Chackett Consulting

Lanier Worldwide, Inc.

Datalex Communications

Lanier Worldwide, Inc.

Background; Phase 1; Phase 2; Phase 3; Conclusion;

Background
The e-Business Solutions group within Lanier Worldwide came to
Chackett Consulting with a requirement to build out an entire systems infrastructure for their implementation of Blue Martini. Lanier had been working with Blue Martini for about a year, having implemented the application server on an existing infrastructure. This existing infrastructure was a very 'mainframe' type systems infrastructure, where a single, large server runs many applications. Blue Martini recommended to Lanier that they move to a typical n-tier applications infrastructure, with webservers, app servers, and database servers.

Blue Martini gave Lanier a basic server list and recommended server types and sizes to Lanier and suggested they implement the infrastructure as the basis for the new Blue Martini environment.

In the end, the hardware list included about 20 Sun servers, ranging from several Netra X1's for web servers, many 220 and 420R's. Several DDS4 external single tape drives, a monitor and keyboard, two server cabinets, and a Cyclades terminal server for remote console access.

Strapped for human resources, and not having all the knowledge in-house, they turned to Chackett Consulting to help them implement server recommendations from their application server vendor. Chackett Consulting developed a three phase plan for getting Lanier where they needed to be.

Phase I - Define and Acquire Hardware
Even though Blue Martini had developed a preliminary list of sun equipment to be acquired, there were many gaps that Lanier was expected to fill in. Things like SCSI cards, additional network cards, tape devices, monitors, external disk devices and other necessary items were not included in the list from BM. So Chackett Consulting went through the initial list, and completed the hardware list to include all the necessary components. Everything from network patch cables and power cords, to the server cabinets, mounting rails and SCSI cards were identified. All part numbers and descriptions were identified for everything from additional memory modules, additional CPU's to multiple power
supplies. Chackett Consulting additionally conducted a heat and power consumption design so that Lanier could communicate effectively with their Datacenter Operations staff regarding the impact of the new servers in their environment. This included power consumption (in watts, and volts) and heat requirements (in BTU).

Once we knew what we needed to order it was time to get it ordered. Chackett Consulting managed the process of communicating with various vendors to get multiple quotes from multiple vendors for all the equipment. We got quotes for all new equipment, all used equipment, and quotes for a combination of new and used. Finally we identified the right vendor, got the PO from Lanier, and placed the order. The final stage of the hardware acquisition is to get it to the datacenter and take an inventory. Chackett Consulting received the equipment at the Lanier datacenter and unboxed everything, took and inventory, and matched up packing slips, with part numbers and the original order to make sure that everything we ordered was shipped.

Phase II - Assemble and Rack Servers
Now that we knew we had all the right parts it was time to assemble the hardware and get it into the racks. Approximately 20 Sun machine and 4 Disk arrays were purchased and now needed to be installed into the cabinets. Chackett Consulting is very familiar with racking full cabinets, and always uses best practices for both safety and optimum utilizations of space, putting the heavy disk arrays in the bottom of the cabinet and light Netra webservers at the top.

During the phase of the project, Chackett Consulting worked very closely with the Datacenter Manager to ensure that proper power was pulled for these cabinets, and multiple circuits were requested for redundancy. Virtually all the servers installed have dual power supplies, and each supply was placed on different circuits for increased availability in the event of a power interruption. With all the power pulled and the servers installed in the rack, power was applied to all the servers, and an initial 'burn-in' was conducted for all the devices.

Phase III - OS and FileSystem Layout
It's finally time to install and configure the Operating System on all the machines. Lanier network services folks supplied network information such as IP address, default gateway, subnet mask, and DNS server, and Chackett Consulting, installed and configured all the servers according the Lanier specifications. Of course all Solaris core and recommended patches were applied as part of this process. With the operating system installed, the internal disks were mirrored with DiskSuite for protection against OS disk failure. All the database machines in this new environment were connected to a D1000 storage array, and using recommendations from both Blue Martini, and Oracle technical documents, Chackett Consulting built multiple filesystems on the Array and presented them to the servers for Oracle. It's critical at this stage to consider the layout of the filesystems for optimizing IO performance and minimizing disk contention, considering redo logs, archive logs, temp, system, and data table spaces.

Conclusion
In the end, this new project increased performance in the application, the e-Business Solutions group cam out looking great with a successful project completed. Chackett Consulting worked hand in hand with Lanier through every step of the implementation of their infrastructure. While every project has snags and stumbling blocks, Chackett Consulting is there to help you overcome anything that comes your way.