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1. Managed Infrastructure WHITE PAPER Building and maintaining computer systems is no easy task and information technology managers are constantly looking for better tools to reduce the total cost of managing their data centres and infrastructure Advances in computer networking and storage technol ogy allow us to separate the various parts of our infrastructure to specialised platforms For example storage area networks have allowed us to separate the data storage from our servers in much the same way that file servers are used to separate data from desktops and provide more robust management functionality such as centralised backup and recover ability In the past storing the operating system state and data within the computer caused man agement challenges such as storage over provisioning data duplication and expensive and ineffective backups Then shifting data storage to SANs provided many advantages in hard and soft dollar cost savings The final evolution of storage management is to separate the boot disks from systems and turn them into stateless compute devices Double Take Flex separates state from compute devices and allows them to run from iSCSI SAN This provides solutions for Managed desktop Double Take Flex allows you to share read only images across large numbers of desktops which keeps processing power close to the users while centralising the management of desktop Then when software needs patched or upgraded on
2. firmware flash updates any time that a workload must change Double Take Flex boot from SAN solutions are managed anytime from anywhere at the click of a mouse Centralising the physical location of your boot images to SAN allows you to take advantage of technologies such as snapshots cloning and replication that are native to SAN platforms Thus you can create point in time copies of your entire data centre at regularly scheduled intervals for fast restoration in cases of logical corruption You can also clone systems when provisioning new and similar workloads eliminating the need to build the system or to maintain base images your existing production systems can be those base images Additionally you can develop and test new systems and once the implementation is ap proved you simply clone and boot them on their production hardware SANs can also provide replication functionality that can provide off site recoverability cost effectively for non critical workloads that don t justify a budget for more robust recoverability solutions Storage replication is perfect for disaster recovery of desktops and tier 3 workloads that have low change rates such as web servers Shared Image De Duplication and Persistence Double Take Flex also allows computers with similar workload needs to share a common bootable image This greatly reduces the total amount of storage required by avoiding the duplication inherent in each image s common operating system an
3. d application binaries User data is stored on database and file servers to keep the images stateless and each computer can maintain a separate writeable cache to store its own unique configuration such as computer name and network settings The Double Take Flex writeable cache can be non persistent this keeps the computer s boot image in a read only state to prevent corruption by accidental misuse or malicious attacks 5 visionsolutions com WHITE PAPER Double Take Flex Systems Architecture The Double Take Flex architecture is composed of three major functions that e aa work in concert to perform client boot from iSCSI SAN Clients Provide the ba sic compute and memory hardware that run workloads These can be desktops servers blade computers as well as vir tual machines which will boot from an iSCSI SAN rather than direct attached disks Clients can be any computer that supports the industry standard Wired for Management PXE protocols iSCSI SAN Stores the bootable workload images outside of the client for manageability and recoverability Double Take Flex runs on any Windows machine and allows provision ing and sharing of that server s unused disk resources using iSCSI protocol Management Server Matches clients with their iSCSI boot images and any necessary pre boot functionality Boot Process e Client computer begins boot from network process by poling the network for a DHCP server and using the Wired for Manageme
4. e number of desktops and complexity of their applications increase Many IT organisations have found remote desktop technology useful for centralising the management of desktop applications However most end users have learned to despise these infrastructure tech nologies because they quickly learn to associate them with terms like inflexible slow and unusable Still their premise is simple enough that most desktop computers have much more computing horsepower than the average user needs There are economies of scale to be achieved by centralising on shared servers In practice shared platforms don t provide enough performance when users need it most Many organisations end up having to revert their thin client infrastructure back to thick desktops over time because the cost savings simply aren t enough to make up for losses in productivity and user frustration Double Take Flex technology centralises all management of the remaining storage devices in your enterprise Double Take Flex uses a completely software driven platform which means that you don t have to purchase expensive boot from SAN HBAs for your computers like other boot from SAN solutions require These are highly specialised adapters that are much more expensive than their non bootable counterparts In addition to those hard dol lar total cost of ownership benefits Double Take Flex does not require any hands on updating process like solutions that require manual
5. ly one image needs to be changed and all desktops instantly receive the new software Managed servers and blade servers Double Take Flex separates system state from hardware which lets you quickly provision new servers and move them to different hardware placing the right workload at the right place at the right time Managed Desktops How do you provide the best desktop experience to your end users while still controlling costs and reducing the amount of management associated with caring for the environ ment over time Double Take Flex gives you all of the management capabilities that you need while providing end users with the desktop experience that they need Users won t be competing for shared resources since they have their own dedicated computing re sources that provide the most efficient workspace possible F lex Mananewent Console __ 3 Double Take FLEX 2 visionsolutions com WHITE PAPER Optimally IT managers would have centralised management capabilities of thin clients with the power and flexibility of a desktop Double Take Flex provides the ability to com pletely remove the disk storage from your desktops and centralise it on your SAN Then you can assign individual computer images or groups of images and a selection menu to your desktops Double Take Flex works with your existing x86 or x64 operating systems and applications so you don t have to worry about starting over from scratch with a new pla
6. ments deploy new desktops and servers by eliminating the need to perform installation on each desktop However they still require the time to copy new images to each of the computers making them increas ingly unsuitable for the modern enterprise Plus disk imaging can take a long time ona moderately sized network because of contention for network resources between the imag ing server and the image clients Worse still is that the clients can t be used while the imaging process is happening which can take hours to complete Thus many IT organisations have resorted to visiting each computer and replacing hard drives with updated images manually If a hard drive image becomes infected or corrupt then the computer becomes unusable until the drive is re imaged or swapped with a new hard drive 4 visionsolutions com WHITE PAPER Double Take Flex eliminates image copying and manual hard drive update processes by eliminating the hard drive from the system and centralising the management of system images When a new computer is deployed an administrator chooses which image that system should boot and then it s turned on the image is loaded dynamically and available within seconds If a computer image becomes infected or corrupt then the user or adminis trator can reboot to a pristine image and continue working as if nothing had happened Centralised Management Centralised management of computing resources becomes ever more important as th
7. nt specification e Double Take Flex will also respond to the request if the client computer s MAC address is registered as a network bootable computer e The client computer receives a bootstrap that provides iSCSI mapping prior operating system boot e Finally the client operating system begins to boot using the disk image stored in the target iSCSI LUN Changes to the image can optionally save to the boot image or be discarded upon reboot Double Take Flex Management Server The Double Take Flex Management Server provides the services that map available iSCSI boot images to computers and helps facilitate the communication necessary for them to connect and boot from iSCSI SAN Create Double Take Flex clients by referencing their Ethernet MAC address and then assign one or more bootable iSCSI target LUNs There are advanced options that provide failover functionality to split boot loads between different iSCSI storage devices and provide failover for boot redundancy If a client has more than one image assigned to it you can also provide a menu to the user that allows them to select the image that they want to boot at that moment Later they can reboot and select a different image when they finish the previous task This solution works well by provid ing full CPU power directly to the users while maintaining full centralised management capabilities ISCSI SAN and Double Take Flex Double Take Flex uses industry standard communication prot
8. ocols and your entire exist ing infrastructure iSCSI storage provides the most cost effective total cost of ownership because it doesn t require any specialised hardware whereas fiber channel based solu 6 visionsolutions com WHITE PAPER tions require very expensive HBA adapters in each computer to provide basic connectivity to fiber channel storage and redundancy against failure Double Take Flex can use your existing iSCSI storage by building out LUNs and then pointing clients to that storage If you don t have iSCSI storage in your data centre or if you would like to continue using your investment in direct attach or fiber channel storage Double Take Flex from Double Take Software can help Double Take Flex is software that runs on any Microsoft Windows computer and provides iSCSI target services to your network You create iSCSI disks with Double Take Flex that reside as file on that server s disks in the Microsoft VHD Virtual Hard Drive format then Double Take Flex makes those target LUNs available to your boot from SAN clients using cost effective Ethernet and IP protocol For more information call 44 0 333 1234 200 or visit www visionsolutions com VI I Double Take FLEX OLU IONS 15300 Barranca Parkway Copyright 2010 Vision Solutions Inc All rights reserved IBM AIX and Power System are trademarks of Irvine CA 92618 International Business Machines Corporation EO_UMWA_E_1005 1 800 957 4511 801 799 0300
9. om virtualisation platforms further reducing the time and complexity of managing workloads Maybe you ve simply run out of compute power on a heavily used virtualisation server and need to move that workload to another system However the two virtual platforms are not on compatible hardware so you can t use that vendor s tools to quickly move the workload or maybe you re switching virtual isation vendors from VMware to Microsoft Hyper V Both problems are solved with a simple click of the mouse for Double Take Flex Create a new base virtual machine configu ration on the new server you won t need any disk resources on it and then have it boot from the network Using Double Take Flex just point the existing running image to its new server home and then shutdown the old VM and start the new VM on the new host server The guest will boot find the Double Take Flex server and receive its instructions where to find its boot disk on the SAN then it boots the operating system as normal and starts processing within seconds Fast Provisioning Provisioning tasks traditionally required installing and configuring the operating system in stalling and configuring the applications service packing and patching all of the software Fast provisioning with Double Take Flex reduces the amount of time required to deploy a new computing resource Double Take FLEX lone Verver Historically disk imaging technologies have helped IT depart
10. tform you can simply transfer the existing images to your SAN and then assign them to the computer that needs them For example if a manager s office is being renovated and they need to work from a spare cube you can simply click on their computer s image and reassign it to the computer in the spare cube If a Double Take Flex managed desktop becomes infected or corrupt you don t have to spend hours trying to diagnose and fix the problem Double Take Flex gives you the option to keep your base images in a read only state and only update them when you are ready Simply tell the user to turn off the computer s power and then turn it back on and their desktop is instantly restored to the pristine state that they began the day with their data is still stored on file servers and application servers safely behind corporate firewalls Managed Servers Blades and Virtual Systems Double Take Flex also provides the same quick provisioning features on server and blade platforms This allows you to unpack and rack new servers and put them in production within seconds Just tell Double Take Flex which of your pre configured images that the new systems should boot and turn the power on Once the machine is running you can customise that image with its unique configuration and persist any changes to its image Old Computer Old Computer New Computer New Computer pA 3 visionsolutions com WHITE PAPER You can even perform boot from SAN fr
11. visionsolutions com
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