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Server Management in Datacenters
Managing a large number of servers, clients and users on a Microsoft platform based datacenter becomes quite easy when you use the WbH and HMC solutions
Vinod Unny, Enterprise InfoTech
Saturday, September 06, 2008
One major aspects of datacenters is manageability of servers and services on
them. Many ISPs, even today, rely on manual steps to perform routine management
tasks. However, for a datacenter having Microsoft servers, there is a better
option available for you to manage it.
Microsoft offers two solutions to manage your servers and services - one for
Windows-based Hosting (WbH) and the other for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration
(HMC). Both perform almost similar actions but target different parts of the
Microsoft hosting scenarios.
WbH targets services comprising Web Servers (IIS 6/7), database servers (SQL
Server 2005/2008), and Web portal services (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)
while HMC targets Exchange 2007, SharePoint 2007 and Office Communication Server
2007.
So what do the solutions mean to you and how can you use them? At the basic
level, both consist of a number of different components providing number of
services for managing the datacenter. Refer to the block diagram for the
components and their explanations below.
The components are common for both WbH and HMC, however, the scripts and
tools that exist in each solution works with the targeted set of services only.
Let's have a look at these components?
ADS: ADS short for Automated Deployment Services is a Windows
component that allows administrators to quickly deploy multiple Windows servers
over the network with any custom configuration. Using ADS you can set up base
images – including any application and configuration you want and then register
them with the ADS. To deploy servers, all you need is to connect them to your
internal network and turning them on. You will then be prompted about which
image to install and once you do so, all the servers will get installed over the
network in a matter of minutes rather than hours or days you you would require
otherwise.
Active Directory: This allows you to perform centralized management of
your servers, services, configuration, policies and users. By adding the servers
into an Active Directory based network, you can easily set up policies for
different classes of servers, setup, deploy software and configure them,
centrally manage users, their services, rights and much more.
MPS: This stands for Microsoft Provisioning Service and is used to
provision different services on different servers. For instance, you can use MPS
to create organizations (clients), users, Web sites, databases, SharePoint
portals, Exchange mailboxes, DNS information etc. on different servers – all
from a single interface. The MPS itself comes with a sample Asp.Net based
website where both the datacenter administrators and the administrator of an
organization can login to manage settings. The datacenter administrator can of
course administer all the organizations that are present in the Active
Directory, view and manage all the services. When the organization administrator
logs in to the same website, he will have options to add users in his
organization only and mange them. This enables the organization administrator to
perform the day-to-day tasks and the datacenter administrator to perform the
server and service level tasks. MPS is probably the most important feature of
these solutions and is a great value adds to have in terms of data center
manageability.
MOM: This is the erstwhile Microsoft Operations Manager, now renamed
to System Center Operations Manager. With this, you can have a one-stop point to
monitor and get detailed statistics of each of your servers and services.
This is done by having a small agent installed on each server that receives a
query about details to retrieve from the server it is on. It then runs the query
on the server and returns the result to the centralized MOM setup. This then
shows you a summarized view which you can drill down into to get detailed
information.
WSUS: The Windows Server Update Services is the tool by which you can
ensure that your servers are running updated versions of all components. Instead
of having each server go to the Internet and download patches, the WSUS server
does this for you. Each server can then contact the WSUS server to download
required patches. Another advantage you get is that you can first test and
validate each patch for your network in a test lab scenario before approving
them for deployment. You can even create exception groups.
So how does one go about setting all this up? First of all you need to
download the WbH or HMC solution from Microsoft's site – these solutions are
available for free. You will also need a server (or more, depending on the load
you plan) to host the solution. The server will require Windows Server 2003 or
2008, and SQL Server 2005 or 2008 on it.
If you plan to use monitoring service (MOM), you will need to purchase that
as well. These components are the only paid products you need, the rest of the
solution consists of components that are built into Windows or available as a
free download.
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You will need to install these components on the infrastructure servers you
have designated. Once installed, you an now use the solution to deploy new
servers, provision new services, organizations, users, plans and subscriptions
and even give your end users a 'control panel' from where they can manage their
own or organization's settings themselves. You will be able to get detailed
statistics on the servers and services uptimes and keep the servers up to date.
In terms of productivity too this will help a lot. Let's take a couple of
typical scenarios to see how WbH and HMC can actually make your datacenter much
more productive.
Case 1: If you're a hosting service provider for Websites and
databases, you will have a space on your site for clients can see different
hosting plans you have. Once a user choose and sign up a plan for it, the
datacenter team needs to create a DNS entry for the new domain, allocate space
on a Web server, create a new virtual directory and assign it to this space,
create a new user for this site, create a new FTP site for this user, setup a
new database for this user, provision his control panel and then send him a
welcome mail with all of this.
Instead of this, if you have WbH installed, all that needs to be done for an
administrator is to fill in a simple Web based form that will go and do all of
the above at a single click of the submit button - all without errors or missing
a step or manual intervention.
Case 2: A client wants a new Exchange based hosting to be set up. If
you're using HMC, you can quickly deploy a new server using ADS, create the
organization in active directory, setup DNS and provision mailboxes according to
the service plan selected – all within minutes of receiving the order. Once
done, the administrator can login and manage his mailboxes from a simple Web
based control panel which takes the day-to-day management of the mailboxes away
from the datacenter administrator allowing himto be more productive in other
areas.
Overall, the WbH and HMC solutions are an essential add-on to your
infrastructure if you are managing Microsoft based platforms in your datacenter.
These solutions are targeted primarily at hosting service providing companies
and large datacenter management scenarios and can really help in increasing
productivity and management of these. Page(s) 1
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