Migrating Your Server to the Cloud

Evolution

Evolution In the beginning there were mainframe computers. Computer programs ran on the mainframe and users accessed information from text based access terminals or card readers. The mainframe was a mystical beast, its inner workings guarded by a phalanx of grumpy computer gods in white coats.

Life was not fun.

The invention of the personal computer (PC) released mankind from the tyranny of mainframes and the rigid guardians of data.

"What should we do with this new freedom," we asked? Frankly, we didn't know. But life was definitely cooler with PCs.

In time we figured out that local computing coupled with the right software was, indeed, liberating. We developed spreadsheets and notes and schedulers and lots of cool stuff. We lived free.

Paradise would not last long. Soon, we realized that a wealth of information was spread out willy-nilly around the office. The invention of viruses and worms and the occasional spilled coffee mug ruined everything.

Nobody wanted to go back to the hated mainframe so we got together and invented mini-mainframes called servers. We agreed to keep important data on the server but got to keep the fun stuff at our desks. It wasn't paradise but we could live with the compromise.

We thrived, the Internet blossomed and stuff got really cheap and massively interconnected thanks to Moore's Law.

Funny thing though, the servers started looking like mainframes again. We learned a new term: Information Technology (IT) professional. We didn?t like them either.

It is time to rebel again.

The Problem

The number of servers has grown many-fold in the past two decades. We cannot train enough IT professionals to handle the servers we have. If an IT professional shows promise, we make him a manager and start training the next guy.  Moore's Law: "The density of transistors on computer chips will double every two years."

We need more IT professionals every day to handle the explosive penetration of computing in the workplace. This is driven by economics; if a company does not automate then it cannot compete against those who do. As the use of servers expanded, cheaper systems were sought. We reduced costs dramatically by using cheap PCs and refitting them for server work.

This strategy backfired. The new server economics drove more-and-more servers to ever more remote locations in the global computing web.

Now we ask Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants and other non-technical folks to manage servers. They stick these servers into overheated closets, under desks and into other places full of mischief.

Case Study: Doctor Smith

If you ask a doctor with a private practice what a server is, don't be surprise that he knows the answer. He purchased a server when he bought his Electronic Health Record (EHR) software when he opened up his practice. He uses his suite of EHR tools and its integrated Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software to keep track of his patients, write scripts, keep notes, and bill for his services.

He would have forgotten about the server if it had just stayed out of his way but it kept screaming for his attention. So he hired an IT guy from Fly-by-Night IT Outsource, LLC. He shells out between about $500 - $2,500 every month so the server will stop complaining. He never knows really how much that bill will be, and when he gets it, it simply says;The bill says: "Site visit - 2 hours."

What he doesn't know could break his heart someday. His data is rarely backed up. He was told to put a new tape into the server every night and put the old one in the fire safe. He doesn't remember to do that very often. Doctor Smith is a busy man; he cures the sick and comforts the dying. He didn't sign up to be an IT geek.

Lightening, a disk head crash, fire, water, or that ever present spilled coffee mug is waiting, waiting.

Even if Dr. Smith's staff performed diligent backups it is highly likely they never tried a full restoration. Frankly, it is too frightening to test a server restore because they would have to wipe the server disk clean to restore the server. That's pretty scary so people comfort themselves that they are protected when they may not be.

Do you have backups? Have you ever tested them? Will they work when you need them too?

What is Important After All?

Good question.

Desktop computing is important. It has revolutionized the corporate world and will be here for the foreseeable future. But do we care about installing software? Hooking up wires? Purging print queues? That's not important, that is a nuisance. That's why Doctor Smith pays someone else to do it.

The current amount of global data storage was estimated to be 161 exabytes in 2006 and is expected to grow to 988 exabytes by 2010. That's a lot of zeros. Eighteen zeros to be exact. A lot of this data resides on servers.

How do we fix this? The answer is to remove the software and server from Dr. Smith's office and put it in a place where it can be pampered and protected.

This is where we come in: ClearData Networks provides a HIPAA guaranteed compliant, secure, and hardened data center where Dr. Smith's server can be sent for safe keeping.

The people in our data center will load and maintain the Dr. Smith's operating system without bothering with details. They will install his applications and encrypt his data so only authorized people can see it. The data center will also -unbeknownst to him- mirror his data and server so if it fails he won't even know he had a problem. It just stays up!

ClearData Networks will backup his data and make sure it is restorable in case something terrible happens. They will keep his server's backup files in a safe place (another data center) on the other side of the country just to be cautious.

To his employees, nothing will change. They will still enter patient data at their desktops, scan files and store them for later use, send bills to the insurance companies, call patients to remind them they have an appointment next Tuesday. Nothing changes except Dr. Smith's liability and risk.

Serendipitous Convergence

Some very smart people anticipated this trend of server consolidation and planned for it years ago by building infrastructure to support dense computing in hardened data centers.

Moore's Law was not repealed. The cost of computing and storage has continued to halve about every two years.

They applied Moore's economic leverage to the data center instead of continuing to make faster servers just to scatter them hither and yon until complexity collapsed the model upon us all.

The newest data center's, like those at ClearData Networks are built upon an exceedingly robust computing architecture based on Virtual Computing.

In a nutshell, Virtual Computing allows ClearData to pool thousands of physically small but powerful servers (many times faster then Dr. Smith's server) into a shared collection of ubiquitous servers that can host any number of different operating systems and applications. If a server fails the software automatically grabs another one and recovers, no humans involved.

Similarly, ClearData uses Virtual Disk storage in a vast sea of disks managed as one shared pool. In the process of storing Dr. Smith's data, it was automatically copied multiple times to many disks spread out in an array of disks. If a disk fails, you can take it off line and replace it with a spare. The extra copies of your data that we spread out on other disks will allow us to keep you up and running without a hiccup.

This is a picture of an HP ProLiant G6 Server chasis. This small box contains 16 half-height server blades. Each blade can house two processor chips and each chip can have up to six independent x86 CPUs. This means we can put 16x2x6=192 CPUs (think PCs) in one chasis and we can put up to four chasis in a single rack (that's 768 PC's in a single rack).

We group Virtual Computers and Virtual Disks into large pools of computing and storage assets. This pooling reduces our footprint over traditional blade servers by a factor of 17-1. We use far less power, spend less money and increase our usage density. These facts are meaningless to you except for one key point. Our virtual architecture gives us economic leverage that allows us to lower our costs and pass those savings on to you. You increase your server performance, reduce your business risk and lower your costs when you use ClearData Networks' HIPAA guaranteed compliant services.

Baby Steps

Sounds good right? So, how do we get that server into the data center safely?

ClearData starts by setting up a server mirror at it's datacenter to copy the premise server by taking a snap-shot of its information and then running software that will keep the two servers in sync from there on.

We delivered a custom premise Internet router to replace the old router when we installed the mirror software on Dr. Smith's server. This router has a secondary wireless Internet connection to augment Dr. Smith's current Internet access and provide redundant connectivity. This router also does special things like provide encrypted Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to provide secure and dedicated access between Dr. Smith's office and ClearData's data center. ClearData will manage the router for Dr. Smith so he doesn't have to.

Dr. Smith could stop there if he wanted to. The ClearData maintained server mirror provides him an on-line and fast recovery backup to his server and his data.

After a period of time has past where we make sure therey are no problems with the mirroring process, we scheduled a time to shut down his server and let the mirrored server run things for a while. During this transition period we leave his original server in place and ready to be fired back up. Just in case.

During this trial period ClearData creates another mirrored server (live backup) to back up his original mirrored server at the data center. When we shut down the premise server at Dr. Smith's office we already have a spare ready to go. Just in case.

When ClearData mirrored the server we also began automated backups of Dr. Smith's server from the mirror. While this transitioning was taking place, ClearData used a third mirrored server to perform a mock restore with the backup copy of the server to make sure that restorations using ClearData's backups actually work. We can do this because we can mirror a server as many times as we want. The production data was never touched in this restoration test. Just in case.

After a break-in period Dr. Smith tells us he is ready to get rid of his old server.

At any point along this time-line we can stop and go back to where Dr. Smith started. He can reboot his original server and be back and running in minutes.

The staging of this process and its risk reduction methodology is possible because of Virtual Computing.

Return on Investment

Remember when we told you that Dr. Smith was spending between $500 and $2,500 each month just to keep his server up? Now Dr. Smith knows exactly what he pays, and when he needs to pay it. He doesn't have to worry about that spike in his bill because a ?trip charge? turned a little more expensive because Fly By Night IT Services LLC forgot a power supply for the one that burned up in the closet. He can use the extra dollars spent on that extra charge for a trip to Best Buy for a new Scripts module for his EMR system, if that's what he needs. He?s free again. He can once again focus on saving caring for the sick.

Summary

Server migration is painless and nearly risk free when done in partnership with ClearData Networks. When the transition is complete the Doctor's data is in far safer hands, backed up and provably restorable.

Contact us today.

info@cleardata.net
602.635.4000

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