OPERATING SYSTEM

The baseline "server" in DIPR is a virtual guest operating system carved out of our VMWare cluster. To maximize flexibility, ERIS maintains all non-essential OS services (i.e structured and non-structured data services) outside of the ESX cluster.

The vast majority of customers should be able to fit into one of our 2 no-cost configurations for VMWare guests. Currently, OS configurations are based solely on CentOS Linux, although requests for Windows or other operating systems will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis:

1. ‘SMALL’: 64-bit CentOS 7  with 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB local disk space – a customer can have 2 of these at no cost (per research fund)
2. ‘MEDIUM': 64-bit CentOS 7 with 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB local disk space – a customer can have 1 of these at no cost (per research fund)
3. ‘CUSTOM': Systems requiring different OS configurations or larger resource allocations – we will determine in the customer conversation whether more than a SMALL or MEDIUM configuration is required and create a CUSTOM VM on request. There is a per GB of RAM, one-time charge for 4 years. Includes 32 GB of system storage. If more storage is needed, additional costs may be incurred per GB/month. Cost outlined on rc.partners.org/core/catalog under "Server Host Provisioning."

APPLICATION SERVICES

Any required application components that are included as part of the CentOS distribution and need to be in the OS stack will be included and configured for the customer. ERIS will provide sudo access to customers post-delivery to install any application components that are not part of the CentOS distro in the /opt directory.

VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGY:

The core of DIPR is two VMWare ESXi clusters

• LittleDIPR is a 12-node cluster running HP ProLiant BL 460c Gen8 blades, with 40 Intel Xeon e5-2690 v2 cores running at 3ghz each and 256GB of memory
• BigDIPR is a 5-node, running HP ProLiant DL580 G7 servers with 64 Intel Xeon e7-4830 cores running at 2.13ghz and 1 TB of memory

Currently, we are running version 6.X on both hypervisors and Vsphere management. 

Guest operating systems achieve a level of High Availability via VMWare's VMotion technology, which seamlessly moves a guest from one physical server to another in the event of a machine failure. 

By default, VMs are not backed up, ERIS offers several means of protecting user data, including NFS mounted storage which is backed up, and mapping LUNs with snapshot protection. 

MAINTENANCE & SUPPORT:

To keep your Virtual server secure ERIS will automatically update the Operating System monthly. System reboots may be required.