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Server Management in Datacenters

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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