Benefits & Features

• Benefits of Virtualization through VaaS
• Features of VaaS
• Tape Backup
• Disaster Recovery
• Service Pricing

Benefits of Virtualization through VaaS

• It's Green! Save on Power, Space, and Cooling With using virtual servers from VaaS, units no longer utilize the physical space, power, and cooling in their current location. Virtualization offers reduced consumption of power and cooling and saves money too!



• Enterprise solutions at a low cost VaaS offers enterprise caliber servers, network, and storage at a much lower cost to units than if purchased separately.



• Scalability and Flexibility Add resources to your virtual servers in hours rather than weeks. Buy only what you need.



• No lengthy waiting to get a server through the procurement cycle No need to go through a lengthy wait to acquire hardware to get a server up and running. Standard virtual server requests are usually fulfilled within one business day (this does not apply for new customers).



• No physical server installation. No need to purchase physical servers and install them in conditioned space requiring floor space, power, and cooling.



• No physical server upgrades and maintenance. No need to upgrade hardware, replace failing hardware, or replace aging hardware.



• No hardware vendor support and corresponding contracts to maintain No need to deal with hardware vendors for hardware support or maintain support contracts for corresponding hardware.



• Save money on staffing Using VaaS allows units to refocus staff time currently spent on hardware acquisition, maintenance, and support to the mission of the organization.



• Technology refresh at no additional cost Because units no longer manage the physical hardware, technology upgrades occur behind the scenes at no additional cost.



• Hardware Fault Tolerance VaaS offers protection from lengthy outages from hardware failures through utilization of hardware redundancy within a datacenter.



• Increased Security VaaS uses enterprise datacenters which incorporate 24/7 staffing, restricted physical access, and 24/7 video monitoring.



• Disaster recovery of virtual servers VaaS offers disaster recovery of an entire datacenter, protecting virtual servers which can then be recovered at an alternate datacenter.



• Offsite Encrypted Tape Backups VaaS offers tape backups which can be performed by unit system administrators to perform secure offsite backups of files and servers.

Features of VaaS

• VIRTUAL SERVERS Small, Medium, and Large Virtual servers are provided utilizing multi-node VMWare ESX clusters for virtual servers with the following Operating Systems:
• Microsoft Windows
• Linux
• Netware
• Solaris Operating Systems.
  
  Standard Configurations of a Virtual Server:
  
  

  Servers	Specification
  Small Virtual Server	1 CPU, 1GB Memory, 30GB Disk
  Medium Virtual Server	2 CPU, 1GB Memory, 30GB Disk
  Large Virtual Server	4 CPU, 1GB Memory, 30GB Disk

  Additional Memory and Disk can also be purchased.

• ENTERPRISE STORAGE Virtual servers use enterprise-class storage on a Storage Area Network (SAN).



• SERVER MIGRATION TO VAAS - Physical to Virtual (p2v) migration is available for migration of existing departmental physical servers. Virtual to Virtual (v2v) migration is available for migration of existing departmental virtual servers.



• REMOTE ACCESS Remote access to virtual servers allows mounting of local CDs eliminating requirements for physical server access in most every case.



• FAULT TOLERANCE - Fault tolerance within the datacenter to automatically move virtual servers to other hardware in the event of a hardware failure.



• MONITORING 24/7 monitoring of hardware and the VaaS service. Operations is staffed 24/7 to monitor the VaaS hardware and service.



• DATA CENTER SECURITY The VaaS technical infrastructure is located in secure datacenters which are monitored 24/7.



• MAINTENANCE - Maintenance and replacement of the Virtualization infrastructure.



• SUPPORT The helpdesk will be happy to answer your questions or involve the right people to address any VaaS issues. The helpdesk can be contacted 24/7 for VaaS incidents.



• DISASTER RECOVERY - Disaster recovery through SAN based data replication to an alternate datacenter.



• BACKUP - File-level backup using Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM). Backups are stored onsite and offsite; offsite tapes are ENCRYPTED and sent to a 3rd party remote facility.

Tape Backup

File-level backups are provided to VaaS customers at no additional charge. Tape based backups are provided through Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM). VaaS customers can download and install the TSM client on individual virtual servers. Backups can be scheduled during 3 convenient daily backup windows (8pm, 9pm, and 10pm). The backup retention policy set for VaaS customers allows for 2 revisions of files with a 30 day retention policy. Upon deletion of a file, the most recent backup of the file is retained for an additional 30 days. VaaS customers may request access to perform TSM backups through the VaaS request page at any time.

TSM is different from other backup solutions in many ways but specifically in the area of full backups. TSM favors a progressive backup methodology where files are backed up incrementally and then the recovery tapes are consolidated for improved performance of restores. TSM maintains the most recent version of a file on tape indefinitely. It will also maintain up to two most recent, previous revisions of the file for up to 30 days. When a file is deleted, the most recent version of the file on tape is retained for an additional 30 days. All previous revisions of the file are deleted.

Additional information about TSM can be found at the vendor website:

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/storage-mgr/

Disaster Recovery

A datacenter disaster is declared when an event occurs that prevents use of a datacenter and/or all computing equipment in the datacenter are unavailable or unreachable. Disaster recovery for datacenter disasters is provided through SAN based data replication for VaaS. A datacenter disaster is not declared for issues with individual virtual servers. In the event of a datacenter disaster, virtual servers that are impacted will be moved to the alternate datacenter. Service restoration priority will be determined at the time of disaster with core Virtual Servers being recovered in approximately 2 to 5 days.

Service Pricing