The Cisco Unified Computing System represents a radical simplification of traditional architectures, dramatically reducing the number of devices organizations must purchase, deploy, and maintain. Cisco UCS delivers end-to-end optimization for virtualized environments while retaining the ability to support traditional OS and application stacks in physical environments. This session will provide attendees with an update on new features available from both hardware and software perspectives for the Cisco Unified Computing System.
Trends:Anything as a ServiceOptimize heterogeneous workloadsVM MobilityDynamic Resource AllocationOn-demand ResponseReal-time performance
Today’s typical IT environment is characterized by independent, silo’ed technologies and organizations.These silos result in ineffective use of resources and incremental complexity to operations, the net effect of which is to drive up total cost of ownership.
Cisco’s Data Center Business Advantage framework offers a different approach. It is based on the 3 key technology pillars of Unified Compute, Unified Network Services, and Unified Fabric. By unifying these 3 elements into a single, cohesive Data Center Fabric, Cisco enables customers to eliminate the silos, optimize use of their resources, simplify operations and lower TCO. Cisco’s Data Center Fabric allows customers to transform the way they consume IT by enabling virtualization and facilitating the move to private, public or hybrid cloud models.
Cisco’s Data Center Fabric Vision delivers a flexible, high-performance, secure, shared infrastructure, tightly integrated amongst network, storage, compute and application services coupled with Cisco Life cycle Services and Innovations that facilitate an “enter anywhere, grow anywhere” approach to evolving a customer’s Data Center – focusing on aligning to customer architectural needs, implementation timelines, and ROI requirements. All through an architecture that is:OpenIntegratedFlexibleScalableResilient andSecure
At Cisco, we have been on an evolutionary path for over three years. It started with the vision of converged networks.Next phase was when we integrated services into network structure for complete VM visibility to support wide scale virtualizationThen brought in the compute layer to integrate virtualized network and services into the serverMoving forward to next evolution integrated policy based management across fabric lanesSimplifying management vision taking us to single pane of glass management with massive scalability10’s of thousands of server in single L2 domain with more efficient resource utilizationNo one else can deliver across the data center fabric – others have only piece partsCisco supports Heterogeneous workloads with mobilityCisco has vision…with execution
The Cisco UCS solution is a set of pre-integrated data center components that substantially reduces the size of the footprint of the systems in the data center.The intelligence to manage the system, called UCS Manager, is embedded in a fabric switchThe UCS Manager is an XML-based application that provides a common GUI for managing servers, storage and networksIt has an Open API that Allows UCSManager to be integrated with other management console systems.The common GUI makes it much easier for various IT disciplines to collaborate on provisioning and managing the data center environment.The UCS Manager eliminates the need for separate server, storage and switch management tools.Each end point in the system is linked back to the UCS ManagerEach segmented element of the UCS system is assigned a Service Profile. The UCS Manager manages and maintains each Service Profile, which is an abstraction of the underling server, storage and switching equipment that makes up each Service ProfileAs a result, UCS Manager Reduces the Time Required to Provision any set of integrated server, storage and switch components down to a matter of minutesBlade servers are based on Intel Nehalem-class processorsFewer Components and Simplified Management Translates into Much Less Cost.
Cisco’s Unified Computing System is based on Cisco’s unified approach to the data center that brings together server, storage under a single management fabric.Cisco has worked closely with VMware to extend all the management capabilities of UCS Manager to support virtual servers.This creates the potential to lower systems management costs by allowing staff members to manage a larger number of devices by leveraging the ability to dynamically provision physical and virtual IT assets.UCS Manager has the ability to auto-discover any element of the system.But no element of the system can be invoked until it is assigned to be part of a particular set of Service ProfilesThis approach also makes it easier to see the dependencies between elements of the data center because it manages the whole system at a higher level of abstraction.Fewer components in the system creates a better eco-footprint in terms of both the amount of power consumed and carbon generated.A unique shared memory architecture developed with Intel for Nehalem processors actually increases application performance in a model that also lowers the total cost of ownership.
Unified Management DomainManagement embedded in all system elementsAutomatic discovery of all componentsOperates autonomouslyDynamic ProvisioningAllows for complete infrastructure repurposingOffers seamless server mobility: identity and connectivity policyDeploy in minutes, not daysBuilding Block for Dynamic Data CenterComprehensive open XML APIIntegration with 3rd party tools
The Cisco Server portfolio continues to grow with the introduction of the C260M2! Expands form factor options in the UCS family to 9 systems. Industry-leading memory and I/O density, combined with 16 SSD or HDD: ideal for local-storage, performance-intensive OLTP and Data Warehousing applications Brings Cisco Extended Memory Technology to the mission critical systems class with double the memory of any 2-socket Intel Westmere EX-based server
N7K: scales beyond 15Tbps vs. FC platforms which scale between 2~4TbpsN7K:40G and 100G ready vs. FC roadmap uncertain beyond 16G FCMultiprotocol flexibility to supports iSCSI, NAS, FCoE,FCMDS: Bridge Converged Networks to FC SANs, preserving existing and continued investments in FCMDS: Delivers services such as FCIP distance extension to Converged NetworksMulti-hop FCoE uses VE ports, standardized in FC-BB-5 in July 2009…no dependency on TRILL or FabricPathMulti-hop FCoE scales to 7 hops and 10,000 devices per fabric…the same scale supported for Fibre Channel SANsA single operating system (NX-OS) and a single management tool (DCNM) for both Nexus and MDS platforms
The Cisco Unified Fabric Switching portfolio offers one of the broadest data center LAN and SANswitching portfolio’s in the industry spanning from the Hypervisor to the data center core. Cisco Unified Fabric provides the flexibility of high-performance, highly available, highly-scalable networks to serve diverse data centers needs including the lossless requirements to carry storage traffic (FC, FCoE, iSCSI, NAS) over simplified infrastructure based on 10Gb Ethernet. All platforms in the portfolio run on a common operating system - NX-OS. Cisco is the only vendor to provide a single operating system across all PINs in the data center. Having a single operating system across every element of the data center network, provides operational and functional consistency with tight integration across the unified fabric significantly simplifying operations and providing a foundation for accelerated innovations. Adding to this industry leading portfolio, we are announcing the Nexus 3000 family designed for ultra-low latency, wire speed applications such as High Frequency Trading in financial applications. We are also introducing new members to the Nexus 5000 family, the Nexus 5548UP and the 5596UP which offer high density low latency unified ports for server access. We are also announcing the addition of FCoE and Multi-Hop FCoE to the MDS and Nexus 7000 platforms enabling end to end LAN and SAN convergence over a unified fabric.
Adapter FEX: Adapter FEX is a technology that extends the current Cisco Fabric Extender solution into the servers. Adapter FEX enables the server adapter to be logically partitioned into multiple vNICS. Each vNIC behaves like a physical NIC port and satisfies the network connectivity need for each application, delivering independent network polices for each VM. Adapter FEX enables the efficient utilization of 10 Gigabit Ethernet bandwidths. The technology is based on the standards architecture, IEEE 802.1Qbh, delivering secure, scalable network monitoring and management for virtualized servers. It enables a single point of management from the access layer switch that manages and controls the end-to-end connectivity between server adapters and the switches in a virtualized environment. VM-FEX: Cisco is extending the switching fabric all the way to the server hypervisor, by providing switching of VM traffic instead of using a software switch within the hypervisor, achieving greater performances and consolidation of virtual access layer and physical access layer.Highlights:Efficient utilization of 10 Gigabit Ethernet bandwidthsPartition the 10 Gigabit Ethernet server adapter to provide dedicated network bandwidth to individual applications or virtual machinesReduce cabling, NICs, power and operational costsSingle point of monitoring and managementMonitor and manage the entire network extending into the virtual machines from the Nexus 5000 Series SwitchesFlexibility and Scalability with SecurityBased on industry standard, IEEE 802.1QbhThe standard enables the bare metal or virtualized environments to scale as the business grows – increased number of applications, virtual machines or number of servers.ACLs implementation is based on tagged data packets instead of MAC addresses. By doing so each data packet is protected and does not impact the overall network by any rogue data packet.
LISP is a new routing architecture that enables enterprises and service providers to transform their network architectures to be more scalable and agile for virtualization and cloud computing environments. Unlike current IP routing and addressing architecture that uses a single numbering space for device identity and location, the LISP routing architecture creates a new paradigm by splitting the device identity and its location into two different numbering spaces. This address separation provides global IP address portability and significantly increases routing scalability with on-demand route look up. Customers can take advantage of the LISP architectural benefits to enable: Workload Mobility –IP address portability enables virtual machines and physical hosts to be moved seamlessly across Layer 3 boundaries to other data centers or to cloud service providers while preserving their IP addresses. This enables live global application migration and optimal traffic routing. The user traffic is automatically re-routed to the new location. This make the live VM move non disruptive and transparent to the end user. Scalable and secure Multi-tenancy – The LISP routing architecture eliminates the route table scaling issues by only populating required routes on-demand.IPv6 transition – LISP enables IPv6 to be deployed incrementally over the existing IPv4 infrastructure. This approach allows for an incremental and simpler phased transition to IPv6.Through its participation in standards bodies such as the IETF LISP Working Group, Cisco is committed to the development of the LISP architecture as an industry standard.
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