Vblock Architecture: Andrew Smallridge DC Technology Solutions Architect

Vblock Architecture
Andrew Smallridge
DC Technology Solutions Architect
[email protected]
Vblock Design Governance
It’s an architecture!
Requirements:
– Pretested
– Fully Integrated
– Ready to Go Storage
– Ready to Grow
Balanced configuration
– Compute power Compute Network
– IO capability
– Network capacity
Virtualization
Simplified deployment & Virtualization
management
Solution cost constrains
© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 2

Vblock Infrastructure Packages
A New Way of Delivering IT
Solution Packages
Information
Rapid deployment model
of virtualized infrastructure
Pre-integrated and validated Applications
solutions reduce total cost
Operating Systems
of ownership
Virtualization
Service-level driven through
predictable performance
and operational Compute
characteristics
Network
Improved compliance/security
and reduced risk Storage
Accelerate time to results, Reduce TCO

Virtual Computing Environment Coalition
Partners Customer
Virtual VCE Seamless Support Experience
Design & Implement
VMware
SI, Reseller, SP, ISV, etc.
Support
• VCE
VCE Professional Services
Computing Professional
Partner Solution Customization for
Environment for Customers vertical applications and Services
Coalition solution packages industry segments • VCE
Seamless
• e.g., CRM, ERP, Support
Financial, Supply Chain, Experience
Support
Exchange, Office, etc.

EMC
SST
Strategy
Partner Vblock • e.g., financial services,

Solutions Support
Team
transportation, retail,
health care, etc.
Advisory

Support
Cisco
Acadia
‘Build, Operate, Transfer’ Support – Expedite Partner Opportunity – (If Needed)

Vblock Design Principles
Building Block Simple!

Data Center unit of assembly
– Provides a set of services, at a known level, to target consumers
Optimized for the classes of services it is designed to provide
Self contained
– But may use external shared services
Optionally
– Clustered for availability
– Aggregated for scalability
– Each Vblock still viable on its own
Fault & service isolation
– Failure of a Vblock will not impact the operation of other Vblocks
– Service each component independently
Vblock Architectural Solution
Modular, Scalable, Repeatable, Predictable
Vblock Vblock Vblock Storage Simplifies expansion and scaling

Expansion Base Expansion
Add storage or compute capacity

as required
Can connect to existing LAN
switching infrastructure enables
graceful migration
Vblock Compute Graceful, non-disruptive expansion
Expansion
Self-contained SAN environment
with known standardized platform
and processes
Enables introduction of FCIP,
Storage Volume Virtualization,
Encryption, etc services

Scalable Platform for Building Solutions
Vblock 0 (1H 2010)
– An entry-level configuration addresses small
datacenters or organizations
– Proof of concept
– Infrastructure management consolidation
Vblock 1
– A mid-sized configuration
Broad range of IT capabilities
Organizations of all sizes
– Use case: Shared services – Email, File & Print,
Virtual Desktops, etc
Vblock 2
– Optimized for performance
Support high intensity application environments
Extensible to meet the most demanding IT needs
– Enterprise and Service Provider
– Use case: Business critical ERP, CRM systems

Vblock 1: What's in the Architecture?
Compute
– 16-32 Cisco UCS B-series blades
128-256 Cores
960-1920 GB Memory
Network
– Cisco Nexus 1000V
– Cisco MDS 9506 (9221i)
Storage
– EMC CLARiiON CX4 480
53-91 TB capacity
EFD, FC and SATA Drives
Fibre Channel & iSCSI
– Celerra NAS Gateway
Virtual Data Center OS
– VMware vSphere 4
Management Software
– EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager (UIM)
– VMware vCenter
– EMC Navisphere
– EMC PowerPath
– Cisco UCS Manager and Fabric Manager

Vblock 2: What's in the Architecture?
Compute
– 32-64 Cisco UCS B-series blades
256 -512 Cores
3072 - 6144 GB Memory
Network
– Cisco Nexus 1000V
– Cisco MDS 9506
Storage
– EMC Symmetrix V-Max (2 Engines)
140 - 211 TB Capacity
EFD, FC and SATA Drives
Fibre Channel & iSCSI
– Celerra NAS Gateway
Virtual Data Center OS
– VMware vSphere 4
Management Software
– EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager (UIM)
– VMware vCenter
– Symmetrix Management Console (SMC)
– EMC PowerPath
– Cisco UCS Manager and Fabric Manager

What’s in the Vblock?
Unified Computing System (UCS)

– Cisco UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnects
– Cisco UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis
Cisco UCS B-200 M1 Blade Server
• 48-96 GB Memory
• Converged Network Adapter (Unified Network)
EMC Storage
– CLARiiON CX4
– Symmetrix V-Max
– NAS Gateway
VMware vSphere

Single, scalable integrated system
Network + compute virtualization
Mgmt LAN SAN A

SAN B

Traditional Blade Enclosures
SAN IPC LAN
Today’s Approach Blade Chassis
• All fabric types have

switches in each
chassis
• Repackaged switches
• Complex to manage
Blade
Blade
Blade
Blade
• Blade-chassis
configuration
dependency
• Costly
• Small network domain
© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 12 12

Unified Fabric
SAN IPC LAN
10GE/FCoE
Blade
Blade
Blade
Blade
© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 13 13

Cisco UCS
SAN SAN LAN
Disaggregate Switch
• Fabric Extender
“Distributed line-card”
• Feature coherence
• Single point of mgmt
10GE/FCoE • Fewer cables
Blade Chassis
Blade Chassis
Blade Chassis
Blade Chassis
Blade
Blade
Blade
Blade

Cisco UCS
SAN SAN LAN
Infrastructure Management Two Failure Domains

• Centralize chassis • Separate fabrics
management • Central supervisor,
• Intrinsic system forwarding logic
management
• Distributed Fabric
• Single management domain Extenders
10GE/FCoE
• Scalable architecture • Traffic isolation
• Oversubscription
Blade Chassis
Blade Chassis
Blade Chassis
Blade Chassis
Chassis Chassis Chassis Chassis
Management Management Management Management

UCS Building Blocks
UCS Manager
Embedded– manages entire system
UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnect

20 Port 10Gb FCoE – UCS-6120
40 Port 10Gb FCoE – UCS-6140
UCS Fabric Extender – UCS 2100 Series

Remote line card
UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis

Flexible bay configurations
UCS Blade Server

Industry-standard architecture
UCS Adapters
Choice of multiple Converged Network Adapters
and Virtual Adapters
UCS System Interconnect Components
SAN LAN MGMT SAN
Half Width Blade

G G S S G G
A
Fabric Fabric
A
– Up to 8 per enclosure
Switch Switch
G G G G G G
– 1 x Dual 10GE port adapter connected
internally to both FEX modules – all links
active
Compute Chassis
Fabric Fabric
R I C C I R
Extender Extender
x8 x8 x8 x8
Full Width Blade
– Up to 4 per enclosure
– 2 x Dual 10GE port adapter both
M P P connected internally to both FEX modules
B B
Adapter Adapter Adapter – all links active
X X X X X X
x86 Computer x86 Computer
Compute Blade Compute Blade

(Half slot) (Full slot)

Cisco UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnects

– Unified network connectivity to blades and chassis
10 Gigabit Ethernet
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
– IP and Fibre Channel to the aggregation layer and SAN
– Management
UCS Manager embedded
Vblock Configuration
– Always configured in pairs
Availability
Performance and load balancing
– Vblock 1 - 6120 Fabric Interconnect
(20) 10 Gb fixed ports to blade chassis/aggregation layer
(4) 4 Gb Ports to SAN fabric
– Vblock 2 – 6140 Fabric Interconnect
(40) 10 Gb fixed ports to blade chassis/aggregation layer
(8) 4 Gb Ports to SAN fabric

Vblock Fabric Interconnects Design Considerations
Availability
– Always installed in pairs
– Redundant power and cooling
Predictable performance
– Maximum of 4:1 oversubscription (downstream vs upstream)
– Balanced configuration
Scalability and flexibility

Vblock Chassis Configuration
Cisco UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis

– (8) Blades per chassis
– (2) 2104XP Fabric Extenders
– Redundant Power and Cooling
– Vblock 1
2 to 4 Blade Chassis
– Vblock 2
4 to 8 Blade Chassis

Vblock Blade Configuration
– 8 Blades per Chassis
2 Intel® Xeon® 5500 Series processors
48-96 GB Memory
Converged Network Adapter (Unified Network)
• vNIC
• vHBA
Internal connections to both Fabric Extenders
– Vblock 1
16 - 32 blades
128 - 256 cores
960 - 1920 GB memory
• 6 blades/chassis = 48 GB
• 2 blades/chassis = 96 GB
– Vblock 2
32 - 64 blades
256 - 512 cores
3072 - 6144 GB memory
• 96 GB per blade
(2) 73 GB internal HDD

Vblock Chassis Configuration Design Considerations
Availability
– Two Fabric Extenders (FEX) per Chassis
– Each blade as two connections (one to each FEX)
– N+1 cooling and power
Predictable Performance
– 2:1 Over-subscription – But still full 10 Gb to each blade
– Distribute vHBA and vNIC between fabrics Fabric
R I
Compute Chassis
C C I R
Fabric
Extender Extender
Slots statically pinned to a link x8 x8 x8 x8
– QoS
BB credits for FC traffic
Non-FC traffic can be assigned different weights M
Adapter
B
P
Adapter
B
P
Adapter
X X X X X X
x86 Computer x86 Computer
Compute Blade Compute Blade

(Half slot) (Full slot)

Vblock Chassis / Blade Configuration
Availability
– N+1 blades per chassis
– vNIC routing between fabrics
– OS (Powerpath) vHBA failover
Predictable performance
– Dual quad core Xeon® 5500 Series processors
Network
Memory
Compute
Scalability and flexibility
– Virtualize everything
– VLAN, trunks and port groups


• 48-96 GB Memory
– Unified Network
Storage
– EMC CLARiiON CX4
– EMC Symmetrix V-Max
– EMC Celerra NAS gateway
– Cisco MDS Fibre Channel switch
VMware vSphere

Storage: CLARiiON and Symmetrix
Vblock 1 Minimum Maximum
CLARiiON CX4 480
Enterprise Flash Drives (EFD) 400GB 9 17
15K Fibre Channel 450 GB 79 140
SATA 1TB 17 23
Total Drive 105 180
Total Capacity* 53 TB 91 TB

Symmetrix V-Max (1 or 2 Engine)
Enterprise Flash Drives (EFD) 400GB 17 25
15K Fibre Channel 450 GB 125 230
SATA 1TB 78 100
Total Drive 220 355
Total Capacity* 140 TB 211 TB
* 70% of raw capacity
CLARiiON CX4 480
Storage Processors 2 2
Fibre Channel front-end ports (4 Gb) 8 16
iSCSI front-end ports (10 Gb) 2 4
Global Memory (cache) 16 16
IOPs / MBs 41428 / 4212 50000 / 6000
Vblock 2 Minimum Maximum*

Symmetrix V-Max
Storage Processors (Directors) 2 (1 Engine) 4 (2 Engines)
Fibre Channel front-end ports (4 Gb) 8 16
iSCSI front-end ports (1 Gb) 4 8
Global Memory (cache) 64 128
IOPs / MBs 92193 / 7845 141858 / 12840
* Additional engines possible beyond base Vblock configuration
Storage configuration are application specific
Logical device considerations*
– LUN size
Consistent size based on application requirements
– RAID Protection
RAID 1
RAID 5
RAID 6
– LUN aggregation using meta devices
Size
Performance
– Virtual Provisioning
Thin Pool
Thin Devices/Fully allocated
Simplifies storage provisioning
– Storage Tiers based on drive and protection
– Storage Templates
– Storage Policies
Local and remote replication requirements
* Existing Best Practices Apply

Storage: EMC Celerra
File Server for the Vblock

– Gateway configuration sharing
CLARiiON or Symmetrix storage
– Vblock 1 NS-G2
2 Datamovers
– Vblock 2 NS-G8
2 – 8 Datamovers
– May be shared across multiple Vblocks

Storage Area Network
Vblock 1
– (2) Cisco MDS 9222i or 9506
(8) 4 Gb N-ports to each Fabric
Interconnect
(4-8) 4 Gb N-ports to each CLARiiON
Storage Processor
Recommend MDS 9506 if >3 Vblock 1
Vblock 2
– (2) Cisco MDS 9506
(8) 4 GB N-ports to each Fabric
Interconnect
(8-16) 4 GB N-ports to each Symmetrix
V-Max engine
Zoning and VSAN
– Based on application requirements and
existing best practices

Storage Design Consideration
Balanced configuration
– Capacity, connectivity, workload (IOPs / MBs)
Availability
– Enterprise class storage
– RAID protection
– Extensive remote replication capabilities using MirrorView and SRDF
Predictable Performance
– Large cache
– Tiered storage including FC, SATA and Enterprise Flash Drives (EFD)
Ease of deployment and management
– Template based provisioning
– Wizards
– Fully Automate Storage Tiering (FAST)
– Virtual Provisioning
– Local replication capability using SnapView and TimeFinder

Vblock 1 Min

Vblock 1 Max

Vblock 2 Min


• 48-96 GB Memory
– Unified Network
EMC Storage
– CLARiiON CX4
– Symmetrix V-Max
– NAS Gateway
VMware vSphere

vSphere
VMware vSphere 4 is the Datacenter OS for the Vblock

– Virtualization of all application servers
– ESX & vCenter VMware vSphere 4
Templates enable rapid provisioning

Vblock 1 # of VMs based on # of VMs based on
Minimum UCS config. Maximum UCS config.
1:4 Core to VM Ratio 512 1024
(1920 MB memory/VM)
(480 MB memory/VM)
Vblock 2 # of VMs based on # of VMs based on
Minimum UCS config. Maximum UCS config.
(3072 MB memory/VM)
(768 MB memory/VM)
VBlock Services
Internal or external to the Vblock

– VMware vCenter
– VMware View
– Active Directory
– DNS
– Time Services
Provide consistent services within and across Vblocks

Physical Architecture
Power, cooling, and space including

– Compute chassis and blades
– SAN and IP Network Components
– Storage
Vblock 1 Minimum Configuration Maximum Configuration
Power 22 KVA 29 KVA

Cooling 78132 BTU/hr 109662 BTU/hr
Space 66 Rack Units (RU) 69 Rack Units (RU)
2 Racks 3 Racks
Vblock 2 Minimum Configuration Maximum Configuration
Power 32 KVA 45 KVA

Cooling 121536 BTU/hr 170096 BTU/hr
Space 70 Rack Units (RU) 112 Rack Units (RU)
4 Racks 5 Racks
Management Architecture
IT Requirements
Storage Template
# VMs Compute Template
Disk Capacity (MB) Fabric Template
Synchronous
Replication Application Template
Fault Tolerant?
Security Policy
Etc…
Define Map Deploy
Templates ensure
– Repeatable, compliant IT processes
– Rapid deployment
– Reduces risk
– Simplifies management
Unified element managers

Vblock Architecture
Reference Architecture based on best of breed

components
– Building block simple!
Yet, flexible enough to build future proof configuration
where application specifics are unknown
– Impressive technical specifications
– Balanced performance
– Scalability and flexibility Pretested!
– HA/Redundancy
– Disaster recovery
Fully Integrated!
– Simplified troubleshooting Ready to Go!
– Ease of management
– Cost constraints
Ready to Grow!

Thank You

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Vblock Architecture

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 2

Vblock Infrastructure Packages

Accelerate time to results, Reduce TCO

Exchange, Office, etc.

Partner Vblock • e.g., financial services,

Vblock Infrastructure Packages

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 4

Building Block Simple!

Vblock Vblock Vblock Storage Simplifies expansion and scaling

Add storage or compute capacity

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 6

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 7

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 8

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 9

Unified Computing System (UCS)

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 10

Mgmt LAN SAN A

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 11

SAN IPC LAN

Today’s Approach Blade Chassis

• All fabric types have

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 12 12

SAN IPC LAN

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 13 13

SAN SAN LAN

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 14

SAN SAN LAN

Infrastructure Management Two Failure Domains

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 15

UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnect

UCS Fabric Extender – UCS 2100 Series

UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis

UCS Blade Server

SAN LAN MGMT SAN

Half Width Blade

x86 Computer x86 Computer

Compute Blade Compute Blade

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 17

Cisco UCS 6100 Series Fabric Interconnects

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 18

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 19

Cisco UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 20

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 21

x86 Computer x86 Computer

Compute Blade Compute Blade

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 22

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 23

Unified Computing System (UCS)

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 24

Vblock 2 Minimum Maximum

Vblock 2 Minimum Maximum*

* Existing Best Practices Apply

File Server for the Vblock

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 28

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 29

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 30

© 2009 Cisco | EMC | VMware. All rights reserved. 31