Server Farms & SANs

1. Server Farms & SANs Carl Davies - Technical Support Team Leader

2. PinkRoccade - an Anglo Dutch Organisation Group UK History 50 years 30 years Revenue €816m £64m Staff 8200 1245 Market Position All Sectors All Sectors Tier 1 Tier 1/ Mid-Market Number 37 in world largest IT Services companies, 3rd largest % revenue growth Source: Computer Business Review - ITIL Education & Consulting Market Leader - Innovator in Shared Services - “Distinctive Managed Services offering (based on ITIL and Prince2 Methodologies) will help set it apart from others servicing the mid market.” Ovum Holway

3. Competencies Managed Services ITIL Education On-Site and Fully Hosted Support Offerings Data Centre, Network Management Applications Management, Development, Integration & Support. Help Desks, Support & Support, Field Services Service Management

4. PinkRoccade UK Ltd – Customers

5. Agenda • What is Server Farm? • What are the Benefits and Disadvantages? • What is a SAN? • What are the Benefits and Disadvantages? • Implementation and Support Challenges • Considerations and issues during implementation • Support Issues • Questions

6. Server Farms • Also known as:- • Server Cluster • Computer Farm • Server Ranch

7. Server Farms Key Elements • The server farm is a group of networked servers • Intercommunication between server • Accessible by users The server farm streamlines processing • By distributing the the workload between individual components of the farm • Harnesses the power of multiple servers • Load balancing software required

8. Server Farms Examples User Logon Requests Domain Controllers

9. Server Farms Virtual Server Examples SCSI or Fibre Attached Storage MS Win 2k servers with MS NLB services Public Network User Requests

10. Server Farms Benefits • Reduce the Total Cost Of Ownership • Reducing Support Costs • Centralising the infrastructure • Reducing amount of different server builds • Easier to provide “Resilience” and therefore “High Availability” • Ensuring that all servers are equally utilised • Maximising return on investment

11. Server Farms Disadvantages • Development and UAT Environments • May be more expensive to truly reflect production environment and ensure valid results from testing

12. SAN Storage Requirements • Operating Systems • Applications • User data Definition A high speed sub network of shared storage devices available to all servers on the LAN and WAN.

13. SAN What Does a SAN look like

14. SAN Basic Configuration

15. SAN Fibre Channel Fabric Presentation Layer Switching Layer Disk & Subsystem Layer

16. SAN Purpose of a SAN • Store data in a central location and make it available to different operating systems such as:- • Windows • UNIX • Linux • AIX • Mainframe

17. SAN Purpose of a SAN (2) • Provide flexible disc configuration • Multiple disk sets • Striped disk sets • Mirrored disk sets • RAID 5 • Hot stand-by configurations • Easy, quick and flexible expansion • Add additional disk storage • Deploy disk sets quickly

18. SAN SAN v NAS Solutions NAS – Suitable for providing user data available across the network. SAN – Suitable for providing back-office system storage, as well as application and user data.

19. SAN Implementation and Support Considerations Business Issues Should Lead The Technology Issues

20. SAN Implementation and Support Considerations Business Issues • SLA Driven • Detail the business criteria that needs to be met • Need to be able to measure the effectiveness of the solution • Regulatory and Legislative Compliance • Compliance for different types of data

21. SAN Implementation and Support Considerations • Data Lifecycle Management • Working records Vs Fixed content • How long do we need to keep data for? • Does the data always need to be on-line? • Near-line storage • Archiving • Processes for Data Management • The cost of storage should be accountable • Policies for managing data • Quotas • Billing / Accounting

22. SAN Implementation and Support Considerations • Data Security (Access & Fraud) • How do we prevent our electronic data from being manipulated.

23. SAN Implementation and Support Considerations Technical Issues • Production Storage • Appropriate storage for the business need • Do we need a SAN? Would NAS be better? • Backup and Restore • “The Killer Application” • Have we got appropriate backup devices and software? • Is there an overnight backup window? • Do we need to configure the SAN for Snapshot / Shadow data

24. SAN Implementation and Support Considerations • Disaster Provision • What is the requirement for DR / Business continuity • Multiple Sites • Data replication / Mirroring • Has the DR provision been fully tested? • Long Term Viability of Data Medium • Where are the back- office systems that we want to provide storage for? • Needs to be a high speed network • Have we got an appropriate support structure? • SAN technology requires specialist support skills

25. System Admin Network Admin ???? Win NT SAN Fabric HDS Storage Arrays Solaris Win2000 Mainframe SAN Fabric AIX SAN Implementation and Support Considerations • Several support teams will need to communicate SAN Administrator

26. SAN Implementation and Support Considerations Regulatory Issues • SEC - American Securities Regulatory Body • Data Protection Act (UK) • Sarbanes-Oxley Act (USA)

27. SAN Implementation and Support Considerations “Design for Flexibility” • What are our future storage needs? • Have we checked the business plan / road map? • Over what period? • What type of systems will be connecting? • Can our solution deal with new technologies?

28. SAN What can go wrong? • Generally the same types of issues as any project • No definition of requirements to implementation parties • Unable to check if installation meets requirements • Transition to support more difficult • No thorough investigation of how the new infrastructure will coexist with the current infrastructure • Issues arise when move into a production environment • Thorough testing including the DR / Business Continuity environments before going into production

29. Questions