Virtual Hosting Service (VHost)

Consistent with the mission of University Information Systems (UIS) to provide dependable and robust technology infrastructure services to the Harvard Community, UIS Network and Server Systems (NSS) has launched a Virtual Hosting (VHost) service. The service provides a virtual x86 architecture server with redundant connections to both network and storage resources running on a highly available VMware ESX server complex located in the 60 Oxford St. Data Center. The complex consists of four (4) identically configured, fully redundant servers sharing a common Vmware ESX configuration. Identically configured servers enable Vmware to automatically migrate guest processing to other Vmware servers in real-time should an ESX server exceed predefined utilization thresholds, experience a component failure, or be taken out of service for maintenance.

Benefits

• Improved Resource Utilization


• Are you deploying multiple physical servers because applications can’t co-exist on the same server? Are these servers typically underutilized? Are you buying more capacity than you normally need to accommodate periodic spikes in demand?


• Improved Availability through Built-in Redundancy


• Would you like your applications to enjoy higher availability by isolating them from hardware failure?


• Would your application experience an outage as a result of a hardware component failure or routine upgrade?


• Business Continuity for the masses


• Do you have applications that should have a disaster recovery image off-site but don’t, due to cost constraints?


• Improved Project Support, Faster deployments and Flexible Test Platforms


• Do you have pilot projects that you would like to complete but lack the necessary infrastructure resources?


• Do you have smaller applications requiring periodic upgrades or patching? Do you apply these to your production system because you can’t justify a test/development environment?


• Are you starting an implementation without good data on what size infrastructure you will need?


• Have a need for easily restoring an environment to a prior state perhaps for training environments or in lab settings?


• Captured and restored at the beginning of each class.


• If you apply changes to a production environment without the availability of a test enviroment are you worried that the last good env will not be able to be restored correctly or on a timely basis?


• Participation in the Harvard Green Initiative


• Virtual hosts consume no additional electricity/cooling


• Virtual hosts consume no physical space

If you answered “Yes” to one or more of these questions, a virtual hosting solution may be the answer. These VHost capabilities highlight the tremendous flexibility of a virtual environment and how it can support your efforts to more rapidly deliver robust IT solutions.

Click here to download a project status update and infrastructure diagrams.

Want more information?

To learn more about how Virtual Hosting might help you achieve your IT objectives, please contact the NSS Business Operations Group at nss-services@harvard.edu.