aws webcast - neudesic data centermigrationtoaws

Windows Server 2003 End of Support

Datacenter Migration to AWS

Jason Masterman

[email protected]

© Copyright 2014, Neudesic. All rights reserved. 2

Agenda

• What is so important about July 14, 2015?

• Windows Server 2003 support availability?

• Mitigation and migration options

• Strategies in detail

• Additional considerations

• Questions


July 14, 2015

• What happens on 7/14/2015?

• Windows Server 2003 extended support ends

• This is old news:

• Mainstream support ended July 13, 2010

• Extended support started two years ago


What is the Scope of the Problem?

• Industry analysts estimate there are roughly 12 million WS2003 servers running

• Some analysts believe this number may be twice this size!

• 75% of organizations surveyed:

• Have not migrated and do not have a plan in place to migrate


What does EOS Really Mean?

• No security updates

• 37 critical updates were released in 2013 for Windows Server 2003/R2 under Extended Support. No updates will be developed or released after end of support.

• No regulatory compliance

• lack of compliance with various standards and regulations can be devastating. In some industries, this may result in fines being levied on organizations.

• No application support

• Many applications will also cease to be supported, once the operating system they are running on is unsupported. This includes all Microsoft applications


What about Custom Support

Contracts?

• Yes, Microsoft offers custom support contracts

• But…

• Contracts can only be obtained with a migration plan in place

• Must show process to move away from platform and timeline

• Companies can’t just keep writing checks to extend support

• May be very $$$$

• Compliance issues while running on unsupported OS

• Not a long term solution


Running Post EOS?

• Many organizations are starting too late in the game

• No way to realistically migrate everything before EOS

• What to do?

• Prioritize all applications and servers, with emphasis on those that pose the greatest risk to the business should they fail and be unsupported.

• Determine a series of options, best practices and plans to migrate the highest risk applications first. No single plan will work for all scenarios, take advantage of all options.

• Start implementing the plan as quickly as possible to minimize the amount of exposure and risk posed to the business.

© Copyright 2014, Neudesic. All rights reserved.

What’s the best Approach?

8


Build a Plan First

• Discover the systems and applications in place

• Assess the risk for each server/application

• Determine business function and critical applications

• Compliance requirements, etc.

• Then RANK them in order of importance/priority

• Target the new platform

• hardware, cloud, virtualization, etc.

• Migrate the systems in priority order


Mitigate or Migrate?

• Ultimately, need a plan for both!

• Some applications simply can’t be migrated, retired, sunset, in time…

• These we need to mitigate the risk!

• Other applications MUST be migrated for compliance, and support reasons

• These we need to migrate, but what approach?


Mitigating Strategies

• The fundamental premise is:

• Every server can’t be addressed in time…

• Purchase a custom support agreement

• Then continue to migrate off of the platform.

• Isolate the servers from other servers in your data center

• Add additional monitoring

• Sunset existing applications if possible

• Leave the servers running, take no immediate action

• But HAVE A PLAN so when something causes the application to fail implement a pre-defined plan at that point in time.

• Find replacement applications


Migration Strategies

5 Key Strategies:

1. Windows Server Installation Upgrade

2. New Server Hardware Migration

3. Cloud Migration

4. Physical to Virtual

5. Virtual to Virtual


Windows Server Installation Upgrade

• Basic steps:

• Uninstall the application from the existing WS2003 Server(required per Microsoft guidelines)

• Upgrade the OS to a more recent version of Windows Server

• Install and configure application on new OS

• Supported Paths:

• Common challenge

• Finding support media to perform new installation of older application

From WS2003 (SP2,R2) To WS 2008 R2

Datacenter Datacenter

Enterprise Enterprise or Datacenter

Standard Standard, or Enterprise

Note: No direct path from 2008 to 2012 supported!


New Hardware Migration

• Basic steps:

• Procure new hardware (often a challenge or time constraint)

• Spin up a new server with desired version of OS

• Install application on new server

• Apply configuration details to new installation

• Common challenges:

• Procuring the hardware in time

• Availability of application installation media

• Specific configuration details unknown or not written in detail anywhere


Hardware Considerations

• With WS 2003 32/64 bit support:

• 32-bit supported

• 64-bit Intel Itanium

• NO x64 support (most common platform today!)

• Windows Server 2008 and 2012

• Windows 2008 supported all modes 32-bit, x64, Itanium

• Windows Server 2012 only supports x64

• Microsoft had published a variety of known issues


Application Consideration - Tools

• “Application Considerations When Upgrading to Windows Server 2008 R2”

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff972309(v=ws.10).aspx

• “Migrate Roles and Features to Windows Server”

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134039.aspx

• “Install, Use, and Remove Windows Server Migration Tools”

• http://technet.microsoft.com/library/jj134202

• “Windows and Windows Server compatibility cookbook: Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012”

• http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=27416

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff972309(v=ws.10).aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj134039.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/library/jj134202

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=27416


Physical to Virtual

• Basic steps:

• Leverage virtual technology from preferred vendor to convert physical machine to virtual machine

• Move virtual image to virtual server farm

• Test application on new server

• Considerations:

• Doesn’t migrate off of existing OS

• Cloud Options:

• Can move/convert virtual image to AWS

• Run on virtual environment until migrated

• Spin down old VM as a backup/historical copy once migrated

• Create repository of VM images


Virtual to Virtual

• Basic steps:

• Move virtual image to new virtual server farm

• May export/import into AWS

• Test application on new server

• Considerations:

• Doesn’t migrate off of existing OS

• Cloud Options:

• Can move/convert virtual image to AWS

• Run on virtual environment until migrated

• Spin down old VM as a backup/historical copy once migrated

• Create repository of VM images


An Automated Approach

• There are tools that can package up an existing application to be migrated

• The packaged application can be deployed anywhere!

• AppZero - https://www.appzero.com

https://www.appzero.com/


Automating Application Migration

• Identification of application components via discovery on the source server

• Extraction of application files, components and dependencies

• Encapsulation into a Virtual Application Appliance (VAA)

• Copy/deploy application to target machine, but maintain VAA

• While application is running on the target machine if a file is needed that is not part of the VAA a connection is maintained to the source machine and the requested file is extracted and brought into the VAA

• Once the application has been tested and is running without any further file requests the VAA package can be dissolved leaving the application installed on the target machine just as if it was natively installed.

• The application now runs natively on the target machine

• If needed the application could again be packaged back into a VAA and moved to another server


Cloud Migration - Planning

• Planning for effective migration to the cloud requires understanding of key factors:

• Security

• AMI types

• Sizing considerations

• Scaling up/down

• Disk storage needs

• Resource usage and cost

• Connectivity


Cloud Migration - The Security

Question

• Must answer this question before organizations will consider moving to the cloud!

• For many this has already been answered and no longer a question of ‘if it’s secure?’

“The AWS cloud infrastructure has been architected to be one of the most flexible and secure cloud computing environments available today. It provides an extremely scalable, highly reliable platform that enables customers to deploy applications and data quickly and securely.”

• See:

• http://aws.amazon.com/security/

• http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/

• http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/soc-faqs/

http://aws.amazon.com/security/

http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/

http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/soc-faqs/


Cloud Migration - Sizing Mistakes

• Like for like hardware request?

• On-prem sizing is based on maximum utilization needs

• Example:

• Peek utilization is only 2 hours a day

• But need 64MB RAM, 8 CPU’s, etc.

• Purchased excess capacity as required for 2 out of 24 hours a day

• Office only utilizes servers 10 hours/day

• 14 hours mostly idle, but running

• Cloud sizing

• Based on utilization based model

• Don’t pay for idle time


Cloud Migration - Scaling

Considerations?

• Application pricing benefits from scale on demand model

• Look at ways to scale server load with demand

• Scale down as demand decreases

• Even consider shutting down when not in use

• Many instance types available based on type of application need – memory, cpu, iops

• Often better to spin up/down additional smaller instances than one big instance running all the time


Cloud Migration - Resource Usage

and Cost?

• Amazon monthly calculator tools very helpful

• http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html

• Many different factors to look at

• Amazon will help you reduce your bill!

• On-demand, reserved, spot pricing

• Additional 3rd party tools available to help size correctly

• For example: http://www.cloudamize.com/

http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html

http://www.cloudamize.com/


Cloud Migration - Connectivity

• Two models

• AWS VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)

• A virtual network that the user defines

• Launch instances inside the VPC

• AWS Direct Connect

• A dedicated network connection from your on-prem to AWS

• Can reduce costs, improve performance, consistent connection


Cloud App Migration

• As easy as:

• Configure VPC, network settings

• Select your Windows Server AMI type

• WS2008, WS2012

• Select best instance type

• Start the instance

• Install your application onto cloud instance

• Test solution

• Release


Summary

• Looked at importance of July 14, 2015?

• Explained support options for WS2003

• Walked through mitigation and migration options

• Discussed various strategies in detail

• Additional considerations

• Questions

Questions?

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