KODAK PRINERGY Hybrid Cloud User Administration Guide

Introduction

This document described the administration and day to day management of the Kodak Prinergy Hybrid Cloud system.

What the Prinergy Hybrid Cloud server is

The Kodak Prinergy Hybrid Cloud system is a very efficient use of server hardware and resources for a small to medium sized shop. It leverages Microsoft Hyper-V to provide a workflow management system (Prinergy), portal and collaborative access (InSite Prepress Portal) and off-site backups using Microsoft Azure storage.

What the Prinergy Hybrid Cloud server is NOT

While the Kodak Prinergy Hybrid Cloud does use the cloud to store backup data, it is not a managed system. Kodak does not handle the day-to-day management of the host Operating System or Virtual Machines. This includes Windows Updates, backup monitoring, and general system operation.

Features

• Current generation host hardware (Dell PowerEdge T550 as of this writing)
• Solid State storage for maximum performance
• Windows 2022 host OS with Microsoft Hyper-V
• Kodak Virtual Operating Environment (VOE) using Hyper-V
• Kodak Prinergy VM
• Kodak InSite Prepress Portal VM
• DR Backup using the Microsoft Azure Recovery Service (MARS) agent

Architecture Overview

Terminology

Using the correct terminology when describing features of any system is very important. The Kodak Prinergy Hybrid Cloud is no different in this regard. Accidents may happen when using the wrong terms, up to and including data loss, so this section is dedicated to various terms, what they mean, and what they don’t mean.

Virtual Operating Environment terms

Host: The physical computer that the system is running on. In this case, the Dell PowerEdge server.

Hypervisor: The Operating System that run on the host hardware, providing services and hardware abstraction that the Virtual Machines use to function. In the case of the Kodak Prinergy Hybrid Cloud solution, this hypervisor is Microsoft Hyper-V

Host OS: The Operating System that is running on the host hardware. Often synonymous with Hypervisor. In the case of the Kodak Prinergy Hybrid Cloud solution, the Host OS is Microsoft Windows Server 2022, with Hyper-V installed as a feature.

Virtual Machine: A virtual machine (VM) is an isolated computing environment that functions as its own system with its own CPU(s), memory, network interface(s), and storage devices, created from a pool of hardware resources.

Guest OS: The Operating System running with the Virtual Machines. In the case of Prinergy Hybrid Cloud, this  is Windows Server 2022 Standard.

Checkpoint: A state at a point in time for a Virtual Machine that can be returned to quickly, often used for upgrades or other major system changes so a known-good state can be very quickly returned to in case of failure.

• It is critical to note that a checkpoint is NOT a backup, and does not provide redundancy or data security at all.
• Many of you will have heard the term snapshot before on other virtual solutions (most notably VMWare). A snapshot and checkpoint are functionally the same thing. Checkpoint is the term that Microsoft chose to use for this feature.

DR (Disaster Recovery) Backup: System Backup provided by the Microsoft Azure Recovery Service (MARS) agent. This backs up your VMs to a location on the Azure cloud. This is intended to be used in a disaster where the VMs have been corrupted. While retrieving individual files that were accidentally might be possible, it is very time consuming and may be a billable service.

Basic System Operation

This section describes basic operation of the Hyper-V Manager console. For information on advanced parameters, please see learn.microsoft.com

Important: The Prinergy Hybrid Cloud system was carefully configured for your environment. Advanced configuration changes should not be necessary. Please consult the Kodak support organization for your area before making configuration changes beyond what is described in this guide. Some commands can cause irreparable damage to your system, and the recovery may be chargeable.

Hyper-V Manager

Hyper-V Manager is where the two VMs can be stopped and started, checkpoints created and destroyed, and many other configuration parameters changed.

First log in to the Host Operating system. This can be done from the local console.

To locate the Hyper-V Administrator, select Start > Windows Administrative Tools

Note: To make finding this easier in the future, you may wish to create a shortcut on your desktop.

VM Commands:

Right-clicking on one of the VMs displays a menu that contains various management commands.

Connect: Connects to the VM using a virtual console, similar to Remote Desktop. This allows you to control and manage the Guest OS on that VM, as well as any software installed on it.

Settings: Opens a dialog containing many settings for the VM. As some settings can have unintended affects, please contact the Kodak support organization for your area if you need to make any changes here.

Upgrade Configuration Version: Changes the version of the VM to match the Host OS. This change is irreversible and will make it impossible to run this VM on an older host. Please leave this setting alone.

Checkpoint: This command creates a checkpoint, AKA a snapshot. This creates a point in time for the VM where you can return to if there is a problem, such as during a major upgrade. This is NOT a backup, and must not be treated as such.

Move: This command allows you to change the location of the VMs on the storage drives. You should generally not need to change this. If you think you do, please contact the Kodak support organization for your area before you do anything.

Export: This command allows you to export a nicely packaged VM that can be imported on another Hyper-V server. This is generally not used with the Kodak Hybrid Cloud solution.

Rename: This allows you to rename the VM in the Hyper-V inventory. This does NOT rename the Guest OS computer name. You should generally leave this alone. If you think you need to rename the VM, please contact the Kodak support organization for your area before you do anything.

Delete: This permanently and irrevocably deletes the VM from the disk. Do not use this command.

Help:  Opens Microsoft Help screen. You can find many more details on the above command here.

DR Backup

DR (Disaster Recovery) Backup uses the Microsoft Azure Recovery Services (MARS) agent

Basic Operation

Starting Your VMs

In Hyper-V Manager, right-click the VM you wish to start, then select Start.

Note: Please start your Prinergy server VM before the IPP VM. This will guarantee that Oracle is up and running before IPP launches.

Stopping Your VMs

Open Hyper-V Manager.

Your VMs can be stopped by right-clicking the VM, then selecting Shut Down.

Important: These menu options behave much like a physical server.

Shut Down: Issues a shut down command to the Guest OS, and it shuts down cleanly.

Turn Off: The equivalent of pulling the lug on a physical server. This is sometimes necessary, however it can lead to data corruption.

Reset: Behaves exactly like the reset button on a physical server. This is sometimes necessary, however it can lead to data corruption.

Creating, switching to, and Deleting Checkpoints

When to Create Checkpoints

Create a checkpoint before any major system changes, such as immediately before a Prinergy or InSite software upgrade. This way you can very quickly fall back on a working configuration should problems arise.

You should not leave a checkpoint in place for longer than a few days. As you use the system, the checkpoint journal file is continuously growing, tracking changes to the disk. Eventually the disk that the VM resides on will fill up, and the system will stop functioning. There is also a slight performance hit when a checkpoint is active.

It is best to create checkpoints when the VM is powered off. This guarantees the integrity of several applications, most notably Oracle. It is also MUCH faster than creating a snapshot of a running VM.

Creating a Checkpoint

After shutting down the VM cleanly, right click on it and select Checkpoint. The checkpoint will be immediately created.

A list of all checkpoints for the VM will be listed in the Checkpoints pane when the VM is selected.

Returning to a Checkpoint

Select the checkpoint you with to return to, and click Apply. Confirm when prompted.

The system will revert to the moment the checkpoint was taken.

Warning: This process is irreversible. Make sure you have selected the correct checkpoint.

Deleting a Checkpoint

Deleting a checkpoint rolls the journal file(s) into the main virtual hard disk file(s). It does not delete any data, just the checkpoint itself. This takes time to do, and can take a very long time time when the snapshot has been active for a long time and there have been many changes.

Fortunately, you can do this with the VM up and running. Performance will be impacted slightly while the journal file is incorporated. You cannot stop this process once it has started.

When you Need to Reboot

Rebooting VMs

Ideally, reboot the VMs from within the guest operating system. If they have crashed, power them off and power on again using Hyper-V Manager

Remember to make sure Prinergy is powered on and running before starting InSite Prepress Portal

Rebooting or Powering Off the Host

Shut down all VMs before rebooting your host server. If you fail to do this there may be data corruption

DR Backup

Disaster Recovery (DR) Backup uses the Microsoft Azure Recovery Services (MARS) agent to back up files and folders from the Prinergy and InSite Prepress Portal VMs to a vault in your Azure region.

Unless otherwise requested, the backup runs once per night, at 10:00PM local time.

Architecture Overview:

Retention Period:

The default retention period is as follows:

After the above time periods, the expired backups are purged from Azure and are unrecoverable.

What is backed up?

Backup Time Required

The initial backup might take quite some time depending on how much job data there is on the Prinergy server, as well as the size of any additional folders specified. Subsequent backups copy only new files and files changed since the last backup, and thus are usually much smaller.

Important: Backup speed is limited to the upstream bandwidth available on your Internet connection. This can and will vary with other traffic loads.

Backup Process Overview

At 10:00 PM local time, the MARS agent executes and backs up the list of folders to Azure. This process is automated. You can view the status of the backups by opening the MARS agent and viewing the logs there.

Restore Process Overview

The restore process is intended to be used for disaster recovery purposes. That being said, individual files can be retrieved from the backup if necessary. The speed of the process is determined almost entirely by the speed of your internet connection.

DR Backup is not intended as an archiving solution. DO NOT attempt to use it as such.

Disaster Recovery

Time Required

The recovery and restore time required is almost entirely dependent on the speed of the Internet connection and the size of the files that were backed up. Due to this it is impossible to give an accurate time estimate in advance.

Restore Steps

After a total system loss, these are the steps to restore the system:

1. Open a case with the Customer Engagement Center for your area
2. The CEC team will assist in replacing or repairing any hardware that has failed.
3. The CEC team will then re-image your host server and deploy the Prinergy and IPP VMs
4. After configuring the Prinergy and IPP software, they will install the Azure MARS agent.
5. Work with the CEC team to restore the Prinergy Configuration Backup and the IPP Configuration Backup

After Prinergy and IPP has been restored, begin restoring the Prinergy job data from the Azure backup. Once this is complete, you can begin using Prinergy and IPP as normal.

More information on DR Backup