VMWare and Netapp consultant in DC, Baltimore, Columbia, Frederick, and Rockville MD
In this article
We install and configure Netapp Disk Shelves and VMWare vCenter and ESXi for small and medium businesses in Maryland and DC.
(more about VMWare and virtualization later in this article!)
Netapp installation, integration, and maintenance
Kieri Solutions endorses Netapp products because they are designed to be highly available and have several options for nearly instantaneous data recovery.
We think Netapp snapshot technology is incredible. When used in combination with VMWare virtual machines, the snapshots can back up servers at any frequency (seconds, minutes, hours, and days) with minimal storage use. Recovery is as fast as a mouse-click. With our procedures, testing, and best-practice configurations, you can restore your failed server within a minute.
In our experience, de-duplication storage savings are between 50% and 80%. This means more data per disk, automatically. And the performance is excellent. Our clients typically have < 2 ms disk access rates, which is well below the 10ms “noticable” latency benchmark.
We have experience setting up SnapMirror and SnapVault to perform replication for disaster recovery. These technologies automatically transfer system snapshots to other Netapps, either at the same site, or remote.
VMWare upgrades, maintenance, and support
Kieri Solutions staff have been managing VMWare upgrades, installs, support, and maintenance since 2008.
We are experts at migrating to vCenter and vSphere ESXi 5.5 , 6.0, 6.5, and 6.7. We have performed many upgrades and have the process well tested and documented.
vCenter and vSphere 5.5 are END OF LIFE.
VMWare is no longer supporting them.
It is time to upgrade to 6.5 or 6.7!
We integrate VMWare and related technologies in the DC and Maryland area
- VMWare: vCenter, vSphere, vSAN, Horizon View
- Virtual switches, distributed switches, VMWare NSX
- HYPER-V and other virtualization technologies
- High-availability solutions
- iSCSI
- Fibre Channel (FC)
- Dedicated storage switches
- Netapp disk shelves, controllers and snapshots
- Hardware upgrades to 10gbps networking
- Other SAN and NAS solutions such as Synology, Windows NAS, hyperconverged storage, vSAN, HP 3PAR, HP StoreOnce, Dell EMC
- Veeam Backup and Restore
- HP, Dell, Fujitsu servers
We combine SAN skills with expert VMWare knowledge
If you are using VMWare, you should make sure your SAN consultant understands how to connect the systems together.
SAN configurations and provisioning is extremely risky to operations. Performing the wrong action in either VMWare datastore setup or in the SAN management can cause a loss of data.
We have a proven track record of adding, maintaining, and troubleshooting VMWare datastores of all technologies such as Fibre Channel, Windows-based NAS, hyper-converge, vSAN, and iSCSI.
While we are upgrading your storage (making all your virtual servers much faster and giving them breathing room), we can also upgrade your vCenter and vSphere servers to 6.5 or 6.7, or upgrade your server hardware. If you are still operating on 1gbps network links in your data center, a very cost-effective project is upgrading the network links to 10gbps between your hosts and storage. This removes the most common bottleneck for virtual servers and can increase performance by 500%.
Why choose us to install or configure your servers or SAN?
We have the experience with VMWare and other virtualization technologies (HYPER-V, etc) needed to design and integrate your full solution.
Before considering a big-name install, make sure you ask whether they will connect your data switch to your hosts, create volumes, connect them to vCenter, migrate your virtual machines, and verify the recovery options are functional. Most install packages offered by big-name companies only include generic installation steps like racking and assigning a few network addresses. They leave the risky steps to your staff.
In comparison, Kieri Solutions will work with you to create a detailed plan to reach the end-goal. We will schedule any planned or potential downtime with you to reduce user impact. If you have a change management process, we will follow it – if you don’t, we still go through the common sense steps of risk management, documentation, and communication. Once the project is complete, we will provide configuration management information and training so that you have full control of your own system.
We are local, and will be available to support in the future.
When you fly in a consultant from a big name company, you will probably never meet that person again. In contrast, once we have performed a project for you, we stand by our work and will respond if you have problems later on. We will also remember you and your network – you won’t be starting from scratch with us.
Our rates are typically half that of a big-name company.
Since we don’t need to fly our employees around, and because we have a smaller footprint, we don’t need to charge crazy rates. We will be glad to give you a no-risk estimate.
Recent Netapp and VMWare projects near Columbia MD, Baltimore, Rockville MD, Gaithersburg, DC, Frederick, and Columbia MD
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Physical to Virtual (P2V) migration of SAGE accounting server to VMware.
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Migration of virtual machines from Linux KVM (a free virtualization product) to VMWare vCenter and vSphere.
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Linux KVM to VMWare migration of 20+ servers.
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Install security patches, firmware, and operating system configurations to mitigate SPECTRE / MELTDOWN L1 vulnerabilities.
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Engineered and built multiple enterprise-class vCenter, vSphere and NSX clusters with fiber channel storage switches, VLANs, distributed virtual switches, high security design (military), and Netapp SAN with multi-site failover.
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Set up disaster recovery best practices using Netapp. Test ability to recover virtual machines using SnapRestore within 1-2 minutes.
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vCenter and vSphere ESXi upgrades from 5.5 to 6.5 and 6.7
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Install Netapp AFF8080 as the core storage for a VMWare datacenter running 40+ virtual servers and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure with Horizon View. Also built the VMWare datacenter and NSX infrastructure as part of this project.
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Install Netapp FAS2554 filers as secondary (on site) and tertiary (off-site) recovery using SnapMirror and SnapVault technology.
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Install Netapp FAS2552 filer. Install new 10gbs network to replace low-performance 1gbps links. Upgraded hosts, network switches, and VMware as part of this project. Migrated virtual machines to Netapp storage, decreasing disk latency from ~150ms to ~2ms.
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Upgrade / refresh server hardware used for VMWare and Microsoft’s Hyper-V
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Maintenance and support for Netapp products, including disk replacement, firmware upgrades, creating storage containers, and monitoring disk use.
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Install Netapp DS2446 disk shelf for additional storage, connect to VMWare hosts, load-balance VMs, and set up snapshot recovery procedures for instant VM restores.
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Training for in-house staff on how to perform Netapp tasks such as provisioning storage for a new VM, performing health checks, and emergency restores.
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Installation of Veeam Availability Suite and creation of disaster recovery site using HP StoreOnce and HP 3PAR SAN.
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Training for in-house staff on how to maintain their VMWare systems. Proper use and the dangers of VMware snapshots, performing health and performance checks, and migrating / failover for hardware maintenance.
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Disaster recovery of a failed HYPER-V 2012 server and guest VMs.
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Backup and disaster recovery preparation for HYPER-V
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