Data Center Relocations:

DynaCenter Automates Data Center Consolidation and Migration

Quality, Speed, Simplicity = Certainty

• DynaCenter significantly reduces the time, effort, complexity, and risk associated with moving applications.

• Increase Productivity via dramatic reduction in administrative effort to move complex applications.

• Shorten project time by automating the capture, testing, and migration of server images, significantly reducing the time to move your data center.

• Mitigates Risk and Reduces Errors through automation.

• Simplifies the Management with a single software tool that supports image capture and deployment for all of your platforms - Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and VMware environments.

• Control costs by supporting all your systems and applications - old, new, stand-alone, rack mount, blades, virtual machines. DynaCenter automatically adjusts the application image to work on new and different hardware; new server, network, and storage infrastructure.

Data center relocation and consolidation are some of the most logistically and technically challenging projects faced by IT professionals. Operational efficiencies, cost control, and service improvements are often the business drivers for undertaking such an expensive and risky project. The expected benefits to the company are at risk due to the sheer complexity and scale of getting hundreds of inter-related applications to work together again in a different location with potentially different hardware, networks and storage.

Labor intensive. Simply capturing and restoring an image will not work in cases where the image remains configured for the old hardware. Traditionally, moving a large number of servers involves several manual, repetitive tasks. Errors are often introduced during the installation and configuration of the operating system, applications, network, and storage for conversion to the target site. Once moved, diagnosing errors can be a monumental task.

Complex. Each component of the environment must be configured properly for the applications to work together again in the new operating environment. Many applications have point-in-time dependencies, such as batch jobs and periodic uploads, that are not discovered until after the move; rendering the application inoperative.

Costly. Since many of these issues are not evident until far down the migration path, most large projects are more costly than originally estimated.

Risky. Manual processes and reconfigurations are prone to errors. An incorrect configuration of an application or network setting can be difficult to find and fix, introducing delays and added cost to the project. Should the source system be unavailable to compare after the move, the application may be rendered inoperative.

How DynaCenter Works for Data Center Relocation:

DynaCenter Captures the Images

DynaCenter Uses the Image Capture and Migration System (ICMS) The ICMS capture software analyzes a server, copies its operating system and application program files, saves all configuration settings, and archives the file system structure. The information is saved to an external storage device, such as a USB or FireWire hard drive, or over the network to either the DynaCenter or NFS server storage. The capture software runs directly from a bootable CD or remotely over the network.

DynaCenter Migrates the Captured Images

Modify and deploy images to work in a new environment with the touch of a button.

Migrate images with low risk. Import images by connecting the external storage device to the DynaCenter Virtualization Server (DVS) or copy the images to a central repository. A single click will then import all (or a selected set) of the images, creating a deployment template for each. The deployment template shows you the image’s previous configuration settings and allows you to modify:

• The image layout on storage:

  • Configure boot directly from DAS, Fibre Channel, iSCSI or NAS

  • The system types and sizes

• Network configuration:

  • Number of NICs

  • Network addresses and host names

  • VLANs, Load balancing groups, etc.

• Access to external storage:

  • Remote mount points on NAS

  • Connections to LUNs on SAN

  • Layout of any logical volumes

  • Zones

DynaCenter Tests the Images

• Automatically adjust for physical server differences

• Adjust for network differences

• Adjust for storage differences

• Codify recovery priorities, policies, and security

DynaCenter manages the reconfiguration of the application image to match target infrastructure requirements.

Automated Staged Migration allows you to migrate, test, manage patches, and verify your applications without impacting your production environment. Create two templates, one for your staging environment and one for production.

• Assign an application image to a new server,
  blade, or virtual machine in the staging environment. DynaCenter will restore the file systems as you specified and allow you to modify the server hardware, network, and storage configurations to match your new environment.

• After verifying the application within the staging environment, use the second template to automatically move it into production.

Rapidly testing new configuration settings is easier than ever before: store multi-tiered configurations as sets, then clone, modify, and test at will.

DynaCenter Deploys the Images

• Automated start-up

• Automated policy/rules capture for failover, high availability and recovery

• Automated network re-configuration

• Automated storage re-configuration

Deploy application images with speed and accuracy. Use DynaCenter to take images from Staging to Production with a single click. DynaCenter deploys the image in one step, completely configuring all infrastructure components and booting the application into the final production environment.

To find out more about how DynaCenter can assist in your data center move or consolidation needs, or for more information, email us at info@racemi,com or call (678) 302-1649.