private Cloud?

A Private cloud is a particular cloud model that involves a distinct and secure cloud based environment in which only the specified client can access and operate. As with other cloud computing models, private cloud will provide computing power as a service within a virtualized environment using an underlying pool of physical computing resources. However, under the private cloud model, the cloud is only accessible by a single organization or datacenter providing them with greater control, privacy and security. This infrastructure is provisioned to serve corporate users. It actually resides behind the corporate firewall for its own internal use. Private cloud software integrates with the virtualization layer and provides the self-service portal and management layer for users and cloud administrators.

Private Cloud and Public Cloud Comparison The comparison between a private cloud and a public cloud is often done on the basis of how each one of them is accessible, provides scalability, cost-effective or secure. The key difference between a private cloud and a public cloud is the workloads that are running on the infrastructure.

Public cloud is used as a service via internet by the users, whereas a private cloud as the name conveys is deployed within certain boundaries like firewall settings and is completely managed and monitored by the administrator in a datacenter.

Users have to pay a monthly bill for public cloud services, but in case of private cloud, money is charged on the basis of per GB usage along with bandwidth transfer fees.

Public cloud functions on the prime principle of storage demand scalability, which means it requires no hardware devices. On the contrary, no hardware is required even in private cloud, but the data stored in the private cloud can only be shared between users of an organization and third party sharing depends upon trust they build with them. It is also monitored by the business entity where it is running.

Private cloud cannot be accessed from anywhere and at any point of time, whereas public cloud creates an accessible business environment that can be from anywhere and at any time.

The initial cost of setting up the private cloud infrastructure is expensive, but it gets minimal at later stages of using it as as a service. In case of public

cloud initial cost is minimal, but if data is stored for a long period of time, it proves to be highly expensive.

Yet it’s misleading to think that organizations need to choose between private and public clouds. Some scenarios, such as supporting Internet-scale applications, are clearly a good fit for public cloud technologies such as Microsoft’s Windows Azure. But private clouds are really just the evolution of today’s virtualized datacenters. Any organization that is serious about virtualization today, regardless of its public cloud plans, should also be serious about private clouds. They’re the next step on the virtualization path.

Benefits of using Private CloudThe key benefits and features of private cloud are as follows:

1. Higher Security and Privacy: One main advantage of private cloud is that they are far more secure than other alternatives, since the organization’s data is tightly secured and controlled on servers that no other company has access to. The servers can either sit within the firewall of the organization using them, with those servers managed and maintained by internal IT staff, or that can be located within the datacenter of a cloud service provider, with an organization accessing the data stored on the servers via private and secure network links.

2. Greater Control: As a private cloud is only accessible by a single organization, that organization will have the ability to configure and manage it within their needs and requirements. However, this level of control removes the economies of scale generated in public clouds by having centralized management of hardware.

3. Cost and Energy Efficiency: Implementing a private cloud model can improve the allocation of resources within an organization by ensuring that the availability of resources to individual business functions can directly and flexibly respond to their demand. It does make more efficient use of the computing resources than traditional hardware equipments as it minimize the investment into unused capacity.

4. Improved Reliability: Even where resources are hosted internally, the creation of virtualized operating environments means that the network is

more resilient to individual failures across the physical infrastructure. In addition, where the cloud is hosted with a third-party, the organization can still benefit from the physical security afforded to infrastructure hosted within datacenter.

5. Cloud Bursting: Some providers may offer the opportunity to employ cloud bursting, within a private cloud offering, in the event of spikes in demand. This service allows the provider to switch certain non sensitive functions to a public cloud to free up more space in the private cloud for the sensitive functions that require it.

Requirements for moving to a Private Cloud Before moving to a private cloud, we need to ensure that the systems meet the prerequisites. This includes ensuring that we have a public key infrastructure in place to help secure the private cloud service. We also need to identify the services that we want to migrate to the private cloud infrastructure, and then plan how to manage, monitor and protect those services.

The following common business requirements can induce organizations to move to a private cloud infrastructure-

Competitive Advantage: A competitive advantage could mean the ability to perform better, faster, smoother or at a much lower cost than your competitors could. Using cloud computing, you can respond to a service request immediately, and provide the service in a shorten time.

Scalability: This is the ability to scale the business quickly, and with minimal cost and downtime. Scalability also means being able to deploy or retire business applications on demand.

Reduced Cost: Reduced costs include IT overhead without compromising business revenue. Consolidating server roles enables the consolidation of physical servers, which reduces the cost without affecting the business revenue.

Enhanced Security and Control: Enhanced security and control means implementing a sophisticated permissions-based authorization scheme. In a private cloud, the application administrators receive access only to the resources that they require. Additionally, changes to the system can be logged automatically.

Improved SLA: Due to scalability and the ability to move applications quickly and without outage to other servers, no downtime is required to update physical machines.

Controlled Resource Usage: Resource usage in a private cloud is controlled and can be shared between the virtual machines on their host machines. Therefore, resource usage is more efficient than in a non-cloud environment.

Availability and Performance: With host clusters, you can improve the availability of virtual machines running applications that previously were not clustered. When an application requires more performance, you can move it to a more powerful host machine in a private cloud.

Overview of System Center 2012 ComponentsSystem Center 2012 allows creating and using private clouds. Customers and partners can use these technologies to offer traditional IaaS services, such as VMs on demand. This technology family also provides more, with support for deploying multi-tier applications, monitoring and updating those applications, and automation services to make all of this more efficient. By utilizing a windows server 2012 infrastructure along with system center 2012, the Microsoft private cloud allows you to deploy a flexible and responsive infrastructure, designed to simplify day-to-day tasks and enable management of applications at the service level, rather than that of individual servers. The System Center 2012 suite provides us with many tools to create, manage, monitor and deploy virtual machines and services into a private cloud.

The main components of System center 2012 are the following:

System Center 2012- Virtual Machine Manager: VMM provides virtual machine management and the fundamental services that can help us deliver a flexible and cost-effective private cloud environment. It also provides the technologies used to deploy and update VMs and applications.

System Center 2012- App Controller: App controller provides a self-service portal across private cloud that can help application owners build, configure, deploy and manage new services. It can also be used with windows Azure in public cloud.

System Center 2012- Operations Manager: OM provides deep application

diagnostics and infrastructure monitoring that can ensure predictable performance and availability of vital applications. It offers a comprehensive view of a datacenter and a private cloud and also initiates actions to fix problems it detects.

System Center 2012- Orchestrator: Orchestrator provides orchestration, integration and automation of IT processes through the creation of runbooks that can define and standardize best practices and improve operational efficiency. It also provides a way to automate interactions among other management tools such as VMM and Service Manager.

System Center 2012- Service Manager: Service Manager provides self-service experiences and standardized data center processes that can integrate people, workflows and knowledge across datacenter infrastructure and applications.

System Center 2012- Data Protection Manager: DPM provides unified data protection for windows-based servers and clients, which can help you deliver scalable, manageable and cost-effective protection and restore scenarios from disk, tape and off-premises.

System Center 2012- Configuration Manager: Configuration Manager provides software management capabilities for windows-based clients. Using configuration manager, we can deploy operating systems, software applications, updates and monitor hardware and software inventory to ensure that compliance settings are applied.

Overview of Private Cloud Architecture

Here is a sample overview of what kind of hardware you can use for setup and deploy the private cloud. This can be different from your environment but this is an ideal architecture to evaluate the private cloud in a typical datacenter.

Prerequisites for Installing Private Cloud

Physical Server Configurations:

The following minimum physical servers are required: NAME CPU MEMORY DISK SPACE HOST1 4 16GB 500GB HOST2 4 16GB 500GB

Virtual Machines Configurations:

The following virtual machines are required for a complete private cloud infrastructure:

NAME FUNCTION CPU MEMORY DISK SPACEVMM Virtual machine

manager server2 vCPU 4GB 60GB

OR Orchestrator server 2 vCPU 4GB 100GBAPPS App controller

server2 vCPU 4GB 60GB

OM Operations manager server

2 vCPU 4GB 60GB

SM Service manager server

2 vCPU 4GB 60GB

DC Domain controller 2 vCPU 2GB 40GBSQL SQL server 2 vCPU 4GB 60GBDPM Data protection

manager server2 vCPU 4GB 60GB

SP SharePoint 2010 server

2 vCPU 2GB 60GB

Software Configuration : 1. Windows Server 20122. SQL Server 20123. System Center 20124. SharePoint 2010

Hypervisors: The Microsoft private cloud supports three hypervisors: Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESX/ESXi, and Citrix XenServer. The private cloud aspects of System Center 2012 work identically across all three, even in environments that combine two or more of these options. Still, it’s worth

looking in a bit more detail at Microsoft’s Hyper-v technology.

Hyper-V is in its third release today, and it supports the typical functions of a mature hypervisor. These include: High Availability - It allows grouping servers together in a hyper-v cluster, then letting a failed server’s work be automatically shifted to another server in the cluster. Live Migration- It allows a VM to be moved from one physical server to another without any disruption to applications running in that VM or to the people using these applications. To perform maintenance on a physical server, for example, an administrator can use Live Migration to move that entire server’s VMs to another machine, perform the maintenance, and then move the VMs back to their original home. Users of applications running in those VMs won’t notice any changes throughout this process.Hyper-V also supports a range of guest operating systems, including several versions of Windows and Windows Server, SUSE Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and CentOS.

Preparing the Private cloud Infrastructure

Once I have the all prerequisites downloaded the installation process can commence.

Installing Windows server 2012 hostsInstall windows server 2012 on the two physical servers and give them suitable IPv4 addresses as per your need. After this add the Hyper-V role.Once these steps are complete, configure the virtual network on each host as it is important that each host has identical virtual network settings-

Open the hyper-V Manager Console. Click on connect to server in the right pane. Type localhost and click ok. Right click on host name and select virtual switch manager. Set the name to “External Virtual Network”. Ensure the physical network adapter is selected and the tick box allows

management operating system to share this network adapter is ticked. Click ok.

Once the hosts are configured, complete these steps- Create a virtual machine for each of the servers as detailed in the Private

Cloud architecture section and install windows server 2012 on every VM except the SharePoint server.

Install windows server 2008 R2 on the SharePoint server. Configure the network settings on each VM and give them in-range IPs. Create a domain controller on the AD server and add all servers to the new

domain using administrator privilege. Once these steps are complete, the lab environment will be ready for deploying system Center 2012 suite.

Installing System Center 2012After the lab is ready for system center 2012, I can start deploying the different products in the suite on each of their respective VMs. Install each product in the following order:

Virtual Machine Manager Operations Manager Service Manager Orchestrator App Controller Data Protection Manager

Configuring the Shared storage

Create a SMB 3.0 shareBefore implement a highly available private cloud solution, we need a commonly accessible storage platform that can host the highly available services.

Open Server Manager and select Add Roles and Features. In the Installation Type screen, tick Role-based or feature-based

installation. In the server selection screen select host1 from the server pool. In the server roles screen, expand File and Storage Services and tick File and

iSCSI Services. In the confirmation page click install. After completing installation, open server manager and select File and

Storage services. Click Shares. Select Tasks and then select New Share. On the select profile screen, select SMB Share- Applications. In the share location screen, select host1 and then select the drive where

you would like to host your share on (Min 100 GB free space in that drive). Input the share name SMB3Share. Then customize your permissions and security settings and tick full control. Select the host1 and host2 computer accounts and confirm that they are

listed in the permissions. On the confirmation page, click on create.

This now completes the creation of a SMB 3.0 Share which will be used as the storage target for the cluster.

Install the Microsoft Failover Cluster Load server manager, select Add roles and features. In the installation type screen, select role-based or feature-based

installation and click next. On the server selection screen, select host1 from the server pool and click

next. In the features screen, select Failover Clustering. Click on add features that are required for Failover Clustering and click

next. In the confirmation page, clicks install and then reboot the physical server. Follows these same steps in host2 also.

Configuring the Microsoft Failover Cluster

From host1, open Server Manager and confirm that the dashboard is open.

From the Tools menu items, select failover Cluster Manager. Once the failover cluster manger loads, click on create cluster and next. In this wizard, type host1 and host2, and click add. On the Create cluster wizard, click next to run cluster validation checks next

to host1 and host2. Run cluster validation wizards and next. On the testing options screen, click next to run all tests. On the summary screen, make sure both nodes are validated and click

finish. Enter the cluster name and heartbeat IP address for the cluster. On the summary screen click finish.

The cluster is now created. From the failover cluster manager we are able to see the resources online. This technology will build resilient and fault-redundant applications in the private cloud.

Configure Microsoft Hyper-V ReplicationAs host1 and host2 are already part of a failover cluster, the standard Hyper-V Replication between two hosts cannot be used. Instead a Hyper-v Replica Broker will need to be used which is a additional role that needs to be added to the failover Cluster.

From host1 open Server Manager, from the Tools menu select Failover Cluster Manager.

Click on our newly created cluster, then in the actions column select configure role.

In the select role page, select Hyper-V Replica Broker. In the Client access point screen, type the name and IP address of the

replica broker. Next and finish. Again expand the newly created cluster and click on roles. Right click the replica broker and select Replication settings. Tick the Enable this cluster as a Replica server, the use Kerberos (HTTP),

and the allow replication from any authenticated server boxes. In the specify the default location box input \\host1\SMB3Share and click ok.

Install SQL Server 2012

After the all requirements are fulfilled, follow these steps to Install SQL server 2012-

Log into the required VM as administrator privilege. Install the SQL 2012 full version setup file. New SQL Server stand alone installation. In the SQL Server features selection page, ensure the following roles are

selected-a. Database Engine servicesb. Analysis servicesc. SQL server replicationd. Reporting servicese. SQL data toolsf. Client tools connectivityg. Integration servicesh. Client tools sdki. SQL client connectivity sdkj. Management Tools- Complete

Give suitable name of the SQL Server and add the current user. Install and Configure and click finish.

Creating a Private Cloud In VMM 2012

An administrator creates clouds using Virtual Machine Manager 2012. The physical resources a cloud uses can come from either host groups, each of which can contain some combination of physical servers running Hyper-V, ESX/ESXi, or XenServer, or VMware resource pools, which contain only servers running ESX/ESXi. For each cloud, the administrator can specify its total capacity along with many details: what its VMs can look like (including options for processors, memory, disks, and network interface cards), whether the VMs use Higher Availability, and many more.

The VMM administrator also defines what the cloud’s users are allowed to do. Along with per-user quotas, VMM2012 provides a range of fine-grained options for specifying this. There are separate permissions for authoring a VM template or service template, for example, for starting a VM or application from those templates, and for stopping a VM or service. A VMM administrator can also create delegated administrators who have limited access to specific parts of the physical environment, such as a branch office.

.

Preparing the private Cloud Infrastructure

To create a private cloud we have to create a new logical network, an IP pool for the external network and a Mac address pool and a virtual IP template in the VMM Fabric for preparing private cloud infrastructure resources.

Create a new logical network

In the VMM console, click the fabric workspace, expand the Networking node and then create a new logical network.

Name the logical network. Create a new IP pool and select the newly created logical network. Create a new network site with the proper subnet. Configure a reserved IP address, a default gateway and a DNS server

address.

Create an IP pool for the external network

In the VMM console, create a new IP pool named External and select that External network as the logical network.

Create a new network site named External with the proper subnet. Configure the range between Starting and Ending IP address. Configure the gateway address and DNS server address.

Create a MAC pool and a Virtual IP template

In the VMM console, create a new MAC pool for the host group and configure the starting and ending MAC address.

Create a new VIP template that uses Virtual TCP IP port 80. Configure a specific template type that uses Microsoft Network Load

Balancing.

Create a Private Cloud in VMM In the VMM console, click the VMs and services workspace, and then in the

navigation pane, click the Clouds node. In the ribbon, click Create Cloud and the wizard opens. Give a suitable name to the cloud. In the resources page, ensure the Host groups option is selected. Select the newly created logical network. Add Microsoft Network Load Balancer and Web Load Balancer. Select required port classifications. Check the available storage. Select the default VMM library (MSSCVMM Library). Configure the private cloud capacity and capability features as per your

requirements. On the summary page, click finish.

Deploying a new virtual machine in the Cloud

In the VMM console, click the VMs and Services workspace. On the ribbon, clicks create virtual machine. In the select source window, browse and select a vhd and click next. On the specify identity page, type a name for the virtual machine. On the configure hardware page, configure the Memory and configure the

network adapter to connect the external network. On the select destination page, click Place the Virtual machine on a Cloud

and select the created Cloud. On the

Configure a user profile

In the VMM console, click the settings workspace, expand the security node and then click User Roles.

In the right pane, right click Cloud business unit and then select Properties. Click the Members tab and ensure that your desired domain user is listed in

the Members pane. Click Scope and in the right pane, select the created Cloud. Click ok to close the properties window. In the VMM console, click the VMs and Services workspace, right click the

Cloud and then select Assign Cloud. On the Configure Settings page click next. On the Add Properties page, under Operating system, select Windows

Server 2012 and click next. On the summary page, click Create.

Creating Self-Service User Role in VMM

In the VMM console, go to settings and click create a user role. Give a name to the user role and the required members in his role. ON the profile page, select Self-service User. Configure the scope to assign the private cloud to this user role. Configure the appropriate role-level and member-level quotas. Specify the resources that should be accessible to role members. On the summary page click finish.

Final Thoughts

Every organization wants to minimize its infrastructure costs, freeing up more IT dollars for innovation. Every organization also wants to make IT more responsive—taking days or weeks to provision a VM or deploy an application just isn’t acceptable. Private clouds can help with both of these things. The technologies in System Center 2012, including Virtual Machine Manager, App Controller 2012, Service Manager, Operations Manager, and Orchestrator, let organizations create one or more private clouds. Working with multiple hypervisors over diverse

hardware, these clouds can help lower costs and improve response times. Server virtualization has proven to be a remarkably useful technology, saving money and improving service in enterprises and public sector organizations around the world. The next step on the virtualization road is to automate more of how we allocate, use, and update those VMs and the applications they support. The next step is private clouds.

REFERENCES-

Microsoft Private Cloud evaluation guide technet.microsoft.com Text Books provided by Aptech Computer education Microsoft Private Cloud v1.0 by David Chappell

AcknowledgementI am highly indebted to the faculties of Aptech Computer Education for their guidance and constant supervision as well as for providing necessary information regarding this project and also for their support in completing my project. I would like to express my gratitude towards Mahatma Gandhi University for including this fabulous project in the BSCHNT course.