data center transformation - cisco

© 2008 IBM Corporation

Data Center Transformation

Grant Sauls CCDA Data Center Design Specialist


agenda

1 New Enterprise Data Center

2 The Network’s Role - Consolidation

3 The Network’s Role - Virtualization

4 Converged Data Center Networks

5 Conclusion


Traditional data center costs are rising

IDC, "Preparing for Change: Architecture and Infrastructure Considerations for the Data Center of the Future," Doc # DCFW2008_02, April 2008


Multiple forces are driving a transformation of the data center

Accelerated pace of business and technology innovations

Operational issues have IT at a break point

Costs & Service Delivery

Business Resiliency and Security

Energy Requirements

Exponential Network Traffic Growth

Mobility

Software as a Service

SOA

Consolidation/Virtualization


CEOs are looking for new ways to leverage information

Source: IBM 2008 Global CEO Survey

CEOs are looking ahead . . .Expecting significant change but are having trouble keeping up with the paceInvesting heavily in engaging more demanding customersMoving aggressively toward global business designsSeeing a greater emphasis on corporate social responsibility as an opportunity to differentiate

The enterprise of the future is …


The New Enterprise Data Center: An evolutionary new model for efficient IT delivery . . .

New economics: Virtualization with optimized systems and networks to break the lock between IT resources and business services

Rapid service delivery: Service management enables visibility, control and automation to deliver quality service at any scale

Aligned with business goals: Real-time integration of transactions, information and analytics - and delivery of IT as a service


Enterprise Data Center Evolution

Past

Centralized –Mainframe centric

Shared

Limited applications

Limited access

Unresponsive

Industry standard HW

Client / Server

e-business

Current

DistributedDedicated infrastructureExplosion of applicationsUbiquitous accessFragmented islands of computingInefficient

Virtualization

Web 2.0

Network

New

Re-centralizationShared infrastructureTransparent delivery of servicesUbiquitous access with high bandwidth, low latencyEfficient, dynamic, and responsive


NEDC Stages of Adoption

Physical consolidation and optimizationVirtualization of individual systems

Systems, network, and energy management

Drives IT efficiency

Rapid deployment of new infrastructure and services

Highly virtualized resource pools –“ensembles”

Integrated IT service managementGreen by design

Highly responsive and business goal driven

Virtualization of IT service Business-driven service management

Service oriented delivery of IT


Themes of consolidation, centralization, security, and management comprise the new enterprise data center

Consolidation and virtualization– Increase device utilization

– Improve system performance

– Reduce power requirements

Applications and storage centralized– Decrease device sprawl

– Meet regulatory compliance

User access blurs the enterprise edge– Specific services based

– Defined community groups (employees, partners, suppliers, customers, guests)

An enterprise IT management system– Based on open standards

– Support cross platform, multi-vendor technologies

– Support dynamic provisioning


agenda





5 Conclusion


The network must respond to the changing Data Center

Consolidation and Virtualization– Network consolidation

– Server / Data Center consolidation

– Network virtualization

– Server / Storage Virtualization

– Unified Transport

Security– Remote and mobile application access

– Drives the need for login and client side device screening prior to providing network and systems access

Management– Based on a common management view that will drive the

need for dynamic network response and provisioning


Network consolidation involves two patterns

Network Consolidation combines like networks– Long driven by costs, enabled by standards

– Simplifies the network (capex, opex)• Reduction of physical inventory of nodes and links

• Reduction in the number of physical networks

– Introduces new traffic profiles

– Increases operational demands • Shared resources impact to security

• Combined maintenance windows

• Outages have larger impact

Network Convergence uses innovation to combine disparate networks

– Convergence of telephony, video to IP-based communications

– Network and storage convergence onto a new unified transport


Data Center consolidation increases the demands

Data Center consolidation is a major pattern, typically new facilities– Larger, green facilities to avoid costly upgrades to existing data centers– Regulatory compliance for data security and resilience

Consolidated Data Center networks increase in scale and complexity– Larger scale network: hosting more infrastructure, applications, services – More complex forwarding plane: supports more and disparate traffic profiles

• ERP – moderate bandwidth, high availability• Voice – low bandwidth, low jitter and latency, very high availability• Video – high bandwidth, low jitter• Productivity – highly variable bandwidth, best effort delivery

– Larger service domains: faults and service problems affect a larger population

Remote access to the Data Center needs to provide higher service levels– More resilience required to maintain application availability – “LAN-like” performance is needed to support users that are now remote from their applications

and services


Server consolidation increases network traffic and port density

Consolidation increases traffic volumes per server increase– Oversubscription ratios – Network QoS within the Data Center– Server NIC hardware performance

Smaller server platforms increase the number of servers per rack/row

Density favors a distributed access switches– Top-of-Rack, BladeCenter switches– Topology management– Cabling, power, cooling approaches may need to be revalidated

Server virtualization features add complexity to the network– Increased traffic– Virtual networking within the system/hypervisor– Increased addressing per port


agenda





5 Conclusion


Network Virtualization encompasses four domains - at four levels of abstraction

Enterprise Network – LAN/WAN connectivity to the Data Center

Data Center Edge

Data Center LAN environment

Server network connectivity

End NodesEnterpriseNetwork DC Edge DC LAN Server IO Server Server IO SAN Storage

LAN

VLAN

SAN

VSAN

NIC

vNIC

Vswitch

VPN

WAN

Tape

LoadBalancer

Optimizer

HBA

vHBA

LAN MultiLayer

Switching

Future LAN/SAN Convergence

Disk

LPAR

Server

VM

VSAN

Forwarding Plane – traffic path

Control Plane – topology

Services Plane - enhancements

Management Plane - administration


Network virtualization is driven by the need to differentiate services and address unmet requirements

The New Enterprise Data Center is a multi-service head end for the enterprise– Serves data applications as well as voice, video, storage, etc.– Supports disparate traffic profiles that have disparate service level requirements – A single logical network becomes overly complex with a single forwarding plane

• Multiple QoS settings + security policies + resilience attributes

Network consolidation has left unmet requirements– Economic pressures encouraged solutions with “acceptable risk”– Complexity of solutions outweighed the benefit

Network virtualization provides a better wayto meet these requirements

– Network consolidation without compromise – Simplification of the environment – Agility to provision additional logical networking – Straightforward segmentation for security – Multiple, separate service level domains


Enterprises are increasingly leveraging MPLS features to provide multiple logical backbones

Virtualized NetworkSingle Logical Network

Multi-VPN WAN from service providerVLANs at the edgeSegmentation mappings

– vrf-lite– virtual routers / devices– physical separation– tunnels / trunks

Public and/or private MPLS– into the Data Center / Campus

VLANs at the edgeSegmentation mappings

– vrf-lite– virtual routers / devices


The network must support virtual switches as a new access layerServer virtualization’s virtual switch presents some challenges

– Represents a loss of control – security, QoS– How well does the logical switch interact with the physical access switch?– Can the logical switch support network virtualization (e.g., 802.1q) for segmentation?– Which operational domain “owns” the virtual switch – the server or network team?– How well does the virtual switch handle the traditional functions delivered by the an

access switch (e.g., multicast, port mirroring, Layer2 security features)?– How extensive a topology should exist within the hypervisor/server?


Dynamic provisioning solutions may add design constraints

There is tension in the logical design for the Data Center Network

Layer 3

IPLayer 2

802.1*

NetworkPerformance

Availability

ServerAvailabilityVirtualization

VM mobility or dynamic provisioning anywhere in the data center– A change to larger, less stable VLANs– Other Layer 2 extension solutions, such as Virtual Private LAN Services– Location-dependency for physical and logical servers– Vendor enhancements to the server provisioning process to support Layer 3 identity

Physical repurposing a different security zone, there are likely to be impacts on the boundaries themselves


Network Node Virtualization provides two new design solutions

One-to-Many– Single physical entity logically partitioned into

multiple virtual entities– Analogous to server virtualization– Fundamental to VLAN and MPLS virtualization– Key to services plane virtualization– Cost effectiveness, responsive and flexible

provisioning, needs low-latency network for location independence

Many-to-One– Multiple physical entities represent one virtual entity– Analogous to server clustering– Replaces Layer 2 topologies with alternative

extended backplane, simplifies logical topologies and management, improves scalability


Virtual Node solutions simplify the logical topologies

Virtual nodes are augmenting multi-layer switching (Layer 2/Layer 3) – Replacees Spanning Tree with extended backplane– Proprietary control plane

Simplifies the logical topologies and management– Fewer logical nodes to monitor and manage– Fewer Spanning Tree nodes reduces complexity, risk– Multi-switch link aggregation – Hub-and-spoke topology

Reduces aggregation port capacity requirements– Enables the refactoring of capacity and oversubscription – May enables the elimination of the aggregation layer

May eventually reduce to a single logical switch– A very large switch– Eliminates Spanning Tree and related scalability issues,

replacing them with the extended backplane and virtualized control plane

Juniper Virtual Chassis

Cisco Virtual Switching System

Virtual Data Center Switch


agenda





5 Conclusion


Today’s Fabric Convergence options include InfiniBand and iSCSI

High performance clusters– IB: 2 24 Gbps

150 <100 ns

– Lack native storage andlow performing gateways

SMB and Mid-tier Storage– Low $/Gbps (GE)

– Growing and maturing,considering 10 GE

iSCSI/NAS storage for middle tier servers

SMBstorage


Converged Enhanced Ethernet provides a new option for Data Center fabric convergence.

Enables Fiber Channel over Ethernet– Encapsulate FC frames directly onto Ethernet

– Requires FC-equivalent no-drop behavior

Ethernet needs enhancements for FC– Provide no-drop behavior in face of congestion

– Manage traffic interference

EthernetFrame

FCoEEncapsulation

FCPacket

© 2008 IBM Corporation26

The primary driver for a Unified Transport is the elimination of the redundant LAN and SAN infrastructures

1. Access connectivity at the network edge – Converge Fiber Channel and Ethernet server I/O (a.k.a, NIC, HBA), reducing cost,

power

– Leverage Top-of-Rack switches for both fabrics (reduced cable distance, physical planning, power)

– Reduces cabling, access switch inventory

2. Infrastructure aggregation for the infrastructure fabric– Single backbone transport (inter-connecting access switches) for both types (SAN,

LAN)

– Converged switching fabric – eliminates or reduces redundant switches, along with a corresponding consumption of resource (space, power, cooling)

– Gateway functions providing access to non-converged LAN, SAN


Improves edge connectivity between the server and access switch

Convergence in the access switch– Requires Converged Enhanced Ethernet

standards – switches and NICs

– Fewer interface cards and cabling

– May address InfiniBand or KVM in the future?

Separate backbone fabrics remain intact for both LAN and SAN Well-suited for Top-of-Rack switch deployment

– Enables rack-level deployment (e.g., iDataPlex)

– End-of-Row switches ideal as well for lower density rows


Improves infrastructure aggregation over backbone switches

Access-to-access switching backbone, converged for both types of network (SAN, LAN)

Reduces redundant switches, with a corresponding reduction in the consumption of resource (space, power, cooling)

Unified Physical Infrastructure One Set of Switches

Logical Local Area NetworksLayer 2 / Layer 3 Logical Storage Area Network


A Unified Transport is needed for the full NEDC vision

The NEDC Dynamic phase requires an improved Data Center Networking infrastructure

Richly connected servers, storage, services, edge devices– Any-to-any connectivity to enable mobility, flexibility

– Large scale (10,000s of servers)

– Low latency (nn λs) to avoid location dependencies

– Drop-less and/or non-blocking

– No single point of failure

– Computer bus-like connectivity among• Virtualized nodes - server, services

• Virtualized IO – VLAN, VSAN, VPN, storage, memory


Unified Transport Conclusion

Separate data and storage networks will remain an option

No single solution satisfies all requirements – InfiniBand fits when performance is critical

– NAS and iSCSI fit well in SMB and middle-tier servers

– As FCoCEE matures it will play well in FC-based enterprises seeking convergence


agenda





5 Conclusion


Understand the strategy that is driving changes to your data center

Determine your networking requirements

Compare the your current networking environment and support structure to your new requirements

Develop a new or updated network architecture and design to meet your business and technical requirements

Select vendors and components and prepare a detailed design

Create a roadmap for migration, carry out procurement, logistics and site preparation, configure, install and test

StrategizeAssessArchitectDesign Implement

Run

Your New Enterprise Data Center strategy takes careful planning, design, and integration

… while continuing to run your day-to-day operations

Designing changes to your data center network includes the following challenges:


A comprehensive approach is needed to understand your data center strategy and design the right network to support it

Assess the existing network and compare to projected server, storage, and application network traffic patterns to determine gaps and re-design options

Understand the projected services and security requirements to help ensure the network design includes the capabilities to respond

Integrate network management into the overall IT system management to create a unified view

Choose the best fit networking technologies to support the future networking requirements

Develop a plan to upgrade the network and to implement with minimal impact to the day to day business

data center transformation - cisco

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