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Moving Windowsto the Cloud

March 10, 2011

Watch the video of this webinar

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Your Panel Today

Presenting:

Rafael H. Saavedra, Vice President of Engineering, RightScale Raphael Simon, Sr. Software Architect, RightScale Chris Horne, Director, Product Marketing, RightScale

Q&A Line:

John Newton, Account Manager, RightScale Alex Pop, Tech Support Lead, RightScale

Please use the questions window to ask questions any time!

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Agenda

Windows in the Cloud vs Datacenter Challenges with Windows in the Cloud Consistent Windows Images - RightImages

Scripting Windows Servers - ServerTemplates

Orchestrating Windows Deployments - RightLink

Demonstration

How to Get Started

Please use the questions window to ask questions any time!

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What’s Different in the Cloud vs. DataCenter

• Windows Licensing• You don't bring your own Windows licenses to the Cloud. You use

those of AWS, RAX, etc. and the license is included in the hourly rate.

• Dynamic IP Addresses• All servers have a private IP address and a public one NATed. The

private one is not sticky when the server is stopped or relaunched.

• Preserve Data outside Ephemeral Instances• Servers are now ephemeral (and disposable). Information stored in

databases, application code, static content, session data, etc. should be stored in volumes (~EBS) and file stores (~S3, Cloudfiles, Gluster). 

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What’s Different in the Cloud vs. DataCenter

• Storage Backed Servers• Storage backed servers are installed on a persistent volume and can

be stopped and restarted. When stopped you just pay for storage. Snapshot the volume to back it up.

• Cloud Servers should be Scripted and Automated• A cloud paradigm shift is to replace thick, opaque images with

transparent, automated, built-to-order servers. Less MMC and more appcmd or Powershell. GUI interactive installed apps can be pre-bundled but at the cost of flexibility.

• Some legacy apps with special hardware requirements sometimes don't translate well • e.g. USB licensing dongles

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Server Provisioning in the Cloud

• Request an instance

• Server instance and volume is provisioned

• Server image is copied onto the volume and launched

• Sysprep runs to customize the instance

• With RightScale, RightLink agent installs applications and configures server for role within deployment

• Server is available and can be accessed via RDP or console

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Challenges with Windows in the Cloud

• Image configurations vary widely (inconsistent)• They do not follow best practices• They use root partition for everything

• They pre-install all required software (inflexible)• Bake in license• Custom configuration• Long development iterations

• There’s no consistent automation (manual)• Trust relationships are hard-coded• Ad-hoc, manual orchestration

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Challenges with Windows in the Cloud

• Image configurations vary widely (inconsistent)• They do not follow best practices• They use root partition for everything

• They pre-install all required software (inflexible)• Bake in license• Custom configuration• Long development iterations

• There’s no consistent automation (manual)• Trust relationships are hard-coded• Ad-hoc, manual orchestration

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MultiCloud Windows RightImages

• Use consistent settings • Across regions and clouds• Firewall and file sharing settings are consistent• SQL Server, ASP.NET, etc. installations are consistent

• Follow best practices• Use a bigger root partition (80GB)• Use volumes for database files

• Are a work in progress. Continuously improving.

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MultiCloud Windows RightImages

MultiCloud images address:• 2003 / 2008 Server (x2)• 32 bit / 64 bit (x2)• Bare / IIS / SQL Server Std (x3)• Cloud (x5)

~ 60 images for AWS alone

Use RightLink installer to RightScale enable pre-existing Windows images

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Challenges with Windows in the Cloud

• Image configurations vary widely (inconsistent)• They do not follow best practices• They use root partition for everything

• They pre-install all required software (inflexible)• Bake in license• Custom configuration• Long development iterations

• There’s no consistent automation (manual)• Trust relationships are hard-coded• Ad-hoc, manual orchestration

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ServerTemplates are Built-to-Order Servers

Virtual machine

OS

Storage volumes

Networking

SQL Server/ASP.NET…

App Libraries

RightImages &Multi-Cloud Images• Standard image “API”

Cloud Portability• Standard configuration

Application

Applications• Cloud independent

Modular – Portable – Reproducible

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A Closer Look at ServerTemplates

• Starts with a multicloud image• Defines base software

• Adds:• Boot, operational and

decommission RightScripts and /or recipes for configuration

• Alerts definitions for automation

• ServerTemplates are versioned• Reproduce exact configuration

• ServerTemplates can be published/imported• Sharing / reuse

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VM Images vs. RightScale ServerTemplates

• Big & opaque• Complex to reproduce• Static• Not cloud-portable

Not cloud-agile Slow workflow

• Modular & flexible• Reproducible & maintainable• Dynamic & agile• Multi-cloud enabled

Dynamic configuration Dev-like workflow

Virtual Machine Images RightScale ServerTemplates

VMs and Standard Cloud Images

are like burned CDs

ServerTemplatesare like Playlists

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When to Install - On Boot vs Pre-Bake

• Faster startups• Attended installers

• Dynamic installation• Easier maintenance• Licensing

Bake into image for:Install on boot for:

When you have no choice Whenever you can

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Monitoring and Alerts• Monitoring of CPU, memory

and disk space available

• Create monitoring scripts to monitor custom data• Written in a ruby DSL• Can leverage WMI

• Use monitored data to create Alerts• Can use elaborate rules to define alerting conditions• Alert escalations can send emails, reboot server, relaunch

server, run a RightScript or recipe, vote array grow and vote array shrink

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Windows in the Cloud with RightScale

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Windows Server Configuration with RightScripts and / or Chef• Windows servers can be configured using RightScripts and/or Chef recipes• RightScripts on Windows are written in PowerShell

• Straight PowerShell with full access to Windows subsystems• Easy to setup but can become hard to maintain over time

• Chef recipes are written using a simple language focused around managing resources.

• Resources represent a software or OS resource that needs to be configured e.g. a file, a service, IIS etc.

• Chef provides an extra layer of abstraction on top of PowerShell• Comes with many predefined resources; custom resources can be implemented on top

of PowerShell• Example Chef Recipe to upload a file to S3:

aws_s3 "upload to s3" do access_key_id node[:aws][:access_key_id] secret_access_key node[:aws][:secret_access_key] s3_bucket node[:s3][:bucket] file_path node[:s3][:file_path] action :putend

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Published RightScale ServerTemplates• Base ServerTemplate for Windows: RightScript based

ServerTemplate, includes monitoring and time zone setting scripts

• Quick Start for Windows (Chef Alpha): Chef base ServerTemplate with monitoring

• BlogEngine All-In-One (Chef Alpha): Installs the BlogEngine web application on Windows 2003 or 2008 instance with monitoring enabled

• ASP.NET All-In-One Developer (Chef Alpha): Configures an instance as a ASP.NET application server with IIS and SQL Server Express on a single server.

• Additional ServerTemplates in development

© 2009 RightScale Inc — All rights reserved

New SharePoint ServerTemplate • Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010 All in One• Developed by RightScale partner, Pileus Inc.• Designed to be used as a standalone SharePoint 2010

farm environment, generally for development or sandbox

purposes• Paid template

Get Started• Import the template

into your RightScale

account

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Challenges with Windows in the Cloud

• Image configurations vary widely (inconsistent)• They do not follow best practices• They use root partition for everything

• They pre-install all required software (inflexible)• Bake in license• Custom configuration• Long development iterations

• There’s no consistent automation (manual)• Trust relationships are hard-coded• Ad-hoc, manual orchestration

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Orchestrating Windows Deployments w/ RightLink

• Functions•Execute commands from RS•Query RightScale •Locate related servers

• Open-source Agent•Extensible•Transparent

• Secure•Signed & encrypted AMQP transport•Deployment scope

RightScaleTagstore

Server 1

RL

Server 2

RL

Server A

RL

Server B

RL

Production Development

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Using Tags and Remote Execution for Orchestration

• RightLink enabled instances can dynamically create, update and delete associated tags

• They can also query other instances by tag i.e. retrieve the list of instances together with all their tags that possess a given tag (or set of tags)

• Finally instances can also request than one or all instances located in their deployment and associated with a given set of tags run a RightScript or Chef recipe

App Server

Front End

- IIS- v6- IP: 10.10.2.45

App Server

- IIS- v6- IP: …

- LB

IIS & v6 ?

RightScale

Front End

App Server

- iis- v6- ip: …

- LB

RightScale

run register on LB

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Leveraging RightLink to Automate Servers via Chef or Command Line

• RightLink provides the following Chef resources• Log: appends to local log and audits (audits are visible in the dashboard)• RightLink tag: Add or remove tags from instance • Remote recipe: Run recipes on remote instances (route by tag)• Server collection: Query instances by tags

• RightLink-enabled images also include the following utilities• rs_tag.cmd: Add or remove tags from instance• rs_run_right_script.cmd: Run RightScript on local instance. Starting with

5.6 also run RightScripts on remote instances• rs_run_recipe.cmd: Run recipes on local instance. Starting with 5.6 also

run recipes on remote instances• rs_server_collection.cmd: Starting with 5.6 query instances by tags

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Automation Demo: Automatic User Creation

• Deployment with two servers• Application Server: BlogEngine ASP.NET blog application (All in one,

includes both IIS and SQL Server express)• Domain Controller: used for ASP.NET Windows based authentication

• Application server automatically configures domain controller on boot to create user used by ASP.NET impersonation• Domain Controller tags itself on boot• Application server uses RightLink to run remote recipe on DC using tag

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Hands-onAutomatic User Creation

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Getting Started and Q&A

• 1) Script install of applications on ServerTemplate

• 2) RightLink enable existing Windows images

• Have a project and ready to get started?

• Contact us at sales@rightscale.com or (866) 720-0208

• Need to learn more?

• Cloud Webinars: www.RightScale.com/webinars

• Cloud White Papers: www.RightScale.com/whitepapers

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http://support.rightscale.com/12-Guides/Windows_User_Guide

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Thank You!

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Hands-On Creating a Domain Controller ServerTemplate

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Windows Best Practices• License keys registration

• Install software on boot: License key is an input that is used to generate the answer file

• Bake software into image: Write Powershell script which registers key on boot

• System updates management• Updates disabled by default• Cherry-pick updates, test, sysprep & bundle (use provided RightScript)• Roll new image