Using Virtualization to Reduce Cost and Improve Manageability of J2EE Application Servers

Transcription

1 WHITEPAPER JANUARY 2006 Using Virtualization to Reduce Cost and Improve Manageability of J2EE Application Servers J2EE represents the state of the art for developing component-based multi-tier enterprise applications. Unfortunately, the simplicity and efficiency of developing in this environment has resulted in a proliferation of customized, mission-critical applications, each supported by a single, over-provisioned server equipped with more than twice the needed computing power and capacity. Compounding matters, to ensure availability, most or all of these servers are backed by a redundant set of hardware, often passive, just in case the original server fails. This creates an expensive problem for many IT departments. It leads to high operational and capital costs and reduces IT s ability to rapidly respond to the needs of the business. This paper discusses a new approach to J2EE application deployment and management one that helps companies reduce the cost of deploying, operating and managing these applications by pooling and sharing J2EE resources, and enabling a more flexible and agile J2EE infrastructure.

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction J2EE Deployment Scenarios The Virtual Iron Data Center Data Center Virtualization How Virtual Iron Benefits J2EE Environments Improved Manageability Maximized Utilization Capacity on Demand Simplified Provisioning Support for J2EE Application Lifecycle Activities Improved Application Availability Conclusion About Virtual Iron Using Virtualization to Reduce Cost and Improve Manageability of J2EE Application Servers

3 INTRODUCTION The Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) represents the state of the art for developing component-based multi-tier enterprise applications. In a typical enterprise data center, J2EE applications are used to extract and manipulate data, and present information to users. The ease of developing in this environment and the cost savings of industry standard hardware and software has resulted in a proliferation of customized, mission-critical applications. Today s enterprise data centers contain a proliferation of disparate, single-function servers, each running specific applications. Today s enterprise data centers contain a proliferation of disparate, single-function servers, each running specific applications. During the previous decade, as companies rolled out one application after another, each application often got its own server, or cluster of servers, to isolate it from incidents on other servers. Each of these servers was over-provisioned and overloaded with up to twice as much computing power and capacity as it might need to handle the heaviest workload and meet spikes in activity. Making matters worse, to ensure business continuity in the event of hardware or catastrophic failures, most or all of these servers were backed by a redundant set of hardware, often passive, just in case the original server failed, exacerbating the glut of unused capacity. The result of all this server-building is a proliferation of servers, storage systems, operating systems and databases leading to an application delivery infrastructure that is saddled with major challenges: Under-utilized capacity Thanks to the one-app-per-server model and the passive backup-per-server availability strategy most computing capacity goes unused. Various analyst estimates suggest that in most large corporations, anywhere from 80% to a staggering 95% of the available server computing capacity sits unused. Despite this idle capacity, the data center continues to grow with new servers being deployed for testing, staging, production, and disaster recovery all consuming power, cooling and data center space. Complex environments that are difficult to manage Complexity is fast becoming the chief enemy of effective IT management. The variety of technologies and sheer size of the data center make it very labor-intensive and costly to manage. Even with new and more centralized management tools, analysts estimate that a typical large-company IT staffer cannot effectively manage more than 30 servers, forcing IT departments to either staff up or stretch existing staff thin. One result is that companies are spending anywhere between $7 - $10 to manage every dollar spent on physical hardware. Another is that IT departments spend 80% of their time managing existing application servers, and just 20% on the new technologies that mean the most to the company s future Virtual Iron Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved

4 Inefficient and inflexible systems Today s data center has a frustrating lack of flexibility and a plodding provisioning and deployment model. This can lead to project delays when equipment cannot be deployed in time for application testing. It also leads to over-provisioned clusters to handle peak loads. Staging and deploying new applications can take weeks as well. These are no longer acceptable timeframes in an environment where users want additional capacity and new applications on demand, and where IT performance is measured against service level agreements cut with various internal departments and LOBs. Virtual Iron offers a unique approach to meet the needs of managing J2EE applications that transforms the static, hard-wired data center into a flexible pool of shared resources. Virtual Iron offers a unique approach to meet the needs of managing J2EE applications that transforms the static, hard-wired data center into a flexible pool of shared resources. Virtual servers are built from physical resources and run independent, fully-functional operating system instances. Hardware resources can be dynamically allocated to applications based on demand, increasing utilization without requiring time-consuming provisioning and deployments. Virtual servers can automatically use any resource in the data center based on policies, reducing latency and manual intervention. This translates into less physical hardware, improved staffing efficiency, and reduced data center operating costs. Thus, Virtual Iron truly provides an application-centric data center. 4 Using Virtualization to Reduce Cost and Improve Manageability of J2EE Application Servers

5 Vertical J2EE Scaling J2EE DEPLOYMENT SCENARIOS The Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) defines a collection of technologies for developing and deploying component-based multi-tier enterprise applications. A J2EE server is a collection of Java classes running in a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that implements the J2EE specification. Many vendors (e.g. BEA, IBM, JBoss and Oracle) offer application server products that implement J2EE. Standards for J2EE application design are feature-rich, open, and server-independent. Modern J2EE application servers employ two concepts to enable application scaling. First, the system can be separated to allow components to be distributed across several servers (i.e. by creating tiers). Second, each tier can be cloned multiple times. The application server distributes incoming queries among the components transparently with respect to both end-users and application developers. Similar to hardware scaling, J2EE application servers can also scale in a vertical or horizontal fashion. Vertical scaling means deploying additional application instances or increasing the workload on an existing server instance. The strengths of this approach are capacity on demand and ease of support due to a single operating system instance. However, vertical scaling can only go so far until the JVM reaches a point of diminishing returns in how it can handle additional workloads regardless of hardware resources, and there is a single point of failure. Horizontal scaling runs the J2EE application server in parallel on different physical servers to provide better load balancing and fault tolerance. A blended model uses J2EE vertical scaling with horizontal physical server scaling to achieve the strengths of both approaches. In this approach, the J2EE application is scaled vertically to the limit of the server by running multiple J2EE server instances simultaneously. When the server is saturated, it is scaled horizontally by provisioning a new server from a free pool of resources. If additional computing resources are needed, servers can also be scaled vertically by adding additional CPUs and memory. Virtual Iron provides a virtual data center platform that allows J2EE applications to scale horizontally or vertically while also allowing the underlying server infrastructure to scale horizontally or vertically on demand. Horizontal J2EE Scaling Virtual Iron Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved

6 THE VIRTUAL IRON DATA CENTER Virtual Iron provides data center virtualization and management software solutions that transform the static, hard-wired data center into a dynamic pool of shared computing resources. With Virtual Iron, organizations can more rapidly respond to changing business demands and dramatically reduce the cost of managing and operating the data center. The Virtual Iron solution helps solve many contemporary data center challenges: Initiative Challenges Virtual Iron Benefits Capacity on Demand Under-utilized servers Long duration to deploy servers, network, and storage Staff intensive data center operations Deploy a new application server within minutes Dynamic resource reallocation between applications Automatic policy-based provisioning and management Live migration with hot-pluggable CPU, memory and I/O Disaster Recovery Keep businesses running without interruption Existing 2N passive spare clustering approach is highly redundant and expensive Reduce capital costs through N+1 versus 2N clustering Separates virtual servers from physical hardware to simplify redeployments Data Center Consolidation Server sprawl Application silos Combine all data center resources into a sharable infrastructure-wide pool Reduce costs through increased hardware utilization Eliminate the risk of running out of capacity Application Development and Staging Wasteful server hardware Provisioning expenses for short term projects Create temporary servers for short-term projects, eliminating need to buy new hardware Deploy server using existing images to reduce time, inconsistencies and staff time Virtual Iron combines a virtualization layer that transforms physical resources including CPUs, memory, and storage with policy-based management to deliver data center virtualization. 6 Using Virtualization to Reduce Cost and Improve Manageability of J2EE Application Servers

7 DATA CENTER VIRTUALIZATION In the physical world, a server runs an operating system that provides a platform for application programs. Virtual Iron abstracts the physical hardware to create one or more virtual servers, each running an independent, fully-functional operating system. Server virtualization is not a new technology or a concept, but what makes the Virtual Iron implementation unique is that: Virtual Iron provides highly effective management of virtual infrastructure. CPU, memory, network and storage resources may be allocated or de-allocated dynamically without interrupting applications running in the virtual server. It efficiently runs enterprise-class workloads such as J2EE with near native performance. Resources, such as CPU and memory, can be dynamically added and/or removed from the virtual server without interrupting applications. Virtual I/O includes virtual HBAs and NICs, allowing existing SAN and VLAN settings to remain regardless of the physical resource the application is provisioned on or migrated to. The following figure illustrates a single-node, single-cpu server containing two virtual servers. In this case the administrator has chosen to allocate 50% of the CPU and 70% of the memory to one virtual server, and the remainder to the other. Virtual Iron provides highly effective management of virtual infrastructure. CPU, memory, network and storage resources may be allocated or de-allocated dynamically without interrupting applications running in the virtual server. The diagram on the following page shows two virtual servers, each running a J2EE application, on a single physical server. The virtual servers can migrate without downtime to a larger physical server and take advantage of all the processors and memory. Since the virtual server has a unique virtual HBA, no changes need to be made to the SAN environment. Virtual servers encapsulate CPUs, memory, I/O devices, operating systems and applications just like a physical server. It is possible to define how large a virtual server can grow and software failures in one virtual server cannot impact operations on another virtual server Virtual Iron Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved

8 LiveMigrate with no SAN or LAN changes Hot pluggable CPU and memory No virtualization software to maintain on each server Data Center Manager Bare Metal Intel and AMD Servers Corporate Network Corporate SAN With Virtual Iron, applications always use the appropriate amount of shared resources. Administrators define policies that set resource level utilization for an application to use, such as a processing capacity, memory, network or storage. These policies allow the system to optimize application requirements and provide what is needed, when needed, and never more than should be used. Hardware failures are easily recoverable. And new systems can be rapidly created to meet transient needs such as system test or staging. The software creates a shared pool of computing resources that can be dynamically applied to any application in the data center, automatically. The shared pool allows data centers to dramatically increase their average utilization by extracting excess capacity across all applications and placing a portion into the pool. These resources can then be applied to any application, from JVMs to line of business applications and databases. Virtual Iron s policy-based automation also enables zero latency migration of live applications. This provides enterprises with the ability to scale applications, offer service availability without interruption, improve system maintenance and make existing high availability solutions even better. 8 Using Virtualization to Reduce Cost and Improve Manageability of J2EE Application Servers

9 J2EE clusters can be rapidly scaled by deploying new application instances. Virtual servers allow any piece of hardware to be used from the shared pool without concern for physical configurations. Security settings are automatically respected and preserved in the virtual environment. HOW VIRTUAL IRON BENEFITS J2EE ENVIRONMENTS IMPROVED MANAGEABILITY Virtual Iron completely decouples virtual servers from the constraints of the underlying physical resources. This allows virtual servers to be deployed or migrated to any hardware in the data center. Virtual servers can use any physical resource regardless of configuration, reducing operating system images and speeding deployments and migrations. Each J2EE App server instance can run as a partition of a physical server or on an entire physical server. In either case it runs in a complete virtual server with a unique virtual NIC and HBA and with its own unique operating system, allowing it to move to any server in the data center without changing VLAN settings or LUN maskings. Virtual Iron also provides a central point of control for all physical and virtual computing resources. It combines an easy-to-use graphical interface with out-of-the-box policies that maintain application performance and availability. These features streamline tasks that are normally highly manual and time-intensive and significantly reduce the complexity in the data center. Virtual Iron provides a sophisticated management console that can be integrated with J2EE management software to automate resource requests, optimize performance, and improve utilization Virtual Iron Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved

10 MAXIMIZED UTILIZATION Data center virtualization allows additional capacity to be added on-demand by adding additional resources quickly and efficiently as business needs change. Virtual Iron creates dynamic virtual infrastructure through hot-pluggable CPU, memory and I/O devices to provide instant capacity at any time. Spare computing capacity from a shared pool can be applied when and where it s needed, automatically via policy allowing clusters to run at higher utilization factors. Each virtual server is fully isolated from other virtual servers, even on the same physical hardware, to deliver complete fault isolation and security. The capacity on demand can be controlled through virtual server CPU and memory settings. Virtual servers can use any physical resource regardless of configuration, reducing operating system images and speeding deployments and migrations. Virtual servers contain virtual network and virtual I/O resources meaning that no configuration changes need to be made when a virtual server is moved to new hardware.. Since the physical hardware is abstracted and virtualized, the applications and operating systems see a consistent and stable platform. Failover can occur transparently without the need to reconfigure the OS and applications. CAPACITY ON DEMAND J2EE resource requirements depend on the size and complexity of each individual application but in general, J2EE is a memory-intensive technology. Virtual Iron allows resources including memory, CPU, network and storage to be scaled dynamically and by policy as a resource usage pattern is established. Resources can be hot-plugged without impacting application availability. This results in an increase in the average hardware utilization factor across all applications, which translates into less physical hardware and reduced data center costs. Virtual Iron provides capacity on demand via three approaches: LiveMigrate to larger servers: Users can move an application from a 1-way to a 2-way to a 4-way without re-provisioning and without any downtime. Allocate more CPU s in a server: Users can start an application running on 2 of 4 CPU s and then dynamically add another CPU to use 3 of 4. Add another server: Users can allocate another server to scale out a cluster or scale up a virtual server. SIMPLIFIED PROVISIONING Provisioning hardware for large J2EE deployments is notoriously difficult and over-provisioning is quite common. Hardware requirements depend on the number of applications deployed, the size and complexity of each application, application load patterns, and quality of service requirements. In addition, most J2EE applications experience significant fluctuations in workload on a daily, weekly, or seasonal basis, and hardware sized to handle peak loads will be underutilized during off-peak hours. Virtual Iron employs a bare-metal virtualization architecture that eliminates the provisioning steps required by existing solutions. Virtual servers are separate from the physical hardware creating the flexibility to respond to capacity changes without impacting the running application. Virtual servers are configured independent of the actual physical hardware, allowing instant migration without changes to SAN, VLAN, or impact to a running application Virtual Iron Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved

11 Virtual Iron supports policies that allow for automatic provisioning based on resource utilization or schedules. For example if a particular J2EE application is known to have a usage spike at a particular time of day, a policy can be specified to automatically re-provision resources from a lower-priority application for that time period. Virtual Iron also provides a central point of control for all physical and virtual computing resources. It combines an easy-to-use graphical interface with outof-the-box policies that maintain application performance and availability. SUPPORT FOR J2EE APPLICATION LIFECYCLE ACTIVITIES Enterprise J2EE deployments tend to change over time. New applications are added, existing applications are modified, and maintenance is performed on J2EE server installations. Corporate policy usually requires several phases in the process of rolling out a new version of an application, such as functional verification, performance testing, user acceptance testing, and final production deployment which may be performed incrementally. In the Virtual Iron environment, virtual server profiles for these stages can be maintained without requiring any hardware to be provisioned until it is needed. In the case of an incremental rollout, resources can be migrated incrementally from the old application environment to the new one. Virtual Iron provides the ability to manage library images to maintain consistency between environments and deploy all tiers at once. Template images speed the deployment of new servers and allow exact replication of issues between test and development. Development, test, and staging groups no longer have to wait for hardware. It is possible to create identical virtual hardware in seconds with the correct application and operating system provisioned. IMPROVED APPLICATION AVAILABILITY Virtual Iron provides complete hardware independence. In the Virtual Iron data center, J2EE applications may be migrated from one piece of hardware to another without interruption. This allows hardware maintenance and upgrade activities to occur without requiring application down time. In addition, Virtual Iron can automatically detect hardware failures and migrate applications over to failover resources, providing additional protection against application downtime. Virtualization allows disaster recovery facilities to have different hardware than primary data centers, reducing hardware costs. Virtual Iron also provides recoverability in the event of fatal system issues through warm or hot spare virtual computers. Virtual Iron provides high availability and disaster recovery with less hardware. Virtual Iron monitors a variety of general hardware failures on physical servers and switches, such as fans, power, and temperature using standards such as IPMI. Policies can take actions such as moving failing servers out of running virtual servers. If the server is removed prior to failure, there is no impact to application availability. Virtual Iron can automatically substitute a spare node and restart the virtual server. This results in momentary downtime equal to the time to reboot the computer. Virtualization allows the substitution on any server hardware without reconfiguring the operating system, storage, or network Virtual Iron Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved

12 CONCLUSION Virtual Iron offers a unique solution for data center management that provides maximum flexibility in applying computing resources to J2EE applications. Virtual Iron s complete hardware independence facilitates J2EE application provisioning and scaling. Policy-based management automates scalability and guarantees availability and recovery in the event of failures. Virtual Iron enables dramatic efficiency gains by returning the spare capacity that exists in over-provisioned production servers, and staging and testing servers, to a central pool. As a result, the pool of servers in the data center can be drastically reduced and still satisfy data center needs on-the-fly, without impacting running applications. This creates an immediate return on investment through lower hardware costs, fewer software licenses, and reduced data center space, power and cooling. In addition, Virtual Iron s policy-based management automates data center operations to allow staff to focus on more productive activities. With these capabilities, Virtual Iron enables companies to create and manage virtual data centers that minimize complexity, increase efficiency, maximize resource utilization and reduce cost of ownership to set a new benchmark for simplicity, flexibility, agility, availability, manageability and cost management Virtual Iron Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved

13 ABOUT VIRTUAL IRON Virtual Iron Software provides data center management and virtualization software. With these solutions, enterprises can dramatically reduce the cost and complexity involved with managing and operating their data centers. The software is designed for enterprise-class computing environments with hundreds of server, storage and network elements. Virtual Iron serves large organizations in financial services, government, health care, hosted services, manufacturing and retail. For more information, please visit Virtual Iron Software, Inc. 900 Chelmsford Street Tower I, Floor 2 Lowell, MA T F Virtual Iron Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved