Virtualization and Disaster Recovery · Virtualization and Disaster Recovery Ray Trygstad Director of Information Technology, Center for Professional Development ... The creation

Virtualization and Disaster Recovery

Ray TrygstadDirector of Information Technology, Center for Professional Development

Associate Director, Information Technology & Management Degrees

Illinois Institute of Technology NetSecure 09 | March 12, 2009

ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF

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Center for Professional DevelopmentS

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What is Virtualization?

�A broad term referring to the

abstraction of computer resources

� As well as operating systems (the focus

of this course) we can virtualize

●Storage

●Applications

� In fact, we can virtualize any

hardware or software component

of an information system


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What is Virtualization?

�Can make one physical resource appear as one logical resource, or

�Multiple physical resources can appear as one logical resource (clustering, grid computing, multi-disk storage virtualization), or

�One physical resource can appear as multiple logical resources (OS virtualization, hard drive drive volumes)


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Operating System Virtualization

�The creation of a virtual machine

(VM) using a combination of

hardware and software

�Also known as platform virtulization

�Not a new technology!

� Originally designed/implemented by

IBM in the mid-1960’s

●M44/44X, CP-40, CP-67, IBM VM


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Operating System Virtualization

� In platform virtualization, a host

system or host machine runs an

application that allows the creation

and operation of a simulated physical

computer environment

�An instance of this simulated or

emulated environment is called a

virtual machine or (for brevity) a VM


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OS Virtualization Definitions

�Operating System Virtualization

� A computer running within a computer,

implemented in software; allows the

decoupling of hardware from the

operating system

�Virtualization Software

� A computer application that allows a

virtual machine—a virtual represen-

tation of a real computer—to run on a

physical computer system


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�Host Machine

� Physical machine running virtualization

software; contains physical resources—

memory, storage, processor and more—

plus other resources—network access,

for example—used by virtual machines


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�Virtual Machine

� Platform-independent software

implementation of a CPU that runs

compiled code

� Virtualized representation of a physical

machine run and maintained by

virtualization software

� Behaves as though it is running on a

stand-alone physical computer system


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�Host Operating System

� Operating system actually running

on the host machine hardware

�Guest Operating System

� Operating system running in the

simulated environment / virtual

machine


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�Virtual Disk or Virtual Hard Drive

� A virtual machine’s file-based physical representation of a hard drive, either in the form of a single file, as in Hyper-V, or a collection of related files, as in VMware products

� Appears to the virtual machine as a physical hard disk

� In some instances VM’s can also use real hard drives, drive partitions or logical volumes


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�Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM)

� Software that runs virtual machines in conjunction with the host operating system

� Provides the illusion of a “real” machine to one or more VMs

� Virtualizes some hardware (typically processor, memory, hard disk)

� Creates emulated devices or connects/ bridges to actual devices for VMs running on the host machine


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�Hypervisor

� Special VMM running directly on

hardware without no intervention from

the host OS to provide access to

hardware resources

●Note: Some sources call all Virtual Machine

Monitors hypervisors regardless of their

relationship with the OS

� Examples: VMWare ESX Server,

Windows Hyper-V Server 2008,

Citrix XenServer


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Disaster Recovery

�Most enterprises are inadequately

prepared for disaster striking their

IT systems

� 40% of businesses experiencing a

disaster never recover!

�Disaster recovery strategies are

always desirable but are often

unfundable

� All to often nothing is done…


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What Is Your Cost of Downtime?

Source: Gartner Research

Revenue

Know your downtime

costs per hour, day, two days...

Productivity

• Number of employees impacted X hours out X burdened hourly rate

Damaged Reputation

• Customers• Suppliers• Financial markets• Banks• Business partners• ...

Financial Performance

• Revenue recognition• Cash flow• Lost discounts (A/P)• Payment guarantees• Credit rating• Stock price

Other Expenses

Temporary employees, equipment rental, overtime costs, extra shipping costs, travel expenses...

• Direct loss• Compensatory payments• Lost future revenue• Billing losses• Investment losses


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Disaster Recovery Methods

�Tape backup

� Unwieldy and slow

� Requires access to the same hardware

� Notorious for failing when actually needed

�Disk-to-disk

� Increasingly popular and simpler than tape

� Still requires the same hardware for use

�Both require physical removal


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Disaster Recovery Methods

� Electronic vaulting� Batch transfer of data to an off-site facility

� Remote journaling� Transfer of live transactions to an off-site facility

� Database shadowing� Storage of duplicate online transaction data, along with databases, at a remote site with a redundant server

� Data Replication� Complete replication of all data off-site


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Disaster Recovery Best Method

�Data Replication off-site

� In large organizations only the most

mission-critical resources are

replicated

� In small to medium businesses it’s

virtually (pun intended) unheard of

�The big problem: replication systems

must be identical

� Costs many $$$$!


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Replication for Disaster Recovery

�Backup and restoration to another

system may seem simple, but

sensitivity of many critical

applications to hardware makes it a

serious challenge

�Costs of identical systems for

replication are prohibitive for all but

the largest organizations


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Virtualization and Replication

�Since virtual machines abstract the

OS and even storage from the

hardware, they eliminate the need

for identical systems

�And since a virtual machine is just a

file on a hard drive, replication of the

entire “system” including OS as well

as data becomes relatively simple


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�Operating system virtualization is

often coupled with another type of

virtualization: storage virtualization

�Storage virtualization abstracts

storage from the drives where data is

physically located

� In wide use as RAID, Network

Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage

Area Networks (SAN)


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�Many enterprise-level virtualization

products require external storage for

virtual hard drives (VHDs)

� VMware requires a SAN or iSCSI

�Separating the VHD from the

physical server entirely makes

replication even easier


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Impact of Virtualization

�Servers: consolidate services onto the

fewest number of physical machines

� Balance load

� Increase server

efficiency

� Reduce cost

� Improve

survivability

http://www.vmware.com/img/serverconsolidation.jpg


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� By replicating the VHD to a remote site,

we improve recovery point objective (RPO)

� Since recovery is almost instantaneous,

we improve recovery time objective (RTO)

� System can be tested at the remote site

with no impact on the primary site

� Remote site can run the VM on any

hardware meeting minimum requirements

� May impact responsiveness but the system

still runs!


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�According to VMware, more than 55%

of enterprises moving to server

virtualization do so for the disaster

recovery benefits

�Server virtualization can bring this

benefit even to very small

organizations

� Especially since enterprise-level

solutions are available for free


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Virtualization in the OS

� Virtualization becoming part of all server

OS & hardware implementations

� Microsoft: Hyper-V in Server 2008

� Red Hat: moving to KVM (kernel-based virtual

machine) hypervisor and now has Xen

● Microsoft and Red Hat signed an agreement to cross-

support each others OSes as virtual machines

� Novell SUSE Linux includes Xen virtualization

� Oracle and Sun both offer virtualization

platforms

� Both AMD and Intel provide hardware-level

virtualization support in current chipsets


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Free Virtualization Implementations

�Citrix XenServer

�VMware ESXi

�Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008

�Oracle VM

�Sun xVM


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Planning for Virtual Replication

�Virtualization facilitates replication

but is NOT automatic or even very

easy

�Only rudimentary replication can be

achieved with free tools; full

enterprise-level implementation

requires commercial versions

� $1,500-$5,700 per server


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Planning for Virtual Replication

�Decide what to replicate

�Decide where you will replicate to

�Ensure critical business functions

� Should be based on a Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

�May also facilitate compliance with regulatory requirements like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA)


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Our Data Replication Plan

� IIT’s Center for Professional

Development is developing a

virtualization-facilitated data

replication plan for academic support

servers

�Using VMware and XenServer

�Replicate from IIT Rice Campus to

IIT Main Campus and vice-versa


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Our Data Replication Plan

CPD Servers

Rice Campus

Main Campus SAN

CPD Servers

Main Campus

Rice Campus VHDs

Main Campus VHDs

Rice Campus SAN

100 Mbps WAN Link


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Learn More…

� IIT’s Information Technology &

Management Degree Programs offers:

ITM 454 Operating System Virtualization

ITM 588 Incident Response, Disaster Recover and Business Continuity

� (I teach them both!)

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The End…

�Questions?

Documents

Virtualization and Disaster Recovery · Virtualization and Disaster Recovery Ray Trygstad Director of Information Technology, Center for Professional Development ... The creation