Microsoft Server Product PortfolioCustomer Solution Case Study

Private cloud built to integrate 17 time-worn servers and keep up with new demand

OverviewCountry or Region: KoreaIndustry: Education Customer ProfileIncheon National University was established as private institution in 1979, and converted to public institution inside Incheon City in 1994. Incheon National University is reborn as national institution as of January, 2013. Business SituationAs its systems gradually neared the five-year threshold at which they needed to be replaced, Incheon National University was faced with the question of how to deploy new systems and set aside a corresponding budget. SolutionIt decided to relocate and integrate business systems running on different operating systems into a private cloud built with Windows Server and System Center. Benefits A new IT investment paradigm Promoting wider use of the cloud Building DR system without extra

investment

“Compared to Windows Server and System Center, VMWare solution required a high initial cost. Since there are no significant differences between the two solutions in terms of performance and features, we thought it would be better to save money on software. We wanted to focus our budget allocation on purchasing hardware”

Lee Sangdong, Team Head, Incheon National University

Incheon National University undertook a project to integrate 17 decrepit systems into one private cloud-based environment. This project soon caught the attention of IT experts engaged in the educational world as it involved building a private cloud, rather than the more simple server virtualization. Incheon National University adopted Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012. It built a single private cloud capable of running dozens of systems. Indeed, most of its systems now run on the private cloud, with the exceptions of the academic administration system and a few other mission critical systems. In undertaking this project, Incheon National University took on board the lessons from its experience of building and operating Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) in computer labs. For this reason, it did not hesitate to adopt Microsoft's solution. Migration to Windows Server for systems originally running different Linux distributions like Redhat and Ubuntu was completed successfully. The investment paid off in many ways, from helping to achieve cost-savings to enabling streamlined management. To see it in practice convinced all those involved that the private cloud is the right choice. Incheon National University has now shifted its thinking. It can see that it is better off using the private cloud rather than purchasing additional equipment to promote VDI when meeting further development needs. Incheon National University is currently engaged in a project designed to achieve hybrid deployment, which would enable the provisioning of a staff e-mail service with Exchange Server on the private cloud, and student e-mail service with Office 365 Education on the public cloud. At the same time, the hybrid solution would run Active Directory-based user authentication on the private cloud. As this shows, this project has caused Incheon National University to look for better ways to use the hybrid cloud.

SituationIncheon National University migrated and

integrated 17 time-worn servers into a private cloud. The reason that this project was titled ‘private cloud’ is simple. Incheon National University built everything that makes up the private cloud in terms of both hardware and software. That is, the university adopted high-end x86-based hardware and integrated systems running different types of operating system through server virtualization. It implemented several cloud computing features, including resource provisioning and centralized management, using an integrated management tool. The entire project was carried out with full regard for the essentials of cloud computing. Namely, the private cloud was designed in such a way that further hybrid deployment can be implemented in a straightforward manner through connection with a public cloud service.

The private cloud was not in fact the first option considered by Incheon National University as a means to replace time-worn servers. The university thought that replacing each old server with a new one was outdated; thus, virtualization-based server integration seemed to be the obvious choice. The question was when and how. There were too many systems to migrate and they were all differed in terms of time that they had been brought in and in terms of which operating system was installed on them. This meant it was difficult to migrate and integrate them all at the same time.

While considering the time and method involved, Incheon National University saw an opportunity too good to miss in 2013. With the need to rebuild the staff e-mail server, which would necessitate a new server and storage, it seemed a good chance to set up a private cloud capable of accommodating its old systems.

Before building the private cloud, Incheon National University subdivided its systems into those to be integrated, and those for which virtualization solution should be used. The university chose 17 systems, which had become depreciated after five years of use, and drew up a short list of two candidates: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and VMWare vSphere. With its experience of using Hyper-V to implement and manage VDI in its computer labs, it was an automatic choice for the university to include Hyper-V on the list. vSphere made the list because it is one of most commonly used solutions.

Incheon National University set a goal of running several systems on the private cloud to meet further system-related demand. It compared the two shortlisted solutions in terms of five aspects: performance, stability, scalability, management efficiency and cost. In the course of its comparison, staff from the university visited those using either of the two solutions to find out details of how they worked in practice. “We were well aware of the merits and demerits of Hyper-V because we had prior experience of using it. For vSphere, we asked several others using it and carried out a technical review on our own. We could not find much difference between the two solutions based on our review and advice from outsiders”, said Lee Sangdong, Head of IT Team at Incheon National University.

It was at this juncture that Incheon National University hit upon an excellent plan to retrench software cost for increased hardware stability. It thus decided to adopt Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. “Compared to Windows Server and System Center, VMWare solution required a high initial cost. Since there are no significant differences between the two solutions in terms of performance and features, we thought it would be better to

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save money on software. We wanted to focus our budget allocation on purchasing hardware”, said Lee Sangdong, Team Head.

SolutionSoon after Incheon National University

settled on Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012, it started purchasing hardware. Thanks to the cost savings it achieved with the Microsoft solutions, the university was able to allocate more money on hardware than anticipated and buy three HP DL380 servers together with HP SAN storage. It set one of its three servers to run in standby mode. In other words, the university employed duplex physical infrastructure in active/standby mode to ensure stability while running several task systems on one server. After setting up the hardware, Incheon

National University worked on server migration. Here, there was nothing special that needed to be done in order to migrate each of its different servers into a virtual environment for Exchange Server. The university was able to make full use of the virtual resources for development and testing thanks to having a private cloud rich in CPU and memory resources. In effect, the university no longer has to calculate resources. The only thing it has to do now is to allocate virtual resources from the self-service portal when the need arises, and this facilitates infrastructure design and management. There were, however, some issues when it

came to migrating its 17 hand-picked systems into the new private cloud. All its different operating systems, including Windows and Linux, were able to be migrated, provided they were not too dated. Upgrading the operating system version means risking incompatibility with existing applications. What's more, the university found that it was difficult to get a

maintenance service for the old solutions provided by domestic vendors. For this reason, Incheon National University decided to migrate Windows Server versions higher than 2003 as well as the versions of Linux distribution that Microsoft officially supports. For the record, Incheon National University currently uses several Linux distributions, including Ubuntu and Redhat. The university added another yardstick in

choosing which systems to migrate. When the project was first planned, the university only considered the system's useful life. Now, it went a step further by considering its intended purpose. Incheon National University ruled out systems that could affect services provided through the private cloud. It instead decided to run as a standalone server such systems as PMS (Patch Management Server), which are highly likely to affect the performance of the private cloud as they generate a lot of network I/O. The new criteria saw 60-70% of 17 systems,

including mobile student ID card, tax invoice, SMS and vaccine servers migrated onto the private cloud. There was one more system moved. That was a system which used to be run in standby mode for VDI. Incheon National University had been running hardware in active/standby mode and, with this project, moved the standby server into a virtual environment and retrieved hardware for new use. Resource provisioning for private cloud-

related software settings and management of the established systems was made through System Center. Incheon National University used System Center to implement the self-service portal, which was then used to allocate resources, create and distribute virtual machines. After all the systems were migrated as

scheduled, Incheon National University was

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able to use System Center centralize the management of everything involved in the private cloud, from hardware to software and network. “We used to manage each system using KVM Switch. We can now monitor and manage all systems on the private cloud thanks to System Center”, said Lee Sangdong, Team Head.

Benefits

A new IT investment paradigmThe utility it experienced with the private

cloud has helped Incheon National University discover a new paradigm for IT investment. It learned that getting rid of inefficiencies in the old ways of doing things, for example planning budget, obtaining approval and purchasing required equipment, can bring work efficiency to the whole next level, which results in more reasonable IT investment. “It used to take several months to go through cumbersome bureaucratic procedures in order to buy a single small server. Now, it takes less than 10 minutes to distribute the new server through the private cloud. For the IT department, time is money. As the private cloud eliminates all administrative procedures regarding infrastructure and increases the reusability of infrastructure, it saves considerable costs”, said Lee Sangdong, Team Head. “In the past, it was common to discard

equipments after they became depreciated. So, concepts like recollecting and recycling of resources were lost. But, we can now recollect idle resources on the private cloud and redistribute them for some other purposes instead of discarding them. This was a significant change in IT investment paradigm”, said Lee Sangdong, Team Head.

Promoting wider use of the cloud

Incheon National University plans to extend the use of the private cloud with Windows Server and System Center. This migration and integration project is just the beginning. The university will go even further and place new systems on the private cloud whenever the need arises. For instance, it is considering to use the private cloud infrastructure to extend VDI from the computer labs to staff service. Incheon National University estimated enough performance and capacity for 10 more systems when sizing its private cloud infrastructure. “We learned that we can run more servers on the private cloud we established once extra memory is added”, said Lee Sangbong, Team Head.Incheon National University is thinking of

changing the student e-mail service to Office 365 Education. The big picture is to provide staff e-mail service through an on-premise private cloud and student e-mail service via the public cloud, with Active Directory server deployed on the private cloud to manage accounts. In short, it plans to implement a hybrid cloud model. Incheon National University now takes the view that using the public cloud for a time could be one of the extended uses of the private cloud. For that reason, it devotes its full attention to the advancement of Windows Server and System Center-based private cloud, Windows Azure, and technologies which involve streamlined connection with other service providers.

Building DR system without extra investmentTaking this opportunity, Incheon National

University established a complete system alongside HA (High Availability) and DR (Disaster Recovery) systems to ensure an uninterrupted service. It was done in a reasonable manner. Incheon National University did not have to make any extra

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investment to implement a DR system and duplicate high-priced SAN devices. It instead duplicated everything into other file servers through System Center Data Protection manager. Its plan is to first build a DR system for the private cloud in the most cost-effective way and, then, to upgrade to D2D2T (Disk to Disk to Tape), which copies important data into backup storage on a disk storage system and again onto a tape storage system.

Microsoft Server Product PortfolioFor more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to:www.microsoft.com/servers

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Incheon National University visit the website at: www.incheon.ac.kr

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Document published November 2013

Software and Services Microsoft Windows Server 2012

− System Center 2012