virtualizing an environment

[ayoub]

Hey

I?m working on a proof of concept for a company. They bought an application to manage their laboratory and they need an architecture.

https://app.box.com/s/3irvm0z0jprjk7pb2759

 

As you see in the figure 1The architecture needs a several servers so I decided to work with virtualization using Hyper-V

When I started virtualizing the architecture I had to think about providing high availability on three levels:

DNS

APP

Hyper-V

Storage

The architecture is getting bigger and bigger, a lot to handle lol figure 2

https://app.box.com/s/d6p2rvdcggzzhlrmvtyz

I heard that Power Edge R710 is one of the best Server for virtualization! Any suggests

Is it a good idea to have a dedicated server for the Storage or i can use one server ? (im not talking about a storage server)

 

What is the best RAID for the virtualization?

Any recommended Hard Drives for the storage?

 

Thanks

[mykola]

For high availability you need at least 2 physical servers (if one fails then the other takes over). Have a look at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/jj863389.aspx 

Once an application server is deployed to the cluster if one host in the cluster fails the application is still available to users. (We have a mix of R710s, R720s and R820s)

This is a similar setup to what I have in my office, except we have a redundant internet connection as well.  

We use a seperate NAS system using dual controllers which uses iSCSI to the Hyper-V hosts for CSV storage for the virtual machine files.

Seperate LUNs for Boot discs and datastore. We use a mix of RAID 1 and RAID 10  using fast 15k drives and SSD disks

 

Hope this helps! 

[sc302 Veteran]

What kind of laboratory is it?  Or can I ask what software is the laboratory running?  I have a bit of experience in a laboratory environment (I am currently the engineer/architect for a manufacturing facility that has laboratories).  What I can tell you is that to be compliant with government regulations, that router needs to not be there if you are in a government regulated environment unless you can some how prove to the government that there is absolutely no chance of tampering that could occur in your laboratory environment. 

 

Other than that, this environment needs to sit outside of any other environment, isolated.  Again you need to prove that this environment cannot be tampered with.  The easiest way to accomplish this is to be physically isolated from all other environments.

 

I would follow manufacture suggestions like not having a database (sql or oracle) on a virtual box. It is recommended by them for performance that this server be physical.  firewall and router would not be needed in this scenario being that it is isolated. 

 

I deal with DEA and FDA regularly, my network designs are never brought into question with these agencies due to complete isolation.  We have an inspection coming up shortly and have no question in my mind that the network will not be under any sort of scrutiny from either of these agencies as they have not been in the past. 

 

As for the virtual environment, 3 physical hosts and one storage array to support the environment, you can do a second storage array if you want failover.  I would make sure that you don't have more than 2 servers per physical nic if you expect them to be heavy on the network traffic.