ZNDP 025 – Designing for Data Center Migration and Application Mobility with Malcolm Booden – Part 1

Demystifying The Roles, Network Community, Network Design, Podcast, ZNDP 2 comments

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Data Center Migration

Data Center Migration

Hey Friends, Nerds, and Geeks, we are back today with our Audio podcast show # 25 and its a Guest Expert show! My good friend Malcolm Booden from the UK Joined me in Jan for a discussion around Designing for Data Center Migration and Application Mobility.  We talk about a lot of different concepts, perspectives, and items to keep in mind in when you are going through an event like this.  Today is the first part of the discussion. So sit back, turn up the volume and enjoy the show!

Data Center Migrations

We are going to talk about data center design and more specifically design when migration of Data Center services either to a private or public cloud are considerations. What should you think about when performing a Data Center migration of any magnitude, and what is the thought process that has to come with such an initiative?

What is really involved in planning a Data Center migration. No matter what specific type of Data Center migration you’re performing, the main things to understand before you start the design are:

The Five Main items to Consider

  • Business drivers and constraints
  • Applications in scope
  • WAN topology
  • Traffic Flows (users and apps)
  • What is in place now?

Data Center Migrations vary in size and complexity

Data Center migrations can vary in size and complexity and be very different depending on what the objective is, but we can touch on a few different Data Center migration types and what may drive each of them:

  • First of all there’s different scope and scale of a Data Center migration depending on what is happening. Large scale migration of tens to hundreds or thousands of apps, or is an application being moved to a new location i.e. SAAS cloud, hosted etc.  For now, we are going to concentrate on “full” Data Center migrations where multiple apps need to be migrated.
  • New applications or services being deployed in a new Data Center for specific purpose i.e.
    • Cloud app, private cloud app
    • Micro-Clouds
    • Micro-Services
    • More of an application migration
  • Data Center migration could be replacing critical infrastructure such as the Data Center core switching architecture, like for like or to a different platform i.e. to new vendor or introducing an overlay to deliver Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) where applications are remaining unchanged.
  • Moving applications from one Data Center to another for one of the following reasons:
    • Relocation of office
    • Moving services offsite / colocation (space, power)
    • Managed service award to outsourcing company

Key Requirements and Drivers

  • Stand up applications or services in a new location
  • Acquisition and mergers, managed service outsources – Enterprise
  • End of existing managed service and moving to a new provider – Enterprise
  • New services being offered by a provider – MSP / ISP

Constraints and Challenges

  • Cost
  • Time to deploy / market
  • Skill sets available
    • In house staff
    • Outsourced
    • VAR availability

Other Items to consider

  • IP Addresses (PI and PA)
  • DNS
  • Switching
  • Firewalls
  • Remote Access
  • 2FA
  • Load Balancers / Local DNS Global (Anycast, DNS TTLs etc)
  • WAN connectivity (Overlay vs Native L3VPN etc)
  • WAN Performance / Optimization
  • Voice / Video and performance especially in global networks
  • New or Lift and shift applications – or both
  • Impact this migration has on addressing (Re-IP applications usually not feasible)
  • Normally IP addresses within code
  • Re-IP exercise may be completed to tidy up noncontiguous DC ranges and migration time may be best time to consider
  • Legacy applications which are sensitive to TCP drops require
    • Consider firewall clustering
    • Knock on effects of L2 stretched between sites
  • Ecommerce requirements, persistence etc for 24/7 services
  • Availability / downtime available
  • Layer 2 (or 3) DCI – whole show in itself!…….why we should or shouldn’t do L2 DCI, but how it can be achieved!

Software Defined Data Center (SDDC)

We are now beginning to enter the SDDC territory so the question is raised how and when do we migrate to software defined architecture and is it feasible for everyone?

Different Technology Options

Example: LISP + OTV – where OTV was the main requirement

How to route LISP using tunnels or redistribute into existing WAN routing protocol LISP Multihop with tunnels over WAN, Firewall in path between XTR and EID / FHRP router. Service Provider core had routing limit on number of routes in VRF where injecting large number of LISP host routes would have broken the network (potentially).  This is often the challenge – seeing what may happen if something is designed a certain way in advance.

Example: DNS load balancing such as F5 if the budget was available

Budget is most commonly the factor which plays into “being creative” – that said with something like a Data Center migration there is normally a decent budget for the purposes of that organization but requirements always come out of the woodwork within the project and it is when unexpected factors which cost money appear that is when you sometimes need to be creative.

It is about finding a balance between something that will deliver the solution required, but is also supportable.

The Term of the Show

  • Data Center Interconnect (DCI)

Call to Action:

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Hosted By: Michael “Zig” Zsiga

Guest Expert: Malcolm Booden

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2 comments

  1. Great stuff from you, man. Ive read your stuff before and youre just too awesome. I love what youve got here, love what youre saying and the way you say it. You make it entertaining and you still manage to keep it smart. I cant wait to read more from you. This is really a great blog.

    1. Hey Mark,

      Thanks for the comment and the feedback, appreciate it! Is there anything else you would like to see highlighted here? Any specific solution / topic that might help you?

      R/S
      Zig

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