App-in-a-Box

Deploying Applications, Web Servers and Databases

in One Managed Enclosure using VM

Jay Caviness
Sr. Systems Engineer
McKesson Provider Technologies

Developing a standard systems appliance for the deployment of McKesson applications

Topics

 Server Deployment History

 What is a server appliance?

 Benefits of an appliance

 TCO
McKesson Provider Technologies

Largest Healthcare IS Company

McKesson Clinicals Applications

17 Applications Suites
 Meds Manager
 ER
 Billing/Revenue Management
 Nursing
 NICU/PICU
About Me

 Oracle DBA for 19 years

 Senior Engineering DBA for McKesson Provider Technologies

 Administered Oracle from v5.1 – 11g

 OPS on VAX/VMS to RAC on Oracle 10g

 Oracle Certified Professional

 Known as the “Grumpy DBA”

McKesson Horizon Clinicals Deployment History

1990’s – 2000’s - Big Iron - Big Unix - Big Sans

AIX 4–6
HP 10-11

EMC Symmetrix/Clariion
IBM Shark
Network Appliance

Whatever the customer/sales team defined

The Linux Revolution

 Separate applications onto individual nodes

 Red Hat on Dell, HP & IBM x86-64 racked servers

 Oracle RAC for database applications

 Still on large SAN technology

 Lower TCO

 First deployed Fall 2005

A Need to Evolve

 Cross-platform development

 Multiple physical architectures

 Multiple O/S

 Different: hostnames
network architectures
SANs
setups

 SaaS – hosting for clients

Three Fold Change

 Hardware Change – Common:

Server
Storage
Network

 Software – Standardize
Operating System
Applications
Database – (RAC / non-RAC)

 Administration infrastructure
What is a systems appliance?

Overview
 A systems appliance is collection of servers, software, storage, and networking, in a
managed enclosure.

 This includes application, web, provisioning, distribution, directory, and database

servers, and the associated technologies.

 Simplifies deployment, management, upgrading, and scaling of our products.

 Reduced time, from order to delivery, for the customer.

 Compact and power efficient package.

 Better management of security and networking.

Appliance Views
Systems Appliance Technology

HP C-class blade enclosures

 C3000 enclosure
− Redundant backplane
− Redundant power and cooling
− Redundant high speed networking
− Virtualized servers
 64 processor cores
 512GB RAM
 3.4TB shared storage in RAID 5
 LTO-3 tape backup
 C7000 enclosure
− Same as C3000 with:
 128 processor cores
 1.024TB RAM
 Both enclosures are expandable up to 10 units
Systems Appliance Technology

BL460c server blade

 Dual processor, quad core Intel X5400 series
 64GB fully buffered RAM
 Up to 6 - 1 Gigabit NIC’s

MSA2012i SAN
 3.4TB in RAID5 accessible by all blades
 iSCSI SAN with clone and snap capabilities

StorageWorks 1/8 Tape Library

 LTO-4 Ultrium tape drive
 6.4TB native and 12.8TB compressed Backups
Configuration example

C3000 enclosure with full compliment of blades

Configuration examples

C7000 enclosure with full compliment of blades

Configuration options

Using blade technology and virtualization, a multitude of

configurations are possible.

 The basis for the system is the VM hypervisor, allowing complete virtualization of
the appliance.

 Blades boot a hypervisor loaded onto internal USB keys, eliminating hard drives.

 Server images will be stored on, and accessed from, the MSA SAN.

 Database files will reside on the MSA under ASM.

 All content is loaded into and backed up from a single location.

Configuration Options

 The Horizon Clinical Infrastructure: application servers, webapps, forms and

databases are all virtualized.

 Staging will be done directly onto the MSA with complete pre-configured
architectures.

 Resources will be automatically deployed as needed to accommodate load.

 The system can be grown by adding more blades and enclosures.

 Multiple enclosures can be joined by a high speed interconnect.

 All systems have remote management and configuration capabilities.

Components of an Appliance

 Microsoft Active Directory Cluster

 Oracle RAC Database on Oracle Enterprise Linux

 Oracle Enterprise Linux for McKesson Apps/Webservers

 Citrix NetScaler HA pair

 VM software (Oracle, Citrix, VMware, etc)

 Citrix Provisioning Server

Speed

Higher speeds than a racked system of servers

 C3000 and C7000 enclosures use a dual 5TB backplane for

interconnectivity.

 Multiple appliances can be connected to act as a single unit.

 Networking in the enclosures is also handled with high speed

network modules or switches.

 HP blade servers get the newest technology first.

Imaging

Common storage based images

Only the virtualization hypervisor layer resides on the blades.

 Server images reside on the shared MSA storage.

 Database files reside on the MSA via ASM

 Image files contain the entire software configuration.

 The files are portable, and are simply imported onto the storage.

 Imaging will result in a single OS and application file that can be upgraded and
tested in a manner that is transparent to the customer.

 The entire appliance can be configured in-house, and shipped as a package.

Maintenance

Centralized management of appliances

 All blades and enclosures can be managed from a single console.

 All management can be done remotely.

 All virtual images can be managed from a single console.

 Upgrades can be brought online in parallel to live data, then switched over.

 Up to 100 enclosures and 1,600 blades can be managed as a single entity.

 Virtual servers can be migrated live, both manually and automatically, in the event
of failures in the hardware.
Energy Usage

 C3000 Cabinet with full compliment of blades (8) and 14 VMs: 1725 watts

 MSA (Modular Storage Array) – 700 watts (2 power supplies running at ½

power each)

 Dell 2950 : 350 watts * 14 = 4900 watts

 SAN power requirements vary on model

 Discounting storage, the appliance is at least 3x more efficient

Security and load balancing

Hardware based security and load balancing

 Because the appliance is a self contained computing and networking system, we

can implement load balancing and security in a simple and effective manner.

 Citrix NetScaler pairs are used as a firewall and load balancing switch for our
applications.

 The advantages of this approach:

 Restricting server access from the network
 Controlling user access
 Application load balancing
 Accelerating ICA connections from the internal Citrix farm
 Load balancing will not require switch hops for packets
Disaster Recovery

Solid DR capabilities
 Because the appliances are identical in components, we are only concerned about
the storage.

 Tools such as SAN based cloning, will replicate the entire environment live from
one site to another.

 An LTO-4 Ultrium tape library will be provisioned with each appliance for backup
and recovery.

 If an appliance fails due to a natural event, simply provision a new appliance and
join it to the farm, and the live data will be restored to the new appliance.

 Oracle Standby database can be used across campus or across the country.
Development Advantages

Advantages with the appliance approach

 A single platform significantly reduces our development costs

 Better pricing when buying large numbers of a single platform

 Significantly reduces maintenance costs associated with supporting

multiple platforms and operating systems

 Data center is not required, a room with adequate ventilation flow that can
be kept below 75F with two 30a/240v circuits will work
Reduced Customer Cost - TCO

The customer will realize significant savings

 An appliances will consume less power than an equivalent server setup.

 The SAN is integrated into an appliance, this can save a customer
hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional hardware, complexity, and
3rd party maintenance costs.
 Administration of an appliance will be much simpler than a similar
configuration of racked servers.
 There are significantly lower services costs associated with imaging
technology.
 There are much lower support costs with the standardization of images
and hardware.
Database Options

Non-RAC–Single full blade (2 quad-core processors) up to 64G RAM

RAC –
 Provision full blade as VM with up to 64G RAM

 Interconnect via cluster virtual network on private subnet

 If blade fails, the VM image can be brought up on another blade

 Expansion: Add a new node, provision and use RAC to add a new
node to the cluster.
Why RAC?

 Failover capability

 Load balancing

 Rolling upgrades of database and/or application

 Additional capacity is simple to add

 With multiple cabinets, stretch clusters are possible with mirrored

ASM diskgroups
Questions?
More information

Contact: jay.caviness@mckesson.com

Corporate: www.mckesson.com/clinicals

Personal: www.grumpy-dba.com