Solution BriefIBM Systems and Technology Group System Storage

Highlights

• DeployaprivatecloudtoattainhighlyagileanddynamicITenvironments

• Realizehigherresourceutilizationandoptimizationofresourcesthroughshareduse

• Monitor,deployandmaintainphysicalandvirtualserversusingcloudmanagementtools

• Providereporting,meteringandresourcebillingasneeded

• AssociatebillingmetricsforeachresourceunitsuchasCPU,memoryandstorage

Building a Microsoft Hyper-V cloud with IBM solutionsIBM System x3650 M3 and IBM XIV Storage help maximize cloud deployments

A private cloud is a combination of physical servers, storage, networking and management software that enables customers to receive capacity on demand by creating virtual machines from physical resource pools. Companies can realize the following benefits:

• Deploying a private cloud in an organization’s data center can help businesses attain highly agile and dynamic IT environments.

• Abstracting the physical hardware infrastructure allows higher resource utilization and optimization of resources through shared use.

• Using cloud management tools to monitor, deploy and maintain physical and virtual servers can occur while providing reporting, metering and resource billing as needed.

• Creating resource groups for customers from the cloud’s pool of capacity can enable IT organizations to associate billing metrics for each resource unit such as CPU, memory and storage.

From the IT consumer perspective, cloud services appear to have infinite capacity and are accessed via a self-service portal that allows individual organizations to create and repurpose virtual resources as needed.

The IBM® Private Cloud Offering (PCO) for Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track configuration is a validated, ready-to-use configuration of servers, networking and storage systems that provide a reliable, scalable, available, high-performance, fault-tolerant management and computing platform for your cloud deployments.

Building a complete cloud platform with Microsoft and IBM componentsA private cloud environment built upon a robust and reliable foundation of IBM System x® servers, IBM XIV® Storage Systems, IBM switches and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with the Hyper-V hypervisor provides exceptional high availability and fault tolerance for the most demanding virtual environments. To successfully achieve the uptimes demanded by today’s critical business applications and organizations, the private cloud must contain both management and production layers.

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The private cloud management layer is built on a pair of IBM System x3650 M3 systems using Windows failover clustering and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with Microsoft Hyper-V. For domain authentication, an IBM System x3550 M3 active directory server facilitates cloud security. Cloud management utilizes Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) with the IBM Hardware Management Pack; Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) with the IBM Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) Pack; and Microsoft SCVMM Self-Service Portal 2.0 services. This unique combination of Microsoft System Center tools, extended with IBM upward-integration components, supports key administrative cloud functions.

The private cloud production layer consists of an 8-node cluster of IBM System x3650 M3 2-socket servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. All cluster servers are attached to the highly reliable IBM XIV Storage System, which scales up to 243 TB of usable enterprise-class disk storage for cloud servicing needs while being one of the most user-friendly

performance workhorses in the industry. XIV Fibre Channel (FC) and Internet SCSI (iSCSI) connectivity are well suited for private cloud end-to-end virtualization environments.

Finally, the private cloud layers are linked together by a converged networking framework made up of redundant IBM B32 and IBM B24Y switches in a fault-tolerant configuration. Each host server in the management and Hyper-V production clusters uses two Brocade dual-port converged network adapters (CNAs) to provide highly optimized redundant paths for both SAN and LAN traffic.

Together, these components form a high-performing, cost-effective solution that supports Microsoft Hyper-V cloud environments for business-critical applications that include Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint and even many custom third-party solutions.

Figure 1 shows the general configuration of the IBM PCO.

Figure 1:TheIBMPrivateCloudOffering

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Microsoft Hyper-V and failover clusteringMicrosoft Hyper-V virtualization technology is an increasingly key cloud component that is included as a role in x64 versions of Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter editions or as a stand-alone, console-based hypervisor in the Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 product (available for download from http://www.microsoft.com/hvs). Virtual machines can support up to four virtual processors and 64 GB of memory, depending on the operating system loaded.

Each virtual machine has its own operating system instance and is completely isolated from the host operating system as well as other virtual machines (VMs). VM isolation helps promote higher business-critical application availability while the Microsoft failover clustering feature, found in the Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and Datacenter Editions, can dramatically improve production uptimes. As such, Microsoft failover clustering plays a pivotal role in the IBM PCO solution and careful consideration is built into the network and storage design.

Each clustered Hyper-V node uses four converged network ports to handle LAN and SAN communication functions such as Hyper-V management, VM connectivity, failover cluster heartbeats, cluster shared volume (CSV) traffic, and live migration communication as well as other desired networks. SAN I/O is spread across all four Brocade CNA ports using Microsoft Windows native multipath I/O (MPIO) enabled by the XIV Host Attachment Kit. Using the Brocade Host Connectivity Manager, logical separation of the Ethernet networks is achieved through the use of two CNA network interface card teams comprised of separate cluster role-based virtual LANs.

The majority of IBM XIV Storage System volumes are allocated for virtual machine CSV use. In order to eliminate storage array–related “hot spots,” XIV volumes (LUNs) are automatically spread across every disk inside the XIV storage array. The XIV LUN is then defined by single LUN-to-CSV mapping via the easy-to-use XIV GUI. In other words, each individual XIV LUN represents a single CSV. CSVs are concurrently visible to all cluster nodes and store the virtual machine configuration and

virtual hard disk files. Creating several large CSVs helps to host virtual machine operating system files and balance the load across Microsoft cluster nodes. Optional CSVs help host virtual hard disk (VHD) files for application data depending on their functional design. Using fixed VHDs helps to maximize performance. Additional storage volumes help provide iSCSI or VM pass-through disks as required.

Furthermore, spreading virtual machines and CSVs across an active/active group of cluster members helps to maximize hardware resource utilization based on the number of highly available virtual machines present and the total number of parent hosts participating in the cluster. Similarly, the spreading of XIV LUNs across every spindle inside the XIV storage array provides consistent I/O response to the cluster without needing administrator planning or intervention. Users should still make sure enough physical server resources are available to handle all virtual machines in an N-1 configuration to accommodate maintenance windows or unplanned cluster failovers. Once a management failover cluster is successfully deployed, a separate virtual machine can be created for SCVMM.

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2SCVMM simplifies private cloud management for both physical and virtual systems from a single administrative console. Administrators have the ability to create virtual machine templates to rapidly and intelligently deploy VMs to Microsoft failover clusters. Acting as a virtual machine deployment hub, SCVMM supports live migrations, quick-storage migrations and straightforward automation capabilities leveraging Windows PowerShell. It enables performance and resource optimization of virtual machines triggered by SCOM alerts, which contribute to greater VM control and efficiency. PRO Packs, such as the IBM PRO Pack, allow automated VM cluster migrations in response to defined SCOM triggers that can resolve problematic resource states or balance critical workloads across cluster hosts. Part of the same family, SCVMM tightly integrates with SCOM and substantially enhances private cloud management and monitoring.

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Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2SCOM provides centralized administration from a single GUI, and provides multilayer monitoring of health, performance and availability of private cloud environments—across hardware, hypervisors, operating systems and even applications. The IBM Hardware Management Pack is available to add IBM-specific monitoring and information to SCOM. Operations Manager primarily caters to Windows-based monitoring but also supports heterogeneous environments for customers who want to build non-Windows virtual machines. Additionally, SCOM 2007 R2 also offers uncomplicated reporting and authoring capabilities to track performance against private cloud service-level agreements. Through the Microsoft Self-Service Portal, administrators actually define many of the service-level resources and complete the private cloud management layer.

Microsoft SCVMM Self-Service Portal 2.0SCVMM Self-Service Portal 2.0 is the primary customer web-based interface for dynamic virtual machine management. It is a free, partner-extensible software package that allows service providers to dynamically pool, allocate and manage data center resources. Private cloud administrators sell virtual resource services to customers seeking to reduce IT costs. Budget-oriented organizations can purchase virtual infrastructure resources made up of server, storage, and networking hardware that is managed and hosted by private cloud service providers. This increases IT flexibility for those customers that benefit from an automated, user-friendly web portal. SCVMM Self-Service Portal 2.0 easily supports cloud customer solutions by providing metering, billing and reporting. SCVMM Self-Service Portal 2.0 is also tightly integrated with the System Center family of products, and simplifies service provider billable unit mappings for server, storage and networking hardware resources.

IBM System x3650 M3 At the core of the IBM PCO solution, IBM System x servers deliver the performance and reliability required for virtualizing business-critical applications in Hyper-V cloud environments. To provide the expected virtualization performance to handle any Microsoft production environment, IBM System x3650 M3 servers can be equipped with up to two Intel 6-core processors for a total of 12 processing cores and up to 288 GB of memory. Hot-swappable power supplies and fans as well as remote management via keyboard, video and mouse, which enables continuous remote management capabilities, help solidify the dependability IBM customers have grown accustomed to with System x servers.

By virtualizing with Microsoft Hyper-V technology on IBM System x3650 M3 servers (Figure 2), businesses reduce physical server sprawl, data center footprints, power consumption and total cost of ownership (TCO). Virtualizing the server environment also results in lower server administrative overhead, giving IT administrators the capability to manage more systems than with exclusively physical environments. Highly available critical applications residing on clustered host servers can be managed with greater flexibility and minimal downtime due to the Hyper-V premier migration features. Perform live migrations during physical server maintenance windows to prevent production downtime by simply failing over virtual machines. Continuous operation is accomplished by transferring VM memory pages between servers across the network while VMs are still running. The final transition occurs within the TCP/IP timeout window, resulting in zero client downtime. Realize greater IT flexibility by using virtualization to streamline the deployment and upgrade processes for both physical and virtual machines.

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In addition, experience a greater return on investment (ROI) and a lower TCO from reduced hardware requirements by maximizing resource utilization of all physical server investments. Benefit by optimizing infrastructure to simplify and standardize IT administration and curb labor costs. Also realize reduced downtime costs by easily moving and balancing workloads across different resources. Improve operational agility and flexibility in managing maintenance schedules when responding to today’s dynamic IT demands.

optimizes performance and integrates seamlessly with cloud technologies to give you the agility needed to handle growth while helping ensure high availability and data protection.

The XIV data protection design incorporates active-active N+1 redundancy of all data modules, disk drives, interconnect switches and UPS units, and offers multipath FC and iSCSI host connectivity. Three UPS units protect all disks, cache and electronics with redundant power supplies and fans, which help to further promote impressive hardware and software reliability with enterprise-class availability. The XIV also employs a predetermined data distribution model that helps ensure fast recovery from failures by anticipating and predicting failures through proactive error and pre-failure detection, and employing corrective healing before failures occur.

From a storage administrator’s perspective, XIV has earned a reputation for being one of the most user-friendly storage arrays available. The XIV storage array incorporates a management architecture that allows XIV storage to grow or change without a need for hot spot administration and planning. Combining the no-hot-spot management feature with the XIV family’s ability to self-heal and automatically load balance server workloads minimizes the need for storage administration time and skills.

In addition to the high availability and reliability features, the XIV family offers performance characteristics to meet demanding cloud-based workloads. The 15-module XIV 2810/2812-A14 distributed architecture provides a combined total of up to 240 GB of cache and individual modules powered by quad-core Intel Xeon processors; similarly, the new XIV Gen3 model provides even higher performance with up to 360 GB of cache. Six dedicated host interface modules ensure optimal, pseudo-balanced data distribution among all 180 1 TB or 2 TB Serial ATA (SATA) disks to eliminate hot spots. This data distribution feature has become increasingly important due to the larger LUNs used by multiple virtual machines typically deployed in cloud environments. Since every LUN has access to all operating spindles, all the time, the chance of bottlenecking on the storage is greatly reduced when compared to traditional architectural approaches using RAID sets and hot spares.

Figure 2:IBMSystemx3650M3

IBM XIV and XIV Gen3 Storage SystemsIBM XIV Storage Systems are excellent choices for Microsoft virtualized cloud environments. The IBM XIV family of arrays was built to provide easy-to-use, enterprise-class storage, offering IBM CE installation and maintenance, phone home, synchronous and asynchronous mirroring, snapshots, thin provisioning, performance reporting and redundant hardware components. The IBM XIV complements IBM System x3650 M3 servers and the Brocade converged networking infrastructure in an end-to-end Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track solution by delivering proven disk storage, starting as small as six modules and 27 TB (usable) and scaling to 15 modules and over 243 TB (usable). IBM XIV eliminates the complexity of managing enterprise storage, never compromising performance or reliability, while offering incredibly low TCO. Its grid architecture delivers virtual storage that

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This unique grid architecture helps provide the following key benefits:

• Continuous, predictable high performance without traditional complex tuning requirements

• 4 Gb FC and 1 Gb iSCSI host connectivity• No single point of failure• Industry-leading rebuild times in the event of disk or module

failures (less than 60 minutes for 2 TB drives)• Innovative snapshot functionality that includes snap-of-snap,

restore-of-snap and a nearly unlimited number of snapshots• Nondisruptive maintenance and upgrades • Per host/cluster QoS capability to prioritize workloads based

on business criticality

The newest model in the XIV family, the IBM XIV Storage System Gen3 storage array (model 2810/2812-114) contains all the benefits of the XIV family plus the following performance enhancements:

• Up to 4 times the throughput (10 GB/sec) of the previous generation, improving performance for business intelligence, archiving and other I/O-intensive applications

• Up to 3 times improved response time of the previous generation, enabling faster transaction processing and greater scalability for online transaction processing, database and email applications

• Power to serve even more applications from a single system with a substantial hardware upgrade that includes an InfiniBand interconnect, larger cache (up to 360 GB of combined memory), faster SAS disk controllers and increased processing power—plus, each Gen3 interface module delivers 8 Gb FC and 1 Gb iSCSI connectivity

• Option for future upgradeability to solid-state drive (SSD) Caching for breakthrough SSD performance levels at a fraction of typical SSD storage costs (planned availability for Gen3 in the first half of 2012)

• With the XIV family’s “one price for all features” pricing model, there are no hidden costs for multipath software or replication features—specifically, every XIV includes the following with purchase: snapshot capability, thin provisioning, asynchronous and synchronous data replication, advanced management, performance reporting, monitoring and alerting, and full support of Microsoft technologies including GeoClustering, Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) and MPIO.

IBM Converged Switch B32The IBM Converged Switch B32 (Figure 3) enables access to LAN and SAN environments over a common server connection by utilizing data center bridging (DCB) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) protocols. The B32 uses full Fibre Channel Forwarding capabilities and connects to servers via Brocade CNAs. The switch offers 24-10 Gbps DCB Ethernet ports that can transport both FCoE and regular Ethernet traffic. FCoE can be forwarded into an FC SAN network through the eight 8 Gbps FC ports on the B32.

The consolidation of server SAN and LAN ports and corresponding cables simplify configuration and cabling in server cabinets and reduce acquisition costs. With fewer components using power and cooling, organizations can save significant operating costs as well. For the IBM private cloud solution, 10 Gbps DCB Ethernet ports provide connectivity between hosts and uplinks to the LAN aggregation layer and to the IBM Ethernet Switch B24Y carrying iSCSI traffic. FC ports are used to connect to the IBM XIV Storage System.

Figure 3:IBMConvergedSwitchB32

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IBM Ethernet Switch B24YThe IBM Ethernet Switch B24Y (Figure 4) is a high-performance Ethernet/IP switch offering 24-1 GbE ports and four 10 GbE ports versatile enough to be used for stacking, uplinks or connectivity to end devices. Designed for wire-speed and non-blocking performance, the B24Y with symmetric flow control capabilities is well suited for connecting servers to storage in an iSCSI environment. Users can manage the device using an industry-standard command-line interface or through a web management GUI.

The IBM private cloud solution uses the B24Y to provide a secure, redundant back-end management network to the attached hosts and Microsoft Active Directory servers as well as iSCSI connectivity to the XIV storage.

Figure 4:IBMEthernetSwitchB24Y

Realizing value with the IBM Private Cloud OfferingDiscover the true value delivered by IBM’s affordable and innovative private cloud solutions for Microsoft environments based on insight and proven experience gained from IBM’s diverse partner and customer relationships. IBM and its business partners are committed to the tradition of providing industry-leading server, storage and networking hardware and virtualization services and solutions that improve high availability, efficiency, ROI and satisfaction for the most demanding Microsoft IT environments.

The IBM Private Cloud Offering for Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track helps bring business to the next level of virtualization. It successfully creates a capacity-on-demand environment that pools compute, storage and networking resources. Combine IBM System x servers, XIV storage systems and Brocade networking with Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization to optimize utilization levels and maximize return on investment. An 8-node cluster of IBM System x3650 M3 servers, backed by

IBM XIV storage, can provide up to 96 physical CPU cores, just over 2 TB of memory and up to 243 TB of usable disk space. The IBM Hardware Management Pack and PRO Pack, for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager and System Center Virtual Machine Manager, provide valuable monitoring of cloud environments and identify and resolve potential issues before they negatively impact business-critical application uptimes. In addition, you can streamline organizational processes and costs by rapidly deploying, managing and recycling virtual machines using SCVMM while employing Microsoft Self-Service Portal 2.0 to provide metering, billing and self-service provisioning to supported organizations.

For more information or to place an order, please contact your IBM sales or business partner representative.

The following IBM Business Partners can provide integration and customization services for your IBM-based, Microsoft Private Cloud or Hyper-V project:

Avanade Inc. (www.avanade.com):

Avanade provides business technology services and solutions that connect insight, innovation and expertise in Microsoft technologies to help customers improve performance, productivity and sales for organizations in all industries.

Avanade has the expertise to automate IT operational processes in a Microsoft environment. Through automation, Avanade can help clients reduce their dependency on manual tasks, reducing opportunity for error, and freeing IT operational staff to focus on higher-value activities.

The Avanade knowledge can help extend proactive (and automated) management of supporting infrastructures, including network, storage, security and other components that are core to delivering IT services. Avanade Cloud Services Manager helps provide a renewed and enhanced perspective on IT Service management, extending across various Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) principles, including Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management and Configuration Management.

For additional information, refer to www.avanade.com or send an e-mail to Avanade directly at DataCenter@avanade.com to get started.

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