EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation SDDC Edition: Microsoft Applications Solution Guide

Solution Guide
EMC ENTERPRISE HYBRID CLOUD 2.5.1,
FEDERATION SOFTWARE-DEFINED
DATA CENTER EDITION
Microsoft Applications Solution Guide
EMC Solutions
Abstract
This Solution Guide describes how to use EMC®
Enterprise Hybrid Cloud™ 2.5.1 to
provision and manage new and existing Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server,
and Microsoft SharePoint applications for on-premises or hosted cloud services.
December 2014

Copyright © 2014 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA.
Published December 2014
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EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition:
Part Number H13560
2 EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition:

Contents
Contents
Chapter 1 Executive Summary 11
Document purpose...................................................................................................12
Audience..................................................................................................................12
Solution purpose......................................................................................................13
Business challenge ..................................................................................................13
Technology solution .................................................................................................14
Terminology..............................................................................................................14
Chapter 2 EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Solution Overview 17
Introduction .............................................................................................................18
Self-service and automation.....................................................................................19
Multitenancy and secure separation.........................................................................21
Workload-optimized storage.....................................................................................22
Security and compliance ..........................................................................................22
Monitoring and service assurance ............................................................................23
Modular add-on components ...................................................................................24
Chapter 3 Microsoft Applications Solution Architecture 27
Overview ..................................................................................................................28
Key components.......................................................................................................29
Data center virtualization and cloud management ...............................................29
EMC storage services...........................................................................................31
Software resources...................................................................................................32
Chapter 4 Provisioning Microsoft Applications 33
Overview ..................................................................................................................34
VMware vCAC Application Services...........................................................................35
VMware Cloud Management Marketplace............................................................35
Cloud providers ...................................................................................................35
Deployment environments...................................................................................37
Application owners and business groups.............................................................38
Logical templates ................................................................................................38
vCAC Application Services ...................................................................................38
Application blueprints .........................................................................................39
Publishing application blueprints.............................................................................40
3EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition:

Contents
Service Catalog.........................................................................................................43
Services...............................................................................................................44
Catalog items.......................................................................................................44
Actions ................................................................................................................44
Entitlements ........................................................................................................45
Approval policies......................................................................................................45
Storage tiering..........................................................................................................46
Provisioning Microsoft Active Directory services .......................................................48
Provisioning Microsoft Exchange ..............................................................................49
Exchange Server application blueprints...............................................................50
Additional services ..............................................................................................51
Publishing a stand-alone Exchange Server...........................................................51
Requesting Exchange Server from the vCAC catalog.............................................52
Validating an Exchange Server deployment..........................................................54
Provisioning Microsoft SQL Server ............................................................................55
Anti-affinity rules for SQL Server virtual machines................................................55
SQL Server application blueprints........................................................................56
Additional services ..............................................................................................57
Requesting a SQL Server......................................................................................57
Approving a request.............................................................................................59
Validating a SQL Server deployment ....................................................................59
Provisioning Microsoft SharePoint............................................................................60
Provisioning SharePoint 2010..............................................................................60
Provisioning SharePoint 2013..............................................................................67
Chapter 5 High Availability for Microsoft Applications on EMC Enterprise
Hybrid Cloud 69
Overview ..................................................................................................................70
High availability .......................................................................................................70
Microsoft Exchange DAG...........................................................................................70
vSphere HA with Exchange DAGs .........................................................................71
vSphere DRS with Exchange DAG.........................................................................71
Anti-Affinity rules for Exchange virtual machines..................................................71
Provisioning an Exchange DAG.............................................................................72
Microsoft SQL Server with AlwaysOn Availability Groups ..........................................75
Provisioning SQL Server 2012 AAG ......................................................................75
vCAC Application Services blueprint for SQL Server AAG ......................................75
Verifying the SQL Server 2012 AAG deployment...................................................77
Microsoft SharePoint availability ..............................................................................78

Contents
Chapter 6 Monitoring Microsoft Applications 81
Overview ..................................................................................................................82
VMware vCenter Hyperic...........................................................................................82
Supported versions .............................................................................................83
vCenter Hyperic agent..........................................................................................83
Auto-Discovery.....................................................................................................84
VMware vCenter Operations Manager.......................................................................84
vC OPS integration with Hyperic...........................................................................85
Monitoring Microsoft Exchange ................................................................................88
Exchange 2013 Metrics........................................................................................89
Microsoft Exchange dashboards..........................................................................90
Monitoring Microsoft SQL Server ..............................................................................91
SQL Server metrics...............................................................................................91
SQL Server dashboards .......................................................................................93
Monitoring Microsoft SharePoint ..............................................................................95
SharePoint server metrics....................................................................................95
SharePoint dashboards .......................................................................................96
Chapter 7 Elasticity for Microsoft Applications 99
Overview ................................................................................................................100
Threshold alerts .....................................................................................................100
Email notification...............................................................................................101
Elasticity for Microsoft Exchange ............................................................................101
Elasticity for Microsoft SQL Server ..........................................................................104
Elasticity for Microsoft SharePoint ..........................................................................105
SharePoint 2010................................................................................................106
SharePoint 2013................................................................................................111
Chapter 8 Conclusion 115
Summary................................................................................................................116
Findings .................................................................................................................116
Chapter 9 References 117
EMC documentation ...............................................................................................118
VMware documentation..........................................................................................118
Microsoft documentation .......................................................................................118

Contents
Figures
Figure 1. EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud components...........................................19
Figure 2. Self-service provisioning through the vCAC portal................................20
Figure 3. Sample Microsoft application dashboard ............................................23
Figure 4. EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud reference architecture ............................28
Figure 5. Workflow for publishing a vCAC Application Services blueprint ...........34
Figure 6. VMware Solutions Exchange Marketplace blueprints samples.............35
Figure 7. Adding a cloud provider ......................................................................36
Figure 8. vCAC blueprints and logical templates added to a cloud provider........36
Figure 9. Setting build information for a vCAC cloud blueprint............................37
Figure 10. Deployment Environment ....................................................................37
Figure 11. Adding a service created on vCAC Application Services .......................38
Figure 12. Creating an application blueprint ........................................................39
Figure 13. Drag and drop GUI in vCloud Application Manager...............................40
Figure 14. Publishing application blueprints to vCAC...........................................40
Figure 15. Mapping details during blueprint deployment/publishing process......41
Figure 16. Using the overridable option for an application parameter ..................41
Figure 17. Deployment Execution Plan.................................................................42
Figure 18. Reviewing and publishing the application blueprint to the vCAC
catalog................................................................................................42
Figure 19. Viewing the vCAC Service Catalog........................................................43
Figure 20. Viewing the vCAC Service Catalog for SQL Server 2012........................43
Figure 21. Viewing vCAC Services.........................................................................44
Figure 22. Managing vCAC Catalog Items .............................................................44
Figure 23. Viewing vCAC actions ..........................................................................45
Figure 24. Viewing vCAC Entitlements..................................................................45
Figure 25. Approving or rejecting a request..........................................................46
Figure 26. Selecting a storage tier........................................................................46
Figure 27. Selecting a storage tier for SQL Server in vCAC.....................................47
Figure 28. Provisioning Microsoft Active Directory from vCAC...............................48
Figure 29. Properties and actions for Exchange 2013 blueprint............................50
Figure 30. Selecting a stand-alone Exchange 2013 blueprint...............................51
Figure 31. Editing Exchange 2013 blueprint properties........................................52
Figure 32. Editing options for an Exchange 2013 blueprint ..................................52
Figure 33. Viewing vCAC Service Catalog items for Exchange ...............................53
Figure 34. Viewing vCAC application parameters for Exchange Server..................53
Figure 35. Confirming a successful Exchange Server deployment.........................54
Figure 36. Viewing a provisioned application for Exchange Server .......................54

Contents
Figure 37. Exchange admin center: newly deployed Exchange Server
verification ..........................................................................................55
Figure 38. Viewing properties and actions for a SQL Server application
blueprint deployment..........................................................................56
Figure 39. Viewing the vCAC Service Catalog for SQL Server.................................58
Figure 40. Viewing vCAC application properties for SQL Server.............................58
Figure 41. Viewing Pending Approval of vCAC requests for SQL Server .................59
Figure 42. Confirming a successful SQL Server deployment .................................59
Figure 43. Viewing a provisioned application.......................................................59
Figure 44. Example of a completed SQL Server deployment .................................60
Figure 45. vCAC Application Services SharePoint blueprints available for
deployment.........................................................................................61
Figure 46. vCAC Application Services for SharePoint deployments.......................61
Figure 47. vCAC Application Services application blueprint for SharePoint...........62
Figure 48. SharePoint service types, templates, and services for the vCAC
blueprint .............................................................................................62
Figure 49. vCAC Application Services service properties for a SharePoint
blueprint .............................................................................................63
Figure 50. Viewing SharePoint service catalog selections in the vCAC Service
Catalog................................................................................................64
Figure 51. Adding information for a SharePoint deployment request....................64
Figure 52. Changing service options for a SharePoint deployment .......................64
Figure 53. Viewing deployed SharePoint virtual machine in vCAC.........................65
Figure 54. SharePoint farm deployment information ............................................66
Figure 55. Selecting a SharePoint template..........................................................66
Figure 56. Deploying a SharePoint 2013 blueprint from vCAC Application
Services ..............................................................................................67
Figure 57. Viewing vCAC Catalog items for SharePoint 2013 ................................67
Figure 58. Viewing a successful SharePoint 2013 deployment.............................68
Figure 59. Configuring a new SharePoint farm for HR............................................68
Figure 60. Anti-Affinity DRS rule for Exchange DAG servers...................................72
Figure 61. Selecting an Exchange server blueprint from Applications...................73
Figure 62. Viewing the application blueprint for an Exchange 2013 DAG..............73
Figure 63. Submitting a blueprint for deployment ................................................74
Figure 64. Selecting and deploying the Exchange DAG template in the vCAC
catalog ................................................................................................74
Figure 65. Viewing the SQL Server AAG catalog items in vCAC..............................75
Figure 66. Viewing the AAG application blueprint.................................................76
Figure 67. Viewing the AAG application blueprint description ..............................76
Figure 68. Viewing AAG service dependencies .....................................................77
Figure 69. Reviewing the task execution workflow for AAG ...................................77

Contents
Figure 70. Viewing the deployed availability replicas in SQL Server
Management Studio............................................................................78
Figure 71. SharePoint virtual machine protection by vSphere HA .........................79
Figure 72. vCenter Hyperic Plugin Manager ..........................................................82
Figure 73. Adding the Hyperic Service on vCAC Application Services....................83
Figure 74. Auto-Discovery window on vCenter Hyperic .........................................84
Figure 75. vC Ops custom UI ................................................................................85
Figure 76. Installing and configuring the Hyperic Management Pack....................86
Figure 77. Confirming the Management Pack for Hyperic is listed.........................87
Figure 78. Managing adapter instances ...............................................................87
Figure 79. Adding and setting up the Hyperic Adapter Instance............................88
Figure 80. Sample metrics in Hyperic...................................................................89
Figure 81. Sample Exchange attribute package....................................................90
Figure 82. Exchange dashboard...........................................................................91
Figure 83. Managing attribute packages ..............................................................92
Figure 84. Viewing SQL Server Resource Details...................................................93
Figure 85. Customizing a SQL Server dashboard..................................................94
Figure 86. Customized SQL Server customized dashboard...................................94
Figure 87. Managing attribute packages for SharePoint .......................................95
Figure 88. Viewing SharePoint Resource Details...................................................96
Figure 89. Creating a custom SharePoint dashboard............................................97
Figure 90. Customized SharePoint dashboard .....................................................97
Figure 91. Alerts Overview..................................................................................100
Figure 92. Configuring an alert...........................................................................101
Figure 93. Blueprint for Exchange 2013 DAG expansion.....................................102
Figure 94. Exchange 2013 DAG expansion blueprint Services............................102
Figure 95. vCAC Exchange DAG expansion request information and
description........................................................................................103
Figure 96. vCAC Exchange DAG expansion properties.........................................103
Figure 97. Deployment configuration properties for Exchange DAG expansion ...104
Figure 98. SQL Server alert.................................................................................104
Figure 99. Editing CPU resources for SQL Server.................................................105
Figure 100. CPU usage for SharePoint WFE in vC Ops ...........................................106
Figure 101. SharePoint application blueprint.......................................................106
Figure 102. SharePoint Application blueprint properties and actions...................107
Figure 103. SharePoint 2010 WFE selection from the vCAC catalog ......................107
Figure 104. SharePoint 2010 request information................................................108
Figure 105. SharePoint 2010 request properties..................................................108
Figure 106. Provisioned SharePoint 2010 virtual machines in vCAC.....................109

Contents
Figure 107. SharePoint 2010 Farm information....................................................109
Figure 108. Options for virtual machines in vCAC.................................................110
Figure 109. Destroying virtual machine confirmation options in vCAC ..................111
Figure 110. SharePoint 2013 WFE selection from the vCAC catalog ......................111
Figure 111. SharePoint 2013 request information and properties ........................112
Figure 112. SharePoint 2013 Farm information....................................................113
Tables
Table 1. Terminology.........................................................................................14
Table 2. Solution software requirements...........................................................32
Table 3. Exchange 2013 blueprint property values...........................................51
Table 4. SQL Server blueprint property values...................................................57
Table 5. SharePoint blueprint property values...................................................63
Table 6. Exchange DAG blueprint property values .............................................73
Table 7. Exchange DAG expansion blueprint property values ..........................102

Contents

Chapter 1: Executive Summary
Chapter 1 Executive Summary
This chapter presents the following topics:
Document purpose...................................................................................................12
Audience..................................................................................................................12
Solution purpose......................................................................................................13
Business challenge..................................................................................................13
Technology solution.................................................................................................14
Terminology.............................................................................................................14

Document purpose
This Solution Guide describes how to deploy and manage Microsoft applications,
such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft SharePoint, within
EMC®
Enterprise Hybrid Cloud™ built with VMware vCloud Suite. The guide
introduces the main features and functionality of the solution, the solution
architecture and key components, and the validated hardware and software
environment. It also demonstrates the use cases enabled by the solution.
This EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud for Microsoft Applications solution is a modular
add-on to the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution. The following documents
describe the reference architecture and the foundation solution on which all EMC
Enterprise Hybrid Cloud add-on solutions are built:
• EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center
Edition: Foundation Infrastructure Reference Architecture
Edition: Foundation Infrastructure Solution Guide
The following guides provide further information about how to implement specific
capabilities or enable specific use cases within the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud
solution:
Edition: Data Protection Continuous Availability Solution Guide
Edition: Data Protection Backup Solution Guide
Edition: Data Protection Disaster Recovery Solution Guide
• EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Hadoop Applications Solution Guide
• EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Pivotal CF Platform as a Service Solution
Guide
• EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Security Management Solution Guide
• EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Public Cloud Solution Guide
Audience
This guide is intended for EMC customers and qualified EMC partners. The guide
assumes that users who intend to deploy this solution have the necessary training
and background to install and configure an end-user computing solution based on
EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1 Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition,
Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint, and the associated
infrastructure. Users should also be familiar with the infrastructure and database
security policies of the customer installation.
This guide provides external references where applicable. EMC recommends that
users implementing this solution are familiar with these documents. For details, refer
to Chapter 9: References.

Solution purpose
This solution enables EMC customers to build an enterprise-class, scalable,
multitenant cloud that enables:
• Complete management of the infrastructure service lifecycle
• On-demand access to and control of network bandwidth, servers, storage, and
security
• Provisioning, monitoring, and management of the infrastructure services by the
line-of-business end user, without IT administrator involvement
• Provisioning of application blueprints with associated infrastructure resources
by line-of-business application owners without IT administrator involvement
• Maximization of asset utilization
This solution provides a reference architecture that integrates all the key components
and functionality of a hybrid cloud.
Business challenge
Business applications are becoming more integrated into a consolidated compute,
network, and storage environment. Every organization is trying to:
• Lower operational costs
• Increase revenue
• Reduce risk
While many organizations have successfully introduced virtualization as a core
technology within their data center, the benefits of virtualization have largely been
restricted to the IT infrastructure owners. End users and business units within
customer organizations have not experienced the benefits of virtualization, such as
increased agility, mobility, and control.
Transforming the traditional IT model to a cloud-operating model involves overcoming
the challenges of legacy infrastructure and processes, such as:
• Inefficiency and inflexibility
• Slow, reactive responses to customer requests
• Inadequate visibility into the cost of the requested infrastructure
• Limited choice of availability and protection services
The difficulty in overcoming these challenges has given rise to public cloud providers
who have built technology and business models specifically catering to the
requirements of end-user agility and control. Many organizations are under pressure
to provide these same service levels within the secure and compliant confines of the
on-premises data center. As a result, IT departments need to create cost-effective
alternatives to public cloud services—alternatives that do not compromise enterprise
features such as data protection, disaster recovery, and guaranteed service levels.

Technology solution
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution integrates the best of EMC and VMware
products and services. The solution empowers IT organizations to accelerate
implementation and adoption of a hybrid cloud while still enabling customer choice
for the compute and networking infrastructure within the data center. The solution
caters both to customers who want to preserve their investment and make better use
of their existing infrastructure and to customers who want to build out new
infrastructures dedicated to a hybrid cloud.
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution, developed by EMC and VMware product
and services teams, takes advantage of the strong integration between EMC
technologies and the VMware vCloud Suite. The solution includes EMC scalable
storage arrays, integrated EMC and VMware monitoring, and data protection suites to
provide a foundation for cloud services within customer environments.
This Microsoft Applications solution adds VMware vCloud Automation Center
Application Services and VMware vCenter Hyperic to the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud
foundation architecture to enable automated deployment and management of
Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft SharePoint, and to enable
application monitoring during the application lifecycle.
Terminology
Table 1 provides definitions for some of the terms used in this guide.
Table 1. Terminology
Term Definition
Active Directory (AD) Provided with Microsoft Windows Server as a special-
purpose database or directory that is designed to store
system-specific data for handling a large number of read and
search operations, which are hierarchical, replicated, and
extensible.
AlwaysOn Availability
Group (AAG)
A high-availability and disaster-recovery feature included
with SQL Server as an enterprise-level alternative to
database mirroring.
Application blueprint Logical topology of an application for deployment in a virtual
cloud. An application blueprint captures the structure of an
application with logical nodes, their corresponding services
and operating systems, dependencies, default
configurations, and network and storage topology
requirements. The blueprint is published as a catalog item in
the common service catalog.
Backup as a service
(BaaS)
Uses a cloud infrastructure to backup data to a shared,
rather than a dedicated, backup infrastructure.
Business group A set of users, often corresponding to a line of business,
department, or other organizational unit, that can be
associated with a set of catalog services and infrastructure
resources.

Term Definition
Database availability
group (DAG)
A set of highly available Microsoft Exchange Mailbox servers
that host a set of databases and provides automatic
database-level recovery from failures that affect individual
servers or databases.
High availability (HA) Enables a system or infrastructure to continue to provide
applications and access to data if a single component or
resource fails and service is interrupted for only a brief time,
which might or might not be apparent to users.
Infrastructure as a service
(IaaS)
A standard set of automated resources that include
compute, storage, and networking capabilities provided
through a hosting company or service provider.
IT as a service (ITaaS) Enterprise IT that acts and operates as a competitive service
provider for an organization that has many provider options
for IT services, including outsourcing companies and public
cloud providers.
Key performance indicator
(KPI)
A quantifiable measure that compares performance criteria,
including strategic and operational goals of an organization.
Logical template A predefined virtual machine definition in VMware vCloud
Automation Center Application Services that can be mapped
to a cloud template (and supporting services) in the cloud
catalog enabling an application blueprint to remain cloud-
agnostic.
Secure Sockets Layer
(SSL)
A protocol used by an application to communicate securely
with another application that provides services.
vCloud Automation Center
Application Services
properties
VMware vCloud Automation Center Application Services
configuration name-value pairs for services and application
components. These are variables used by scripts to set
parameters and run various configurations.
vCloud Automation Center
Application Services
service
vCloud Automation Center Application Services scripted
software that can be installed on a virtual machine and
reused in multiple applications.
Virtual local area network
(VLAN)
Enables a geographically dispersed network of computers
and users to communicate in a simulated environment as if
they exist in one LAN and are sharing a single broadcast and
multicast domain. VLANs quickly adapt to changes in
network requirements and relocation of workstations and
server nodes.
Web front-end (WFE) A Web-based user interface for a back-end service such as a
database. It is a Web server that handles Web page requests
from users. A SharePoint farm can use multiple WFE servers
and a Network Load Balancer (NLB) to distribute requests for
scalability and redundancy.

Chapter 2: EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Solution Overview
Chapter 2 EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud
Solution Overview
Introduction .............................................................................................................18
Self-service and automation ....................................................................................19
Multitenancy and secure separation ........................................................................21
Workload-optimized storage....................................................................................22
Security and compliance..........................................................................................22
Monitoring and service assurance............................................................................23
Modular add-on components ...................................................................................24

Introduction
EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud is an engineered solution that offers IT organizations,
developers, end users, and line-of-business owners with a simplified approach to IT
functionality. In addition to delivering baseline IaaS built on a software-defined data
center architecture, the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud delivers feature-rich capabilities
to expand from IaaS to business-enabling IT as a service (ITaaS). Backup as a service
(BaaS) and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) policies can be enabled with just a
few clicks. End users and developers can quickly access a marketplace of resources
for Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, EMC Syncplicity®
, and Pivotal applications, and can add
third-party packages as required. Resources can be deployed on private cloud or
EMC-powered public cloud services, including VMware vCloud Air.
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution uses the best of EMC and VMware products
and services, and takes advantage of the strong integration between EMC and
VMware technologies to provide the foundation for enabling IaaS on new and existing
infrastructure for the hybrid cloud.
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution includes the following features and
functionality:
• Self-service and automation
• Multitenancy and secure separation
• Workload-optimized storage
• Security and compliance
• Monitoring and service assurance
• Modular add-on components
For detailed information, refer to EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation
Software-Defined Data Center Edition: Foundation Infrastructure Solution Guide. For
an overview of EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud modular add-on solutions, which provide
functionality such as continuous availability, platform as a service, and disaster
recovery, refer to Modular add-on components. For detailed information on the add-
on solutions, refer to the individual Solution Guides for those solutions.
Figure 1 shows the key components of the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution. The
addition of VMware vCloud Automation Center Application Services and VMware
vCenter Hyperic to the foundation architecture enables automated deployment and
management of Microsoft application deployments.

Figure 1. EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud components
Self-service and automation
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution provides self-service provisioning of
automated cloud services to end users and to infrastructure administrators. It uses
VMware vCloud Automation Center (vCAC), integrated with EMC ViPR®
software-
defined storage and VMware vCloud Networking and Security (vCNS) or VMware NSX,
to provide the compute, storage, network, and security virtualization platforms for the
software-defined data center. These platforms enable you to rapidly deploy and
provision business-relevant cloud services across your hybrid cloud and physical
infrastructure.
Cloud users can request and manage applications and compute resources within
established operational policies; this can reduce IT service delivery times from days
or weeks to minutes. Features include:
• Self-service portal—Provides a cross-cloud storefront that delivers a catalog of
custom-defined services for provisioning applications based on business and
IT policies, as shown in Figure 3
• Role-based entitlements—Ensure that the self-service portal presents only the
virtual machine, application, or service blueprints appropriate to a user’s role
within the business
• Resource reservations—Allocate resources for use by a specific group and
ensure that access is limited to that group

• Service levels—Define the amount and types of resources that a particular
service can receive during initial provisioning or as part of configuration
changes
• Blueprints—Contain the build specifications and automation policies that
specify the process for building or reconfiguring compute resources
Figure 2. Self-service provisioning through the vCAC portal
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution enables businesses to rapidly deploy and
provision applications and services to the cloud platform on demand. vCAC enables
you to divide a shared infrastructure into logical units and capacities that can be
assigned to different business units. Using role-based entitlements, you can choose
from your own self-service catalog of custom-defined services and blueprints. Each
catalog presents only the virtual machines, applications, and service blueprints that
users have permission to view, based on their assigned role within the business.
You can apply data protection policies to virtual machine resources at provisioning
time. This enables users to request on-demand backup and restore operations on
their virtual machines and to generate backup reports, all from the vCAC self-service
portal.
As part of the vCAC provisioning process, you can use NSX virtual routing to provide
an on-demand deployment model for creating custom networks that support NSX
edge routers and logical switches. This enables you to build a custom configuration
as part of a multimachine provisioning process.

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution is built to work with new and existing
infrastructures. It supports the differing requirements of an enterprise’s many
business units and integrates with a wide variety of existing IT systems and best
practices.
Multitenancy and secure separation
Multitenancy requirements in a cloud environment can range from shared, open
resources to completely isolated resources, depending on the organization’s end-
user requirements. The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution provides the ability to
enforce physical and virtual separation for multitenancy, offering different levels of
security to meet business requirements. This separation can encompass network,
compute, and storage resources, to ensure appropriate security and performance for
each tenant.
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution supports secure multitenancy through
vCAC role-based access control (RBAC), which enables vCAC roles to be mapped to
Microsoft Active Directory groups. vCAC uses existing authentication and business
groupings. The self-service portal shows only the appropriate views, functions, and
operations to cloud users, based on their role within the business.
You can use physical resource separation in vCAC to isolate tenant resources or to
isolate and contain compute resources for licensing purposes. You can also
implement resource separation between and within resource groups, depending on
the level of separation required.
Virtualized compute resources within the hybrid cloud are objects inherited from the
vSphere endpoint, most commonly representing VMware vSphere ESXi hosts, host
clusters, or resource pools. You can configure compute resources at the vSphere layer
to ensure physical and logical separation of resources between functional
environments such as Production and Test and Development (Test/Dev).
Valid concerns exist for information leakage and “nosy neighbors” on a shared
network infrastructure. Consumers of the provisioned resources must operate in a
dedicated environment to benefit from infrastructure standardization. To address
these concerns, the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution is designed for
multitenancy. We1
approached this from a defense-in-depth perspective by:
• Implementing virtual local area networks (VLANs) to enable isolation at Layer 2
in the cloud management pods and where the solution intersects with the
physical network
• Using VXLAN overlay networks to segment tenant and business group traffic
flows
• Integrating with firewalls functioning at the hypervisor level to protect
virtualized applications and enabling security policy enforcement in a
consistent fashion throughout the solution
1
In this document, "we" refers to the EMC engineering team that validated the solution.

• Deploying provider and business group edge firewalls to protect the business
group and tenant perimeters
Workload-optimized storage
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution enables you to take advantage of the
proven benefits of EMC storage in a hybrid cloud environment. Using EMC ViPR
storage services and the capabilities of EMC VNX®
, EMC Symmetrix®
VMAX®
, and EMC
XtremIO™
, the solution enables you to manage the policies of software-defined block-
and file-based virtual storage.
With scalable storage architectures that use the latest flash and tiering technologies,
VNX, VMAX, and XtremIO storage arrays enable you to meet any workload
requirements with maximum efficiency, performance, and cost-effectiveness. ViPR
abstracts the storage configuration and presents it as a single storage control point.
This enables cloud administrators to access all heterogeneous storage resources
within a data center as if they were a single large array.
As a result, storage administrators are able to maintain control of their storage
resources and policies while cloud administrator can automatically provision storage
resources into the cloud infrastructure.
Security and compliance
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution enables you to enhance security by
establishing a hardened security baseline across the hardware and software stacks
supporting your hybrid cloud infrastructure. The solution helps to reduce concerns
around the complexities of the underlying infrastructure by demonstrating how to
tightly integrate an as-a-service solution stack with public key infrastructure (PKI) and
a common authentication directory to provide centralized administration and tighter
control over security.
The solution addresses the challenges of securing authentication and configuration
management to aid compliance with industry and regulatory standards as follows:
• Securing the infrastructure by integrating with a PKI to provide authenticity,
non-repudiation, and encryption
• Converging the various authentication sources into a single directory to enable
a centralized point of administration and policy enforcement
• Using configuration management tools to generate infrastructure reports for
audit and compliance purposes
In addition, you can use NSX for vSphere in EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud to enable a
richer networking and security feature set than that provided by traditional solutions.
VMware NSX for vSphere describes the enhanced networking and security features in
NSX.

Monitoring and service assurance
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution features automated monitoring and
management capabilities that provide IT administrators with a comprehensive view of
the cloud environment to enable intelligent decision making for resource provisioning
and allocation. These automated capabilities are based on a combination of EMC
ViPR Storage Resource Management (ViPR SRM), VMware vCenter Log Insight, and
VMware vCenter Operations Manager and use EMC plug-ins for ViPR, VNX, VMAX, and
XtremIO to provide extensive additional storage detail.
For application administrators, the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud for Microsoft
Applications solution provides detailed monitoring and alerting capabilities with
Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange, and SharePoint deployments that are running on an
EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. These abilities enable in-depth analysis of realtime
workloads on applications, which enables anomalies to be identified promptly,
reducing potential performance degradation and any impact to users. vCenter Hyperic
and VMware vCenter Operations Manager (vC Ops) are the components that make up
this functionality.
Customized dashboards can be created to provide at-a-glance views of application
availability and utilization. This enables application teams to fine tune applications
to guarantee service levels across the various business groups configured on EMC
Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. You can configure email notifications to ensure the
appropriate application teams are notified in the event of a key performance indicator
(KPI) or threshold breach. Figure 3 shows an example of a Microsoft Application
dashboard on vC Ops.
Figure 3. Sample Microsoft application dashboard

Modular add-on components
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution provides modular add-on components for
the following services:
• Application services
This add-on solution uses VMware vCloud Automation Center Application
Services to optimize application deployment and release management through
logical application blueprints in vCAC. Users can quickly and easily deploy
blueprints for applications and databases such as Microsoft Exchange,
Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint, Oracle, and SAP.
The solution described in this guide is a modular add-on for Microsoft
applications.
• Data protection: Backup
EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain systems provide a backup infrastructure
that offers features such as deduplication, compression, and VMware
integration. By using VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) workflows customized
by EMC, administrators can quickly and easily set up multitier data protection
policies that users can assign when they provision their virtual machines.
• Data protection: Continuous availability
A combination of EMC VPLEX virtual storage and VMware vSphere High
Availability (HA) provides the ability to federate information across multiple
data centers over synchronous distances. With virtual storage and virtual
servers working together over distance, the infrastructure can transparently
provide load balancing, realtime remote data access, and improved application
protection.
• Data protection: Disaster recovery
This add-on solution enables cloud administrators to select disaster recovery
(DR) protection for their applications and virtual machines when they provision
their hybrid cloud environment. ViPR automatically places these systems on
storage that is protected remotely by EMC RecoverPoint. VMware vCenter Site
Recovery Manager automates the recovery of all virtual storage and virtual
machines.
• Platform as a service
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution provides an elastic and scalable IaaS
foundation for platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS).
Pivotal CF provides a highly available platform that enables application owners
to easily deliver and manage applications over the application lifecycle. The
EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud service offerings enable PaaS administrators to
easily provision compute and storage resources on demand to support
scalability and growth in their Pivotal CF enterprise PaaS environments.

• Public cloud services
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution enables IT organizations to broker
public cloud services. The public cloud solution has been validated with
VMware vCloud Air as a public cloud option that can be accessed directly from
the solution's self-service portal by administrators and users. End users can
provision virtual machines while IT administrators can use VMware vCloud
Connector to perform virtual machine migration (offline) to vCloud Air from the
on-premises component of their hybrid cloud.

Chapter 3: Microsoft Applications Solution Architecture
Chapter 3 Microsoft Applications Solution
Architecture
Overview..................................................................................................................28
Key components ......................................................................................................29
Software resources ..................................................................................................32

Overview
The addition of VMware vCAC Application Services and VMware vCenter Hyperic to the
foundation EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution enables automated deployment of
Microsoft applications and application monitoring during the application lifecycle.
Figure 4 shows the architecture of this EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution for
Microsoft Applications solution.
Figure 4. EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud reference architecture
VMware vCAC Application Services enables you to construct application blueprints
that enable customers to quickly deploy Microsoft applications on an EMC Enterprise
Hybrid Cloud. vCAC Application Services blueprints are created and published to
vCAC. These published blueprints contain virtual machine deployment information,

as well as any application deployments and ancillary scripts for deploying services to
a virtual machine (Hyperic agents, for example).
Virtual machine and application blueprints can apply to single systems or multiple
systems, covering both bare-metal server deployments and virtual machine
deployments. From predefined blueprints, you can easily deploy multitier enterprise
applications requiring multiple application, database, and Web components, and
related services.
The integration of VMware vCenter Hyperic with vC Ops provides a single UI for
monitoring a wide range of metrics relating to the availability and utilization of
Microsoft applications in real time. The Management Pack for vCenter Hyperic
provides metrics reports specific to Microsoft applications in vC Ops.
Key components
VMware vCloud Automation Center
VMware vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) enables customized, self-service
provisioning and lifecycle management of cloud services that comply with
established business policies. vCAC provides a secure portal where authorized
administrators, developers, and business users can request new IT services and
manage existing computer resources from predefined user-specific menus.
VMware vCloud Automation Center Application Services
VMware vCAC Application Services, formerly VMware vCloud Application Director,
automates application provisioning in the cloud, including deploying, configuring,
and updating the application's components and dependent middleware platform
services on infrastructure clouds. vCAC Application Services simplifies complex
deployments of custom and packaged applications on infrastructure clouds.
VMware vSphere ESXi and VMware vCenter Server
VMware vSphere ESXi is a virtualization platform for building cloud infrastructures.
vSphere enables you to confidently run your business-critical applications to meet
your most demanding service level agreements (SLAs) at the lowest total cost of
ownership (TCO). vSphere combines this virtualization platform with the management
capabilities of VMware vCenter Server. This solution gives operational insight into the
virtual environment for improved availability, performance, and capacity utilization.
VMware vCenter Orchestrator
VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) is an IT process automation engine that helps
automate the cloud and integrates the VMware vCloud Suite with the rest of your
management systems. vCO enables administrators and architects to develop
complex automation tasks within the workflow designer. The vCO library of pre-built
activities, workflows, and plug-ins helps accelerate the customization of vCAC
standard capabilities.
Data center
virtualization and
cloud management

VMware vCloud Networking and Security
VMware vCloud Networking and Security (vCNS) is a software-defined networking and
security solution that enhances operational efficiency, unlocks agility, and enables
extensibility to rapidly respond to business needs. It provides a broad range of
services in a single solution, including virtual firewall, virtual private network (VPN),
load balancing, and VXLAN-extended networks.
VMware NSX for vSphere
VMware NSX for vSphere is the next generation of software-defined network
virtualization and offers additional functionality and improved performance over
traditional network and security devices. This additional functionality includes the
following:
• NSX logical routing and firewalls provide high line-rate performance
distributed across many hosts instead of being limited to a single virtual
machine or physical host.
• Distributed logical routers contain East-West traffic within the hypervisor where
workloads reside on the same host.
• Logical load balancer enables load sharing across a pool of virtual machines
with configurable health check monitoring and application-specific rules for
high availability service, URL rewriting, and advanced Secure Sockets layer
(SSL) handling. A distributed firewall enables consistent data-center-wide
security policies.
• Security policies can be applied directly to security groups enabling greater
flexibility in enforcing security policies.
• Routing protocols such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Intermediate System
to Intermediate System (IS-IS), and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) are
supported by NSX.
Where workloads on different subnets share the same host, the distributed logical
router optimizes traffic flows by routing locally. This enables substantial performance
improvements in throughput, with distributed logical routing and firewalling
providing line-rate performance distributed across many hosts instead of being
limited to a single virtual machine or physical host. NSX also introduces Service
Composer, which integrates with third-party security services.
VMware vCenter Operations Manager
VMware vCenter Operations Manager (vC Ops) is the key component of the vCenter
Operations Management Suite. It provides a simplified approach to operations
management of vSphere and physical and cloud infrastructures. vC Ops provides
custom dashboards to gain insights and visibility into the health, risk, and efficiency
of Microsoft Applications running on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud.
VMware vCenter Hyperic
VMware vCenter Hyperic is a component of the VMware vCenter Operations
Management Suite. It is used to monitor metrics specifically related to SQL Server,
SharePoint, and Exchange.

VMware vCenter Log Insight
VMware vCenter Log Insight delivers automated log management through log
aggregation, analytics, and search capabilities. With an integrated cloud operations
management approach, Log Insight provides the operational intelligence and
enterprise-wide visibility needed to proactively enable service levels and operational
efficiency in dynamic hybrid cloud environments.
VMware IT Business Management Suite
VMware IT Business Management (ITBM) Suite provides transparency and control
over the cost and quality of IT services. By providing a business context to the
services that IT offers, ITBM helps IT organizations move from a technology
orientation to a service-broker orientation, delivering a portfolio of IT services that
aligns with the needs of business stakeholders.
EMC ViPR
EMC ViPR is a lightweight, software-only solution that transforms existing storage into
a simple, extensible, and open platform. ViPR extends current storage investments to
meet new cloud-scale workloads, and enables simple data and application migration
out of public clouds and back under the control of IT (or the other way around). ViPR
gives IT departments the ability to deliver on-premises, fully automated storage
services at price points that are the same as, or lower than, public cloud providers.
EMC ViPR SRM
EMC ViPR SRM is storage resource management software that enables IT to visualize
storage relationships, analyze configurations and capacity growth, and optimize
resources to improve return on investment (ROI) in software-defined storage
environments.
EMC VNX and EMC Symmetrix VMAX
EMC VNX and EMC Symmetrix VMAX are powerful, trusted, and smart storage array
platforms that provide the highest level of performance, availability, and intelligence
in the hybrid cloud. VNX and VMAX storage systems offer a broad array of
functionality and tools, such as Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools
(FAST™ VP), enabling multiple storage service levels to support ViPR-driven storage-
as-a-service offerings in the hybrid cloud environment.
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution also supports the EMC XtremIO storage
platform. This solution for Microsoft applications is validated on the VNX and VMAX
storage platforms only.
EMC storage
services

Software resources
Table 2 lists the application software components used in this solution. For a
complete list of other EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud software requirements, refer to
EMC E-Lab’s EMC Simple Support Matrix for EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 at
elabnavigator.emc.com.
Table 2. Solution software requirements
Software Version Notes
Enterprise applications on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012, and 2012 R2 Supported operating systems
Microsoft Exchange 2010 and 2013 Versions of Microsoft Exchange supported in
this solution
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and 2012 Versions of Microsoft SQL Server supported in
this solution
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 SP2 and 2013 SP2 Versions of Microsoft SharePoint supported in
this solution
Additions to EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Foundation Infrastructure
VMware vCloud Automation
Center Application Services
6.1.1 Accelerates streamlining and optimization of
applications deployment through logical
application blueprints by leveraging
preapproved, standardized OS and
middleware components
VMware vCenter Hyperic 5.8.3 A component of vCenter Operations Manager

Chapter 4: Provisioning Microsoft Applications
Chapter 4 Provisioning Microsoft Applications
Overview..................................................................................................................34
VMware vCAC Application Services ..........................................................................35
Publishing application blueprints............................................................................40
Service Catalog ........................................................................................................43
Approval policies .....................................................................................................45
Storage tiering.........................................................................................................46
Provisioning Microsoft Active Directory services......................................................48
Provisioning Microsoft Exchange.............................................................................49
Provisioning Microsoft SQL Server...........................................................................55
Provisioning Microsoft SharePoint...........................................................................60

Overview
This chapter describes how to provision Microsoft applications on EMC Enterprise
Hybrid Cloud, including: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, Microsoft SQL Server 2012,
Microsoft SharePoint 2013 SP2, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 SP2, and Microsoft
Exchange 2013.
The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud provides a foundation for successful and consistent
deployments of Microsoft applications. Generic blueprints are available for each
application; these can be adapted to specific organizational requirements to
guarantee a standard industry level of service. This chapter provides the high-level
process and methodology required to successfully deploy the applications by using
VMware vCAC Application Services with VMware vCAC as the portal. Figure 5
illustrates the workflow used in this solution for each of the Microsoft applications
deployed.
Figure 5. Workflow for publishing a vCAC Application Services blueprint

VMware vCAC Application Services
VMware vCAC Application Services enables you to construct application blueprints by
using a drag and drop GUI, which enables customers to quickly deploy Microsoft
applications on an EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. The blueprints are easily
transportable across EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud environments. You can create
application blueprints for each application and set of business requirements. You can
then either deploy these blueprints directly from vCAC Application Services or publish
them to a specific business group on vCAC where users can request them. For
Microsoft application deployments, users can request multiple versions of SQL
Server, SharePoint, and Exchange from a self-service portal. An application requested
from vCAC allows application-related parameters to be modified prior to submitting
the request.
In vCAC Application Services, you can download published application blueprints
from the VMware Cloud Management Marketplace on VMware Solution Exchange
(VSX) and import them into Application Services. For more information, visit the
VMware Cloud Management Marketplace at
https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/category_groups/cloud-management.
Microsoft application blueprints imported from the Marketplace provide the
preconfigured services and scripts required to install and customize applications in
an EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud environment. Figure 6 shows a sample of the
available blueprints and services. The blueprints imported from the Marketplace can
be customized to meet the requirements of the application and the business.
Figure 6. VMware Solutions Exchange Marketplace blueprints samples
To enable application blueprints to be published to a particular business group on
vCAC, a cloud provider needs to be registered on vCAC Application Services for that
business group, as shown in Figure 7. The cloud provider enables vCAC Application
Services to communicate with vCAC.
VMware Cloud
Management
Marketplace
Cloud providers

Figure 7. Adding a cloud provider
After a cloud provider is created for a specific business group, blueprints from vCAC
can be added to that cloud provider and then to a logical template, as shown in
Figure 8.
Figure 8. vCAC blueprints and logical templates added to a cloud provider
Important parameters, such as the minimum and maximum CPU size and memory,
are defined within the vCAC blueprints. A reservation policy can be specified in a
vCAC blueprint, or alternatively in a deployment environment on vCAC Application
Services. The virtual machine templates used for application deployments are
identified within a vCAC blueprint. As shown in Figure 9, the Clone from field on the
vCAC blueprint is set to use a Windows 2012 virtual machine template. Also, CPU and
Memory parameters are set to minimum and maximum values.

Figure 9. Setting build information for a vCAC cloud blueprint
Before application blueprints can be published from vCAC Application Services to
vCAC, a deployment environment must be configured. A deployment environment can
have several reservations associated with it, as shown in Figure 10. You can retrieve
the list of cloud templates and networks available in the deployment environment
and map them to logical templates and logical networks. You can also configure
custom properties in Application Services to override the vCAC blueprint custom
properties, map predefined disks to storage, or add to the existing properties. The
nodes listed under VM Templates correspond to the components of the application in
the application blueprint.
Figure 10. Deployment Environment
Deployment
environments

Application architect roles manage the deployment design in vCAC Application
Services. These roles then publish application services to vCAC for deployment to
meet business requirements. Additionally, specific users within business groups (for
example, finance or HR) can be given permission to request application deployments
from the vCAC catalog. These requests are then approved or denied by the
application owners.
A logical template associates a vCAC blueprint with a vCAC Application Services
blueprint. A supported operating system version is specified in the logical template to
ensure that only supported services can be used when constructing an application
blueprint. The option to add a service to a logical template is available while building
the logical template. Alternatively, services can be added while designing the
application blueprint. Multiple vCAC blueprints can be added to one logical template.
This allows application blueprints to be published with different reservation policies.
Services are a fundamental element in creating Microsoft application blueprints with
vCAC Application Services. These services enable reusable parts of the code to be
used for application installation and customization. Services can include scripts
created with Windows PowerShell, the Windows Command line, and Linux Bash shell.
External services can be designed for Microsoft applications that require scripts for
deployment, such as a load-balancer or a preinstalled database service. Similar to
building a logical template, tags and a supported operating system version are
required when creating a service.
Predefined property values can be added to a service and can then be overridden by
a user with the vCAC self-service portal. These properties are specific to the deployed
application. The same service can house multiple scripts, such as an application
installation, an application configuration, or an update script. These services are
reusable and available for selection during the creation of a new application blueprint
in vCAC Application Services, as shown in Figure 11.
Figure 11. Adding a service created on vCAC Application Services
Application owners
and business
groups
Logical templates
vCAC Application
Services

When Microsoft applications are implemented, the scripts contained within the
service will run after the virtual machine is deployed. A number of services can be
added to a single logical template and a service installation order can be specified.
The same order applies when deploying multiple virtual machines within the same
application blueprint.
An application blueprint can be created after the required elements on vCAC
Application Services are established, as shown in Figure 12. The required elements
include a cloud provider, a deployment environment, one or more logical templates,
and the services that contain the scripts. Tags are added to indicate the type of
service used and the category in which to list the service.
Figure 12. Creating an application blueprint
vCAC Application Services provides a drag and drop GUI where logical templates are
positioned on a blank canvas. Depending on the application requirements, multiple
logical templates can be added and clustered. Services and application components
are placed into logical templates, where associated scripts are executed during the
deployment process.
Figure 13 shows an example of a completed application blueprint where components
have been taken from the left and right menus to create reusable Microsoft
application blueprints that can be deployed into the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud.
Compute resources and host name can be edited. The host name can also be
assigned randomly on each execution of a blueprint by adding ${random}. After the
application blueprint is created, it is ready to be published to the required business
unit on vCAC where Microsoft applications can be requested.
Application
blueprints

Figure 13. Drag and drop GUI in vCloud Application Manager
Publishing application blueprints
After application blueprints are created in Application Services, they can be
published to the vCAC catalog. Figure 14 shows the Deploy option used to initiate the
publishing process.
Figure 14. Publishing application blueprints to vCAC
During the publishing process, the Map Details option can be used to ensure
correlation between vCAC Application Services logical templates and vCAC blueprints.

Figure 15. Mapping details during blueprint deployment/publishing process
Application properties can be edited prior to publishing the blueprint, as shown in
Figure 16. Administrators can use the overridable checkbox associated with each
service property to enable requesters to change property values at deployment.
Compute resources can also be modified during the publishing process to ensure
Microsoft applications are deployed on virtual machines that meet the performance
requirements of a business group. The ability to edit parameters before publishing
enables the same application blueprint to be published with different specifications.
Figure 16. Using the overridable option for an application parameter
The execution plan can be reviewed before an application blueprint is published, as
shown in Figure 17. This provides the opportunity to review the sequence of an
implementation prior to execution, which ensures that the correct application
services are being deployed in the correct order.

Figure 17. Deployment Execution Plan
As shown in Figure 18, the last step in the publishing process is to review all
application related properties and click Publish. The name and description of the
item are then published and are later visible to the requester within the vCAC catalog.
Figure 18. Reviewing and publishing the application blueprint to the vCAC catalog
Application blueprints that are published from Application Services into vCAC are
automatically activated. However, they are not visible in the services catalog until
they are added to an applicable active service.

Service Catalog
The Service Catalog in vCAC shows the catalog items that an end user, application
owner, or business group can request. After the request is approved, the application
virtual machine is deployed and the owner is notified. Figure 19 shows the different
applications and services available based on the solution’s deployments.
Figure 19. Viewing the vCAC Service Catalog
Figure 20 shows a subset of catalog items for SQL Server 2012 that includes multiple
deployments with varying virtual machine specifications.
Figure 20. Viewing the vCAC Service Catalog for SQL Server 2012

Services can be activated and deactivated in vCAC. Activated services appear in the
vCAC catalog to users with appropriate entitlements, as shown in Figure 21. When
application administrators select a service, catalog items associated with the service
can be viewed.
Figure 21. Viewing vCAC Services
Catalog items are published to vCAC from different sources. For this solution, the
catalog items are from vCAC Application Services because they are all application
deployments. All the catalog items are linked to a service, as shown in Figure 22.
Figure 22. Managing vCAC Catalog Items
vCAC actions enable an administrator to decide what actions users can perform for a
specified catalog item, as shown in Figure 23. This helps to control the level of
actions that users can perform. For example, the administrator might want to prevent
a user from destroying a virtual machine so maintenance tasks can be performed, as
specified by the business unit.
Services
Catalog items
Actions

Figure 23. Viewing vCAC actions
Entitlements in vCAC control which users or groups have access to the catalog items,
as shown in Figure 24. This ensures that only specified users can request specific
deployments. For example, administrators can specify that only SQL Server
application owners can view and select SQL Server catalog items in vCAC.
Figure 24. Viewing vCAC Entitlements
Approval policies
Approval policies are created and edited in the Admin tab in vCAC for items being
requested from the catalog. Approval policies are then added to a particular entitled
catalog item by selecting the Modify Policy option. When an entitled catalog item has
an approval policy set up, the approver will receive an email in their vCAC inbox when
a request is submitted. The request can then either be approved or rejected with a
justification message.
The deployment can proceed after the request has been approved. Implementing
approval processes provides essential control over enterprise application
deployments and provides important governance over EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud
environments.
Entitlements

A wide range of approval policy types can be engaged. Approvals can be configured
so that a single approver or multiple approvers are required for deployments. Figure
25 shows a view of an approval request sent to an approver.
Figure 25. Approving or rejecting a request
Storage tiering
The Microsoft applications deployed in this solution take advantage of storage tiering
within EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. Applications are provisioned on storage tiers to
meet the workload requirements of SQL Server, SharePoint, and Exchange. As
described in Publishing application blueprints, a vCAC blueprint is selected when
publishing an application blueprint. The vCAC blueprint enables the administrator to
choose the correct storage tier for user applications, as shown in Figure 26.
Figure 26. Selecting a storage tier
When applications are requested from the vCAC Service Catalog, users can choose
the appropriate catalog item and storage tier for which an application is to be
deployed. Figure 27 highlights one of the storage tiers available for a SQL Server
deployment.

Figure 27. Selecting a storage tier for SQL Server in vCAC
In this solution, we implemented storage tiers by using VMAX and VNX storage arrays.
Storage offerings can include a dedicated storage type or mixed storage. We created
the following multiple tiers based on the requirements for each application:
• Tier 1—Extreme performance tier with all flash drives
• Tier 2—Balanced capacity and performance tier with FC and SAS drives
• Tier 3—Capacity tier with large SATA and NL-SAS drives
The ability to select the required storage tier and compute resources from the vCAC
catalog ensures that applications can perform workloads with guaranteed
input/output operations per second (IOPS).
For example, for the SQL Server deployment, the all-flash tier was used to optimize
performance. For the Microsoft Exchange Server deployment, the capacity tier was
used to provide the required mailbox capacity and performance.
With EMC array-based technologies such as EMC FAST Cache and FAST VP,
applications of varying I/O profiles can be added to the storage tiers. These storage
offerings can be made up of different disk technologies. The workloads can then be
promoted or demoted by EMC FAST technologies to best serve the operating
requirements of an application. For this solution, EMC ViPR is a central component of
EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud that centralizes and automates storage management on
a single platform.
Through the vCAC self-service catalog, you can create volumes on ViPR and provision
them to the required ESXi servers. This allows the tiers required for Microsoft
applications to be assigned with a fully automated process. The volumes are then
used to make up reservations on vCAC.

Note: For more details on storage tiering for EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, refer to
the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center
Edition: Foundation Infrastructure Solution Guide.
Provisioning Microsoft Active Directory services
Cloud tenants require a Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure for successful
deployments of Microsoft applications such as Exchange and SQL Server. Users need
to provide information about their Active Directory infrastructure if it already exists.
This information is necessary because these Microsoft applications are heavily
integrated with Active Directory. Alternatively, administrators can deploy a new Active
Directory infrastructure as described below.
Users with the appropriate rights can choose to deploy a Domain Controller and
customize its settings to create an Active Directory domain before the application is
provisioned. During deployment, the Domain Controller settings can be modified to
specify an IP address, Domain Name, and administrator credentials. DNS can also be
configured during Domain Controller deployment.
Provisioning a new Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controller includes the
following tasks:
• Creating a Domain Controller application blueprint in vCAC Application Services
• Publishing the vCAC Application Services blueprint to vCAC
• Configuring services and entitlements for the Active Directory service
To provision Microsoft Active Directory from vCAC:
1. Select a Domain Controller from the catalog and click Request, as shown in
Figure 28.
Figure 28. Provisioning Microsoft Active Directory from vCAC
2. After setting the required property values, click Submit.
3. After the Domain Controller is deployed, record the IP address and host name;
these values are required when provisioning each Microsoft application.

Provisioning Microsoft Exchange
Microsoft Exchange Server application blueprints that are published from vCAC
Application Services facilitate the deployment of multiple editions of Exchange Server
across any business group within an organization, whether the business group is a
highly utilized production environment or a test and development unit. These
editions can be provisioned easily and are ready for use within minutes of being
requested.
To provision Microsoft Exchange Server on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, the
application architect must first create an application blueprint in vCAC Application
Services, and then publish the blueprint into a vCAC catalog. The following are
prerequisites for deploying Exchange from the EHC Hybrid Cloud self-service catalog:
• The Active Directory infrastructure with DNS services must exist before
Exchange Server can be installed
• The account used to perform the Exchange installation must have the rights
necessary to make changes to the Active Directory schema. Refer to Microsoft
documentation for this information.
The following options are currently available for provisioning Microsoft Exchange
Server:
• Option 1 deploys a stand-alone Exchange Server with a preconfigured number
of CPUs, memory, and storage resources in the template for a specified number
of users. Mailbox Server and Client Access roles are combined in this
deployment.
• Option 2 deploys an Exchange Server in a high-availability configuration as part
of an Exchange database availability group (DAG) with a preconfigured number
of CPU, memory, and storage resources in the template for a specified number
of users. This option deploys two servers in a DAG with two database copies.
Mailbox Server and Client Access roles are combined in this deployment.
• Option 3 deploys a new Exchange Server with a preconfigured number of CPUs,
memory, and storage resources to an existing DAG. Mailbox Server and Client
Access roles are combined in this deployment.
Note: Option 2 is described in High Availability for Microsoft Applications on EMC
Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. Option 3 is described in Elasticity for Microsoft Exchange.
The Microsoft Exchange Server deployments supported in this solution are as follows:
• Exchange Server 2010 Standard and Enterprise Editions on Windows Server
2012 and Windows 2008 R2
• Exchange Server 2013 Standard and Enterprise Editions on Windows Server
2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2

Note: If installing a Mailbox Server role as a member of a DAG, one of the following
is required: Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter Edition, Windows Server
2012 R2 Standard Edition or Datacenter Edition, or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Enterprise Edition. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP 1 Standard Edition does not support
the features needed for DAGs.
To deploy a stand-alone Exchange Server, you must first configure the blueprint in
vCAC Application Services. The application blueprint consists of services and custom
scripts to automatically deploy and provision Exchange Server. In this solution, for a
configuration of 1,000 users, the deployment option combines the Exchange Mailbox
Server and Client Access roles on one server. For larger configurations, you can
deploy separate servers to host each role. After the application blueprint is
configured, you can create the deployment profile and publish the configuration in
vCAC.
vCAC Application Services ensures that Exchange Server application blueprints can
be easily created and customized. A number of components are required to create an
application blueprint, including a blueprint on vCAC, a logical template on vCAC
Application Services, and related services that contain the scripts necessary to install
and customize Exchange Server.
For this solution, we created the installation and customization scripts with Microsoft
Windows PowerShell. Figure 29 and Table 3 show the Exchange Server service
properties created within the application blueprint. These properties include the
organization name, administrator credentials, and source location for the installation
files.
Additional properties can be introduced based on the deployment requirements of
the application. You can edit the service properties to customize the installation of
the Exchange Server prior to requesting the application. During installation, you can
change these parameters, provided they are made overridable within the blueprint.
You can customize and reuse the installation scripts for multiple blueprints.
Figure 29. Properties and actions for Exchange 2013 blueprint
Exchange Server
application
blueprints

Table 3 lists some of the Exchange application properties that can be configured
within an application blueprint. Other properties can be added as required.
Table 3. Exchange 2013 blueprint property values
Property Blueprint value example Description
Domain exlab.local Your Windows Domain name
User Administrator Domain user account with admin rights
to perform Exchange installation
Password Password User account password
Install_repository c:softwareExchange Location of the Exchange installation
files
Organization_name Exchange Your Exchange organization name
Based on the requirements of the Exchange Server deployment, you can create and
add additional services to the application blueprint—for example, a Join Domain
script service for which the specified user chooses which domain the Exchange
Server virtual machine joins. You can also add services to Exchange Server
application blueprints that enable application monitoring during or after the
installation. Monitoring Microsoft Applications on page 23 provides more details.
The following describes how to publish a stand-alone Exchange 2013 Server, with
both a Mailbox Server role and a Client Access Server role, into a vCAC catalog.
To provision a stand-alone Exchange Mailbox 2013 Server:
1. In vCAC Application Services, select Applications, and then select an
Exchange 2013 application blueprint, as shown in Figure 30.
Figure 30. Selecting a stand-alone Exchange 2013 blueprint
Additional services
Publishing a
stand-alone
Exchange Server

2. Hover the cursor over the blueprint and click View Blueprint to view and edit
the properties, as shown in Figure 31.
Figure 31. Editing Exchange 2013 blueprint properties
3. Select the template to view and edit the properties, such as the number of
CPUs and memory, as necessary. Then click Deploy in the upper right corner,
as shown in Figure 32.
Figure 32. Editing options for an Exchange 2013 blueprint
After the Exchange Server application blueprint has been created, it can be published
to vCAC. Publishing application blueprints provides instructions for this process.
After services and entitlements are configured by the cloud administrator, a user (for
example, an Exchange administrator) can view and select only specific Exchange
Server catalog items. Figure 33 shows an example of the Service Catalog that the
Exchange administrator can see based on user-assigned permissions.
Requesting
Exchange Server
from the vCAC
catalog

Figure 33. Viewing vCAC Service Catalog items for Exchange
After a request has been initiated and a request description and reason are entered,
the parameters specific to the Exchange Server and domain can be edited, as shown
in Figure 34. These are the parameters that were made overridable in the application
blueprint on vCAC Application Services prior to publishing to vCAC.
Figure 34. Viewing vCAC application parameters for Exchange Server

After a request is submitted, the deployment begins. The status of requests
submitted by the user can be viewed in the Requests tab. After the request is
complete, the state of the request changes to Successful. The details of the
implementation, including information relating to the virtual machine deployed, can
be viewed under the Items tab. The request remains in a Pending Approval State until
approved if an approval process has been implemented.
When an Exchange Server request has completed, the status of the request changes
from In Progress to Successful on the Requests page, as shown in Figure 35. Users
can see the status of their own submitted requests on this page.
Figure 35. Confirming a successful Exchange Server deployment
The details of the virtual machine can be accessed by selecting Application
Deployments in the Items tab, as shown in Figure 36.
Figure 36. Viewing a provisioned application for Exchange Server
To verify that the Exchange Server was deployed correctly, the Exchange Server
administrator can connect to the virtual machine or log on to the Exchange admin
center, as shown in Figure 37.
Validating an
Exchange Server
deployment

Figure 37. Exchange admin center: newly deployed Exchange Server verification
Provisioning Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server application blueprints published from vCAC Application
Services facilitate the deployment of multiple editions of SQL Server across any
business group within an organization, whether the business group is a highly
utilized production environment or a test and development unit. These editions can
be provisioned easily and are ready for use within minutes of being requested.
Approval processes can also be implemented in vCAC to guarantee that the
application is being deployed based on the best practices within an enterprise.
The following versions of Microsoft SQL Server deployments are supported in this
solution:
• SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, Standard, and Express Editions on Windows
2008 R2
• SQL Server 2012 Enterprise, Standard, and Express Editions on Windows 2012
In this solution, anti-affinity rules were enabled manually using the vSphere Web
Client on all SQL Server virtual machines deployed. This ensures that AlwaysOn
members are never located on the same ESXi host.
Anti-affinity rules
for SQL Server
virtual machines

EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation SDDC Edition: Microsoft Applications Solution Guide

EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation SDDC Edition: Microsoft Applications Solution Guide

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