Tag Archives: complexity

MS Exchange on Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV)

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While Virtualization of MS Exchange is now common across multiple hypervisors it continues to be a hotly debated topic. The most common objections being cost (CAPEX), the next being complexity (which translates to CAPEX & OPEX) and the third being that virtualization adds minimal value as MS Exchange provides application level high availability. The other objection I hear is Virtualization isn’t supported, which always makes me laugh.

In my experience, the above objections are typically given in the context of a dedicated MS Exchange environment, which in that specific context some of the points have some truth, but the question becomes, how many customers run only MS Exchange? In my experience, None.

Customers I see typically run tens, hundreds even thousands of workloads in their datacenters so architecting silos for each application is what actually leads to cost & complexity when we think outside the box.

Since most customers have virtualization and want to remove silos in favour of a standarized platform, MS Exchange is just another Business Critical Application which needs to be considered.

Let’s discuss each of the common objections and how I believe Acropolis + Nutanix XCP addresses these challenges:

Microsoft Support for Virtualization

For some reason, there is a huge amount of FUD regarding Microsoft support for Virtualization (other than Hyper-V), but Nutanix + Acropolis is certified under the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) and runs on block storage via iSCSI protocol, so Nutanix + Acropolis is 100% supported for MS Exchange as well as other workloads like Sharepoint & SQL.

Cost (CAPEX)

Unlike other hypervisors and management solutions, Acropolis and Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) come free with every Nutanix node which eliminates the licensing cost for the virtualization layer.

Acropolis management components also do not require purchase or installation of Tier 1 database platforms, all required management components are built into the distributed platform and scaled automatically as clusters are expanded. As a result, even licenses for Windows operating system are not required.

As a result, Nutanix + Acropolis gives Exchange deployments all the Virtualization features (below) which provide benefits at no cost.

  • High Availability & Live Migration
  • Hardware abstraction
  • Performance monitoring
  • Centralized management

Complexity (CAPEX & OPEX)

Nutanix XCP + Acropolis can be deployed in a fully optimal configuration from out of the box to operational in less than 60 minutes. This includes all required management components which are automatically deployed as part of the Nutanix Controller VM (CVM). For single cluster environments, no design/installation is required for any management components, and for multiple-cluster environments, only a single virtual appliance (PRISM Central) is required for single pane of glass management across all clusters.

Acropolis gives Exchange deployments all the advantages of Virtualization without:

  • Complexity of deploying/maintaining of database server/s to support management components
  • Deployment of dedicated management clusters to house management workloads
  • Having onsite Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in Virtualization platform/s

Virtualization adds minimal value

While applications such as Exchange have application level high availability, Virtualization can further improve resiliency and flexibility for the application while making better use of infrastructure investments.

The Nutanix XCP including Acropolis + Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) ensures infrastructure is completely abstracted from the Operating System and Application allowing it to deliver a more highly available and resilient platform.

Microsoft advice is to limit the maximum compute resources per Exchange server to 24 CPU cores and 96GB RAM. However with CPU core counts continuing to increase, this may result in larger numbers of servers being purchased and maintained where an application specific silo is deployed. This would lead to increased datacenter and licensing costs not to mention operational overhead of managing more infrastructure. As a result, being able to run Exchange alongside other workloads in a mixed environment (where contention can easily be avoided) reduces the total cost of infrastructure while providing higher levels of availability to all workloads.

Virtualization allows Exchange servers to be sized for the current workload and resized quickly and easily if/when required which ensures oversizing is avoided.

Some of the benefits include:

  • Minimizing infrastructure in the datacenter
  • Increasing utilization and therefore value for money of infrastructure
  • Removal of application specific silos
  • Ability to upgrade/replace/performance maintenance on hardware with zero impact to application/s
  • Faster deployment of new Exchange servers
  • Increase availability and provide higher fault tolerance
  • Self-healing capabilities at the infrastructure layer to compliment application level high availability
  • Ability to increase Compute/Storage resources beyond that of the current underlying physical server (Nutanix node) e.g.: Add storage capacity/performance

The Nutanix XCP Advantages (for Exchange)

  • More usable capacity

With features such as In-Line compression giving between 1.3:1 and 1.7:1 capacity savings & Erasure Coding providing up to a further 60% usable capacity, Nutanix XCP can provide more usable capacity than RAW while providing protection from SSD/HDD and entire server failures.

In-Line compression also improved performance of the SATA drives, so its a Win/Win. Erasure coding (EC-X) stores data in a more efficient manner which allows more data to be served from the SSD tier, also a Win/Win.

  • More Messages/Day and/or Users per physical CPU core

With all Write I/O serviced by SSD the CPU WAIT time is significantly reduced which frees up the physical CPU to perform other activities rather than waiting for a slow SATA drive to respond. As MS Exchange is CPU intensive (especially from 2013 onwards) this means more Messages per Day and/or Users can be supported per MSR VM compared to physical servers.

  • Better user experience

As Nutanix XCP is a hybrid platform (SSD+SATA), newer/hotter data is serviced by the SSD tier which means faster response times for users AND less CPU WAIT which also helps further increase CPU efficiencies, again leading to more Messages/Day and/or Users per CPU core.

Summary:

With Cost (CAPEX), Complexity (CAPEX & OPEX) and supportability issues well and truly addressed and numerous clear value adds, running a business critical application like MS Exchange on Nutanix + Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) will make a lot of sense for many customers.

Enterprise Architecture & Avoiding tunnel vision.

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Recently I have read a number of articles and had several conversations with architects and engineers across various specialities in the industry and I’m finding there is a growing trend of SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) having tunnel vision when it comes to architecting solutions for their customers.

What I mean by “Tunnel Vision” is that the architect only looks at what is right in front of him/her (e.g.: The current task/project) , and does not consider the implications of how the decisions being made for this task may impact the wider I.T infrastructure and customer from a commercial / operational perspective.

In my previous role I saw this all to often, and it was frustrating to know the solutions being designed and delivered to the customers were in some cases quite well designed when considered in isolation, but when taking into account the “Big Picture” (or what I would describe as the customers overall requirements) the solutions were adding unnecessary complexity, adding risk and increasing costs, when new solutions should be doing the exact opposite.

Lets start with an example;

Customer “ACME” need an enterprise messaging solution and have chosen Microsoft Exchange 2013 and have a requirement that there be no single points of failure in the environment.

Customer engages an Exchange SME who looks at the requirements for Exchange, he then points to a vendor best practice or reference architecture document and says “We’ll deploy Exchange on physical hardware, with JBOD & no shared storage and use Exchange Database Availability Groups for HA.”

The SME then attempts to justify his recommendation with “because its Microsoft’s Best practice” which most people still seem to blindly accept, but this is a story for another post.

In fairness to the SME, in isolation the decision/recommendation meets the customers messaging requirements, so what’s the problem?

If the customers had no existing I.T and the messaging system was going to be the only I.T infrastructure and they had no plans to run any other workloads, I would say the solution proposed could be a excellent solution, but how many customers only run messaging? In my experience, none.

So lets consider the customer has an existing Virtual environment, running Test/Dev, Production and Business Critical applications and adheres to a “Virtual First” policy.

The customer has already invested in virtualization & some form of shared storage (SAN/NAS/Web Scale) and has operational procedures and expertises in supporting and maintaining this environment.

If we were to add a new “silo” of physical servers, there are many disadvantages to the customer including but not limited too;

1. Additional operational documentation for new Physical environment.

2. New Backup & Disaster Recovery strategy / documentation.

3. Additional complexity managing / supporting a new Silo of infrastructure.

4. Reduced flexibility / scalability with physical servers vs virtual machines.

5. Increased downtime and/or impact in the event hardware failures.

6. Increased CAPEX due to having to size for future requirements due to scaling challenges with physical servers.

So what am I getting at?

The cost of deploying the MS Exchange solution on physical hardware could potentially be cheaper (CAPEX) Day 1 than virtualizing the new workload on the existing infrastructure (which likely needs to be scaled e.g.: Disk Shelves / Nodes) BUT would likely result overall higher TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) due to increased complexity & operational costs due to the creation of a new silo of resources.

Both a physical or virtual solution would likely meet/exceed the customers basic requirement to serve MS Exchange, but may have vastly different results in terms of the big picture.

Another example would be a customer has a legacy SAN which needs to be replaced and is causing issues for a large portion of the customers workloads, but the project being proposed is only to address the new Enterprise messaging requirements. In my opinion a good architect should consider the big picture and try to identify where projects can be combined (or a projects scope increased) to ensure a more cost effective yet better overall result for the customer.

If the architect only looked at Exchange and went Physical Servers w/ JBOD, there is zero chance of improvement for the rest of the infrastructure and the physical equipment for Exchange would likely be oversized and underutilized.

It will in many cases be much more economical to combine two or more projects, to enable the purchase of a new technology or infrastructure components and consolidate the workloads onto shared infrastructure rather than building two or more silo’s which add complexity to the environment, and will likely result in underutilized infrastructure and a solution which is inferior to what could have been achieved by combining the projects.

In conclusion, I hope that after reading this article, the next time you or your customers embark on a new project, that you as the Architect, Project Manager, or Engineer consider the big picture and not just the new requirement and ensure your customer/s get the best technical and business outcomes and avoid where possible the use of silos.

Taking vSphere to the Next Level with Converged Infrastructure – vForum2013

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vForumTitlePage

At this months vForum in Sydney, Australia, I will be presenting “Taking vSphere to the Next Level with Converged Infrastructure”.

The session discusses where the virtualization market is today along with problems that exist along the journey to 100% virtual and how converged infrastructure helps solve these challenges allowing vSphere architects and administrators to take their virtual environments to the next level.

The session is scheduled for Day 2 of the conference (October 22nd) at 11AM in Parkside 110A room.

I invite everyone who will be at vForum Sydney to attend the session, and for those of you who cannot make the event, the presentation will be posted on this blog along with follow up articles covering any questions from the session.