Number of Users Affected: 800 | Business Units: 30
Scope of work: Migrate Physical/Virtual servers to new VMware cluster and new HP SAN Storage.
Business Challenge: Replacement of poor performing virtualization, migrate servers and applications. Consolidate all websites, storage and new servers to new storage with all updates in Virtual technology. Existing virtual solutions do not have High Availability or monitoring options. Management of servers is not efficient for this size of environment. Parallel build is needed and move production storage and virtual servers to new cluster. Decommission legacy servers and storage afterwards.
Work Tasks:
• Investigate any caveats in environment and consider legacy physical/virtual servers and configurations
• Present plan to Senior IT Director and management. Discussed costs and contingencies.
• Plan and workshop SoW with network admins, IT analysts for migration path for production and hardware compatibility
• Develop schedule with application vendors for transition. Plan for coexistence of applications.
• Generate PO for new HP SAN and expansion chassis (12U) and utilize existing Brocade Fiber Switching for both systems. Zone and tie in both Fiber
switching fabrics for Coexistence.
• Generate PO for new Dell servers each with 512GB RAM and redundant SD cards for VMware installs.
• Generate PO for VMware vSphere 5 licensing and vCenter licensing.
• Purchase and install Dell PowerEdge servers and racking equipment, burn in and test for cluster
• Update all firmware, drivers and software for Dell racked servers and iDRAC remote access
• Attach new fiber channel storage to new VMware cluster and configure for migration and production
• Convert and virtualize critical and non-critical servers after hours with new network and storage
• Resolve issues as they arise and involve contractors where necessary to help with after hours work
• Decommission and power off Microsoft virtualization servers and legacy storage SAN. Remove from data center.
• Cross-mentor and train IT support and admin staff on VMware best practices, alerts, imaging and health inspection of cluster with vCenter server.
• Continual maintenance and updates schedule created for VMware hosts and Dell driver updates. Service operation documents and vCenter
configuration configured for best practices.
• Sell legacy SAN controllers, drive chassis and Fiber channel controllers.
- Improved efficiency with VMware clustering and management
- Consolidated fiber channel switching practice
- Consolidated warranty and service methodology
- New server hosts serving potentially 100’s of servers and increased life-cycle capacity
- Re-provisioned older production hosts as DR site hosts
- Less power used in data center and storage efficiency with thin provisioned disks. Directly increased savings in IT budget.