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VCE Vblock - 1

Copyright © 2010 EMC Corporation. Do not Copy - All Rights Reserved.

VCE Vblock - 2


To build a private cloud, three essential components are needed:

A virtual information infrastructure that manages all data securely across the private cloud. A

unified computing cloud internetworking layer that provides the processing power and ability to

connect everything together. And, a cloud operating system that abstracts resources so they can

be aggregated and federated together.

The Virtual Computing Environment coalition or VCE coalition, formed jointly by Cisco and

EMC with VMware, delivers the industry’s first completely integrated IT offering that enables

the widespread transformation to pervasive virtualization and private cloud infrastructures.

Vblocks are pre-engineered, tested, and validated units of IT infrastructure that have a defined

performance, capacity, and availability Service Level Agreement (SLA). The promise that

Vblocks offer is to deliver IT infrastructure in a new way and accelerate organizations migration

to private clouds. Vblock provides a rapid deployment model for virtualized infrastructure, to

realize the value of business applications and information faster and quickly standardize across

the environment. Vblocks grew out of an idea to simplify IT infrastructure acquisition,

deployment, and operations.

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Vblock 2: Supports massive numbers of virtual machines in a compact footprint and is

designed for a high-end, highly extensible configuration that can meet the most demanding IT

needs. It is comprised of the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), Nexus l000v, and

Multilayer Directional Switches (MDS), EMC Symmetrix V-Max storage system (secured by

RSA), and VMware vSphere platform. Vblock 2 supports 3000 to 6000 Virtual machines.

Vblock 1: Designed for large VMs in a compact footprint, and provides for a mid-sized

configuration to deliver a broad range of IT capabilities to organizations of all sizes. It is

comprised of the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), Nexus 1000v, and Multilayer

Directional Switches (MDS), EMC CLARiiON CX4 storage system (secured by RSA), and

VMware vSphere platform. Vblock 1 supports 800 to 3000 Virtual machines.

Vblock 0: It is an entry-level configuration to meet the IT needs of small data centers as well as

provide a test/development platform. Key elements include: Cisco compute and networking,

EMC Unified Storage (secured by RSA) with VMware vSphere platform. Vblock 0 supports

maximum of 800 Virtual machines.

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Compute (Host): The Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) is platform that unites compute, network, and storage access. The platform, optimized for virtual environments, is designed within open industry standard technologies and aims to reduce TCO and increase business agility. The system integrates a low-latency, lossless 10 Gigabit Ethernet unified network fabric with enterprise-class, x86-architecture servers.

Network: The Nexus I000V is a software switch on a server that delivers Cisco VN-Link services to virtual machines hosted on that server. It takes advantage of the VMware vSphereframework to offer tight integration between server and network environments and help to ensure consistent, policy-based network capabilities to all servers in the data center. It allows policies to move with a virtual machine during live migration, ensuring persistent network, security, and storage compliance, resulting in improved business continuance, performance management, and security compliance.

Storage: The Symmetrix V-Max system is EMC’s high-end storage array that is purpose-built to deliver infrastructure services within the next-generation data center. Built for reliability, availability, and scalability. Symmetrix V-Max uses specialized engines, each of which includes two redundant director modules providing parallel access and replicated copies of all critical data. Through innovative technologies like Flash drives, UltraFlex technology, and Virtual Provisioning organizations can decrease costs and energy use and optimize availability and virtualization.

Virtualization: VMware vSphere 4 is the virtualized infrastructure for the Vblock, which virtualizes all the application servers and provide VMware High Availability and Dynamic Resource Scheduling.

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The slide provides a high-level topological view of Vblock components. A Vblock consists of a

minimum and maximum amount of components that offer balanced I/O, bandwidth, and storage

capacity relative to the compute and storage arrays offered. Each Vblock is a fully-redundant

autonomous system that has 1+1 or N+1 redundancy by default.

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Copyright © 2010 EMC Corporation. Do not Copy - All Rights Reserved.Copyright © 2010 EMC Corporation. Do not Copy - All Rights Reserved.

One guiding principle of Vblocks is the ability to expand the capacity of Vblock infrastructures

while maintaining the balance between Compute, Network and Storage capacities. The Vblock

architecture is very flexible and extensible and is architected to be easily expandable from a few

hundred VMs/users to several thousand users. In addition, this capacity may be aggregated

(clustered) as a single pool of shared capacity or segmented into smaller isolated pools.

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The Fabric Interconnects are always installed in pairs for redundancy and high availability. They

must have redundant power supply and cooling. They provide predictable performance with a

maximum of 4:1 oversubscription. The Fabric Interconnects enable balanced scaling of the

Vblocks from their respective minimum to maximum configuration.

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Vblock must ensure a balanced configuration – balanced across Network Bandwidth, Compute

capacity and Storage capacity. Data availability is ensured by the enterprise class storage arrays,

the various RAID protection schemes that are available, as well as an extensive portfolio of

replication technologies. By incorporating tiered storage and FAST, Vblock can ensure that data

is placed on the correct tier for optimal performance. Virtual Provisioning ensures optimal

capacity utilization.

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Each Vblock Infrastructure Packages category must meet or exceed existing infrastructure

security capabilities to ensure that the environment can deliver application service-level

agreements (SLAs) and maintain the data security required in today’s business environment.

Vblock Infrastructure Packages must also allow organizations to make the most of their data

center environment by sharing computing, network, and storage resources across the data center,

regardless of where it is located. The Vblock fully integrates with existing security tools and

frameworks and ensures consistent security between physical and virtual infrastructure.

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In a Vblock, there are several elements that can be managed by their respective tools. EMC

CLARiiON Navisphere manager provides the interface to manage the CLARiiON arrays. EMC

Symmetrix Management Console provides the interface for managing the EMC Symmetrix

VMAX series arrays. VMware vCenter Server provides the interface for managing the

virtualized server environment. Element managers from Cisco provide the UCS manager for

managing the UCS blades/chassis, fabric interconnects and the MDS switches. Vblock also has

an open management framework that allows the integration of Vblock management with other

tools that may exist in an organization.

EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager simplifies management of the Vblock Infrastructure:

•Provisioning

•Configuration Management

•Compliance Management

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Copyright © 2010 EMC Corporation. Do not Copy - All · PDF fileVCE Vblock-4 Copyright © 2010 EMC Corporation. Do not Copy - All Rights Reserved. Compute (Host): The Cisco Unified