leveraging cloud computing – a consolidation case study

Colocation Dedicated Servers Private Clouds

Copyright © 2011 Online Tech. All rights reserved www.onlinetech.com 734.213.2020

Leveraging Cloud Computing Flexibility

A Real-World Example

Yan NessCEO, Online Tech



• 2 Data Centers• 100s of Circuits• 1,000s of Servers• 100s of Network Devices• 100s of racks, cages

and private suites• 1,000s of support tickets• Certified and audited

processes (SAS70, SSAE16, SOC2 and SOC3)

• Employees in 5 locations and 2 countries

• All 7x24 mission critical

Lots to Manage

Our World



Critical Systems

• Administration• Exchange, Sharepoint, Fileserver,

Domain Controller

• Marketing• Production and Development website• Load balanced Website

• OTPortal• Client and Intranet Portal• Microsoft .net Applications• 500 MB database on MS SQL 2008

Database

• OTMobile• Mobile access for our engineers• PHP application

Variety of Needs

• Operations• Bandwidth Management and Billing

• Custom centos programs that take data from our routers and populate a MySQL database

• 5 million records/month• Patch Management

• 1,000s of patches a month• Firewall and IDS Management

consoles• Antivirus Management• Server and Cloud Backup Managers• SAN and NAS Management• Uptime and Performance Monitoring

• Lab• Sandbox for testing



Our Private Cloud

• 23 Physical Servers• 18 Windows, 5 CentOS

servers• 4 database servers• Each ~10% utilized

• OT Private Cloud– 2 Hardware Servers (N+1)

• 2xQuad Core CPUs, 48GB RAM

– 8TB SAN (SATA – RAID 10, 3TB usable)– HA Configuration

• Automatic Load Balancing Across Hosts• Automatic Failover to Single Server

– Continuous Offsite Backup– Warm Site D/R in Ann Arbor

• 4 Hour Recovery Time – Fully Tested

4



Leveraging Our Cloud

• Pace• We increased the pace of development

• Total Cost of Ownership• We reduced the management costs for our infrastructure

• Uptime• Every “server” is redundant

• Performance• We improved our ability to respond to performance issues

• Green• We dramatically reduced our carbon footprint

Gaining Value



Pace

• “Copy and Paste”• Pre-release

• Test new versions on exact production duplicate• 2 week project done in 1 hour• We now do OTPortal releases every 2 weeks• New time-saving features sooner

• Design Feasibility• Create new servers and test concepts using production

data• New Technology Used with less risk

Saving Time



Total Cost of Ownership

• Old TCO• 26 Physical Dell Servers, variety of specifications, versions, bios, CPU, memory

configurations, need lots of different spares• 52 power supplies• 26 Backups, 26 Anti-virus, 26 machines to network and patch• 4 Cisco network switches• 2 racks in the data center• 100+ network cables• Half a dozen power strips• Hours and hours to upgrade disks• Downtime to upgrade memory

• Cloud TCO• 2 servers + SAN+2 network switches• 2 power strips• Quarter of a Rack

• Obvious• If you Manage IT Equipment you can “Feel the Savings” by seeing this list• Save 50% on Hardware, 90% on Management

It’s about saving Money



Uptime Improved

• Server Failure• N+1 Hosts mean…• Every virtual server we create is protected from a failed

hardware server• Would have required an additional 26 servers!

• Upgrades• Memory – upgrade 1 server at a time• Disks – 2 mouse clicks and a reboot

• Backup and DR• Single backup process for each host• Backups for every virtual server on all hosts• <4 hour RTO for all 26 servers (75% is for Exchange alone)

Our Life Blood



Performance

• Old Days• Get the right RAM/Disk/CPU

(few days?)• Schedule downtime (2 day to

1 week notice)• Shut down the server• Remove it from the rack• Open server install additional

resources• Boot server• Test performance – hope we

added enough• Turn the server back off so we

can re-rack it• Restart the server• 2 hour downtime

“I need more power Scotty”

• Cloud Days• Schedule downtime• Click to add more

RAM/Disk/CPU• Reboot server• Test performance• 5 minute downtime

• Entire Cloud• Upgrade hardware one

host at a time• Practically 0 Downtime



Green

• Power Consumption• 300 watts/server• 100% uptime (365 days * 24 hours)• PUE 1.8• 1.58 lbs co2/kwhr (Michigan)

• 26 Physical servers + network• ~210,269 lbs of co2 per year• ~420,539 lbs of co2 per year for redundancy

• Cloud - 2 physical servers + network + SAN• 35 server capacity• ~27,903 lbs co2 per year

• ~356,942 miles at 21 mpg / year

Saving the Planet & Money