Application Report: University of Chicago Lab School

Application Report
Operating Platform Migration
Featuring
University of Chicago Laboratory Schools
Dell Servers
QLogic 5000 Series Fibre Channel Switches
QLogic 2400 Series Fibre Channel Adapters
QLogic 8100 Series Converged Networking Adapters
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
Red Hat Linux
VMware ESXi
Where IT perceptions are reality
Copyright 2012© IT Brand Pulse. All rights reserved.
Document # APP2012003 v9 July, 2012

About
Overview
Founded with a donation from John D. Rockefeller in 1890, the world renowned University of Chicago enrolls a total of 15,000 students, and has an international reputation for scholarship with 87 Nobel Prize laureates.
The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools were founded in 1896, has over 1,700 students from nursery through twelfth grades, and about half of the students have a parent who is on faculty at the University. Considered one of the top preparatory schools in the United States, the Wall Street Journal found the school is amongst the top five feeder institutions in the nation for elite colleges.
Migrating Hardware and Software to Windows OS
The Lab started out as an all Apple environment, which is not surprising due to Apple’s dominance in the education market. With 12 Xserve systems, Xsan, the SAN file system for Mac OS X, and a QLogic 5600 FC switch attached to 40TB of Promise FC RAID systems, the IT department was up and running providing a number of essential services to students and faculty.
Each new application added required a new server be provisioned to support its use, added to shared storage and included in the backup scheme. Web servers, e-mail, database, backup, student registration; all required their own server. Realizing that their current configuration could not con- tinue to grow and be managed effectively, the IT department decided to investigate server consolidation.
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Document # APP2012003 v9, July, 2012
Migrate from an all Apple environment to Dell with VMware, without interruption of services.
Goal
The campus of the University of Chicago. The Booth School of Business and Laboratory Schools can be seen on the right.
Barack Obama in 1995 in his office at the Universi- ty of Chicago Law School where he taught.
In late 2010, Apple announced it will no longer offer Xserve servers after January, 2011. As a result, the University of Chicago must migrate their Laboratory School servers and applications from Mac OS X to Windows and Red Hat Linux running on VMware ESXi.

Key Technologies
The ability to aggregate multiple I/O streams from guest applications to one physical 10GbE server adapter is key.
10GbE
Industry Standard Servers
Windows Server 2008 R2 and Red Hat Linux are multi-purpose operating system designed to increase the reliability and flexibility of a server or pri- vate cloud infrastructure, Window 2008 R2 is the first 64-bit-only operating system release from Microsoft, and the latest release includes im- provements for implementing a robust datacenter and desktop strategy.
Multi-Platform Software & Hardware
Migrating from Mac OS is less complex and expensive if the surrounding hardware and software are portable from the old operating system to the new operating system. For the Labs schools, this includes external storage and storage management software, NIC driver and management software, Fibre Channel HBA drivers and management software, and their suite of applications software.
Server Virtualization
A typical application server utilizes only 2-4% of the available CPU. Server virtualization al- lows IT organizations to consolidate servers, as well as reduce the number of server and network points of management. Additionally, new virtual machines (VMs) can be quickly creat- ed to house new applications, allowing the Lab Schools IT team to respond more efficiently to requests from students and faculty to deploy new applications.
10 Gigabit Ethernet
The use of 10GbE in virtual infrastructures has now become the industry “norm”. The ability to aggregate I/O from guest applications to a physical 10GbE server adapter is essential to providing bandwidth to applications. Multiple 1GbE adapters bonded together don’t provide the scalable I/O needed and consume valuable slots in servers. Current versions of VMware provide Network I/O control that stipulates the use of 10GbE to support this feature.
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Migration Path
Mac OS X to Windows Server 2008 to VMware
Lab Schools’ goal is to move all 300 faculty staff and 1,700 students from their familiar Apple centric environment to VMware seamlessly and without interruption. With 12 Xserve systems, Xsan, the SAN file system for Mac OS X, and a QLogic 5600 FC switch attached to 40TB of Promise FC RAID systems, the IT department started the migration by bringing up a few test systems in VMware and experimented with porting some of the applications such as Mail and Web services.
The plan is that Web servers, e-mail, database, backup, student registration, etc. will all run as guest applications in the VMware configuration with shared storage and a comprehensive backup scheme. IT expects, from their initial testing, to consolidate 12 servers down to 6 with 20 VMs spread across those servers. Cutting the number of physical severs by 50% will not only simplify management, but lower power and cooling costs while providing a more scalable long-term solu- tion to the school’s computing needs.
Consolidation of 12 physical severs down to 6 provides better utiliza- tion and is more cost-effective.
Goal
Lab Schools current configuration with 12 servers.
Lab Schools planned configuration with 6 servers, shared storage and backup with 10GbE network.
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Killer App
The best guest application I/O performance and improved backup times can be achieved with the addition of 10GbE with VMware.
10GbE
10Gb Ethernet Improves I/O Performance and Reduces Backup Times
In any server virtualized environment the need to provide I/O to the guest applications is fundamental to the success of the implementation. Many guest applications running on a physical server put a tremendous load on I/ O and can be a performance bottle- neck if 10GbE is not used. Installation of QLogic 8142 10GbE server adapters in each physical server provided the necessary I/O to support applications such at e-mail, web and file services.
Additionally, with the 10GbE back- bone in place the backup application can now take advantage of greater bandwidth. The current disk-to-disk to tape backup scheme was limited by the current 1GbE network. With 10GbE in place, daily “incrementals” as well as monthly “fulls” can now be achieved faster resulting in less down time for faculty and students. IT expects that the 12 hour “fulls” that run over a weekend every month, will be reduced by over 50% with the new 10GbE infrastructure.
When complete, Lab Schools virtual infrastructure with 10GbE will provide exception I/O for guest application and dramatically improve backup times.
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Results & Lessons Learned
Mission Accomplished
Today the Lab Schools IT is forging ahead with their plans to migrate and consolidate their applications and servers. Testing continues with a September 1st target date for complete migration of all faculty and students to the new servers. 10GbE server adapters have shown to improve application I/ O as well as reduce backup times, and is expected to ease the migration efforts.
Lessons Learned
The following are a few lessons the IT staff want to share with their peers:
 Pick multi-platform products (hardware and software) that can be migrated to new systems while retain- ing your investment.
 Use 10GbE for improved I/O in server virtualized environments.
 Use 10GbE for improved backup performance in a VMware environment.
 Test application portability and usability in the new environment.
Migration from Mac OS X to VMware can be achieved with proper planning and implementation of 10GbE server adapters.
Results
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Resources
Related Links
To learn more about the companies, technologies and products mentioned in this report, visit the following web pages:
Dell Servers
QLogic 5000 Series FC Switches
QLogic 8100 Series CNAs
IT Brand Pulse
University of Chicago—Lab Schools
About the Author
Frank Berry is founder and senior analyst for IT Brand Pulse, a trusted source of data and analysis about IT infrastructure, including servers, storage and networking. As for- mer vice president of product marketing and corporate marketing for QLogic, and vice president of worldwide marketing for the automated tape library (ATL) division of Quan- tum, Mr. Berry has over 30 years experience in the development and marketing of IT infrastructure. If you have any questions or comments about this report, contact frank.berry@itbrandpulse.com.
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Application Report: University of Chicago Lab School

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