1 Presented by: Ken Williams and Wade Scheffner American Digital Corporation May 21, 2013 UniData to...

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Presented by: Ken Williams and Wade Scheffner

American Digital Corporation

May 21, 2013

UniData to SQL

Virtualization & Disaster Recovery

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Agenda

• About American Digital• SQL Migration• Virtualization• HA & DR • Higher Education Recovery• Questions & Answers

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About American Digital• Systems Engineers and certified technologists

have been engaged in over 200 Colleague by Ellucian installations since 2001.

• Have implemented Colleague and peripheral applications on Every Platform and Every Database

• Dedicated Ellucian-focused staff with proven processes

• Project Management• Consulting• “Vendor-Agnostic” Approach

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American Digital’s Partners

• Ellucian• Hewlett-Packard• VMware• Microsoft• IBM• Oracle• Dell• Cisco• Symantec• EMC• Others

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Solution Offerings

• Servers and Storage for both Unix and Windows environments

• Desktop and Server Virtualization• Enterprise Backup & Recovery• Networking and Security• High Availability and Disaster Recovery• Infrastructure Assessment and Analysis Services• “Health Check” & System Patching / Update

Services

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Capabilities

• Infrastructure Assessment Services• Virtualization Assessment Services• Cloud Readiness Assessment Services• Unix to Windows/Linux Migrations• “Health Check” & System Patching Services• Database Performance Tuning (UniData, SQL,

Oracle)• Operating Systems (All Unix, Windows & Linux)• Private Cloud Implementations

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Migrate to SQL - Why?

• Why SQL Server?• More Business Intelligence reporting tools to choose

from:• Business Objects / Ellucian Reporting & Operating

Analytics• SQL Server management studio• Any third-party ODBC complaint tools• “Perceived” Cheaper hardware costs• Minimal training needed for Power-users• Ellucian Delivered bolt-ons require SQL database as

well… (i.e. DROA, Portal, Recruiter, etc.)

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Migrate to SQL - How?

• How does my institution get there?• Work with Ellucian to identify where/how they can assist

you with the migration• Ellucian Action Planning Process helps to create 3 year

plan• Will you be migrating Colleague DB and Application server

separately or as part of another initiative (Reporting & Operating Analytics, Portal, Recruiter)

• Using a phased approach will minimize cost, manpower, and more importantly – help you keep your sanity!

• Identify areas where fault-tolerance and high availability may be necessary to ensure end-user experience mirrors that of previous environment

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Migrate to SQL - Concerns

• Once I’ve made the move, what do I need to be concerned about?

• Database Server Memory• In most cases, the more physical RAM a

server has, the greater SQL Server's performance

• In order to Maximize the amount of RAM that can be utilized, be sure to utilize correct editions of Server OS and SQL Server.

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Migrate to SQL - Concerns

• Once I’ve made the move, what do I need to be concerned about?

• Storage Requirements• For best I/O performance, use the fastest disk drives available

in the disk arrays• Don't store operating system, application software, or

databases on single disk drives as single drives don't afford any fault tolerance

• Purchase as many drives as budget allows – space is not the issue, limiting I/O contention is

• Isolate Index, Data, Log, Application files on separate RAID Groups to further reduce contention

• Use either RAID 1+0 or RAID 5 (not preferred for transactional files but OK for Application)

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SQL Migration – What does it look like?

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WebAdvisor, UI 4.x, Ellucian Portal

Colleague Application

SQL Database ServerNet

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(Co

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Physical Storage (Information)

SQL Solution Components

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•Reducing physical assets• Improving asset utilization•Reduced application deployment time•High Availability•Disaster Recovery considerations•Alignment of resources

= Increased Operational Efficiency

Virtualization – Why is it important?

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• Why do you need to virtualize? Improve UtilizationHigh AvailabilityDisaster Recovery / Business Continuance

• Determine what is to be virtualized StorageSystemsNetworks

Virtualization – Business Drivers

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• Identify Candidates based on: Current Resource Load Space Power Cooling Disaster Recovery and High Availability needs Server Provisioning Cost Model / ROI

Virtualization - Assessment

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Determine the requirements of the new environment

Determine the schedule and process for migrating from Physical to Virtual

Establish monitoring and management strategy

Identify candidates and courses for training

Virtualization – Design & Planning

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• Training• Establish Baseline environment

Server templateResource sharing plan / hierarchyManagement and Monitoring tools

• Migrate Physical to Virtual TestVerifyExecute

Virtualization - Deployment

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Virtualized Architecture Samples

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HA Solution Sample (Hybrid)

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HA Solution Sample (Fully Virtualized)

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HA & DR Solution Sample

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Higher Education Recovery:DR for Ellucian Institutions

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Features:• Core Colleague application availability (Payroll, Student System,

etc.)• Periodic data (includes application) replication to American

Digital’s facility• Secured communication link• Restore application availability over the Internet within 48 hours• Ability to run within the recovery environment for up to 6 weeks• Daily Monitoring & scheduled testing• Data restored to production facility

DR Solution for Ellucian Environments

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DR Solution for Ellucian Environements

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IaaS

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Primary support including hosting in American Digital-provided data centers.

HostedIaaS

• American Digital provides Tier 3, SAS70 certified data center(s)

• American Digital owned infrastructure (Hardware, VMware, Microsoft, etc.)

• Client retains responsibility for all applications (above OS or DB)

• American Digital provides monitoring and management• System administration and technical support (OS patches and fixes)• Capacity planning, performance tuning, and reporting• Physical database administration• Operational support – including automation• Issue avoidance and resolution (24x7 help desk)

American Digital Hosted Services

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Benefits

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Reflections

• Challenges– Breaking down Barriers

– Convergence of the Infrastructure & Abstraction of Infrastructure

– Convergence of the People

– Breaking Bad Habits

– Understanding the underlying complexity of a virtualized system

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Questions & Answers

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Thank You!

Ken Williams

kenw@americandigital.com

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