Challenges

• Migration of existing legacy servers can be very challenging. Application running on them has to be migrated post cloud infrastructure setup without any business impact.
• Cloud configuration requires high level of technical expertise and troubleshooting skills for managing and sustaining IT infrastructure.

Results

• After the Cloud (IaaS) infrastructure deployment dependency on the legacy server is reduced, IT resources are consolidated, streamlined and it’s cost effective.

This Case study is to analyze the need and setup process of cloud environment for customer.

Situation

Small or large organizations alike need to consolidate and streamline resources so that they can focus on business growth rather than overspending on IT needs. Therefore, adopting a cloud solution becomes one of the most effective ways to achieve this goal.

A blade server is a stripped-down server computer with a modular design, and it optimizes the use of physical space and energy. Moreover, businesses can use blade servers effectively to set up a cloud environment, ensuring scalability and efficiency.

Action

In this section, we will discuss the setup process of blade hardware and how to build a cloud environment on top of it. To begin with, setting up blade server hardware requires installing the equipment in the datacenter, ensuring a redundant power supply, and connecting it to a high-speed network. In most cases, organizations accomplish this by collocating datacenter space for the blade servers.

Next, the setup process involves assembling key components such as the chassis, control blades, switch blades, platform (blade management software), processing blades, and management switch. Together, these elements form a complete blade server infrastructure, which provides the foundation for a scalable and reliable cloud environment.

 

Chassis Configuration

After the Cloud (IaaS) infrastructure deployment dependency on the legacy server is reduced, IT resources are consolidated, streamlined and it’s cost effective.

 

Management Switch

At this stage, the management switch connects the processing blades and the controller blades while also providing network connectivity. Administrators then install a fabric switch to present the Storage Area Network (SAN) through Fibre Channel. This setup enables efficient blade-to-blade communication and seamless storage integration, ensuring high availability and performance in a cloud-ready environment.

 

Control Blades

Furthermore, every blade manufacturer integrates control blades to manage individual processing blades and provide reliable network and storage links. Depending on infrastructure requirements, organizations present storage either through a Fibre Channel–based SAN connection or an iSCSI-based SAN connection. This flexibility allows businesses to choose the option that best balances performance, scalability, and cost efficiency.

 

Processing Blades

Processing blades provide users with CPU and memory resources for installing operating systems and applications. At this stage, administrators can also install Type 1 or Type 2 hypervisor software. After completing the hardware installation, administrators install and configure blade management software; for example, PAN Manager is a tool designed to manage blade server setups. PAN enables high availability and resource pooling across compute, I/O, network, and storage components. Once the hardware setup is complete, organizations can deploy the cloud environment on top of it.

 

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

IaaS offers physical machines and other resources, such as guest virtual machines. Pools of hypervisors within the cloud operational support system host large numbers of virtual machines and allow services to scale up or down based on customers’ requirements. In this case study, the IaaS setup uses ESXi as the backend (VMware’s hypervisor tool) and PCD (Pan Cloud Director from Egenera Inc.) as the frontend for managing the cloud environment. VMware ESXi hypervisors are Type 1 enterprise-grade hypervisors that run guest virtual servers directly on processing blades without requiring an additional operating system. To install ESXi, administrators use a bootable ISO that can include hardware-specific drivers from the blade manufacturer.

 

After installing ESXi, administrators install vCenter software to manage all hosts and configure high availability, which reduces the risk of downtime. At this stage, they also install PCD, either on a controller blade or on a standalone server running Red Hat Linux.

Next, administrators add hosts to PCD and pool resources such as firewalls, VLANs, and storage. Using its web-based interface, PCD enables IT teams to create dedicated environments for each department based on specific requirements.

When an administrator creates a virtual machine (VM), PCD automatically builds it in the backend and allocates the required resources. Administrators can then migrate legacy servers into the new VMs or install fresh applications on them.