Adopting Converged Infrastructure as a Go Forward Datacenter Strategy

James Charter, Solution Architect

Slide 3

• About Long View Systems

• Traditional Infrastructure

• Converged Infrastructure

• What are the technologies?

• What is required?

• What are the benefits?

• When is the best time?

• Next steps

Agenda

Slide 4

• One of North America’s largest IT Services/Solutions organizations

• Focused on end-to-end, operational IT Infrastructure

• Industry leading expertise in key technology innovations and best practices

• Extensive project experience (complete lifecycle) with SMB to enterprise corporations

• A people-focused corporate culture dedicated to “Being the Best”

About Long View Systems

Slide 5

What We Do

Long View

IT Consulting & Solution Architecture

IT Project Delivery Managed Services &

Outsourcing IT Procurement

Services

Slide 6

Some of Our Partners & Awards

Advanced Technology Partner of the Year

Elite Partner, ASL & PSL

Star & Authorized Professional Service Partner

Premier Solution Provider Partner

Large Account Re-Seller (LAR)

Premier Partner Fast-Growth Partner

Slide 7

• Most environments use a traditional approach now

• Technologies (Server, Storage, Network) and management are in silos

• Scaling environment often involves addition of all resources even if a single resource is the constraint (i.e. compute)

• Each component is managed separately through many tools and skill sets, often distributed across different teams

Traditional Infrastructure

Slide 8

Traditional Infrastructure - Cables

Too many cables, means more management… 11 cables

11 cables connecting to a minimum of 4 managed devices

Slide 9

Traditional Infrastructure - Scale

• Most uplinks are for redundancy not bandwidth

• Low utilization of FC and Gigabit Ethernet • Many components to manage

Slide 10

Traditional Infrastructure - Scale

• Wire once, Wire once again! • Higher utilization in some components, not

all • Capacity management is accomplished by

monitoring everything often with dissimilar tools

Slide 11

Traditional Infrastructure - Scale

• Lack of ports drives scaling, not utilization! • Manual balancing of workloads and

connections are used to distribute utilization

Slide 12

Traditional Infrastructure - Scale

• The more we scale the more we have to manage!

Slide 13

• Also referred to as “Fabric-Based Infrastructures”

• Similar to Server Virtualization only Broader – Every Resource is Shareable

• Involves the Virtualization of Servers, Storage, and Network in a Management Framework

• Wire resources once, use many times (until target utilization is reached)

• Another logical layer of abstraction above physical resources

• Shared pools of resources enable higher utilization of the whole

• Orchestration and Automation of all resources enables agility and mobility across the physical assets

Converged Infrastructure

Slide 14

• Converged Infrastructure offers a pool resource approach to management

Pooled Resources

Storage Network Servers

Slide 15

Converged Fabric - Mixed

• Wire once, grow within the pod of capacity

• Higher utilization of network and storage

• Converged Fabric is managed as one entity

• Compute could be rack mount or blade form factor

Slide 16

Converged Fabric - Ethernet

• Wire once, grow within the pod of capacity

• Full converged fabric with 10GbE, Cisco DCB, or FCoE

• Converged Fabric is managed as one entity

• Compute could be rack mount or blade form factor

Slide 17

• Virtual Connections provide required bandwidth and redundancy based on profile

Virtual Connections = Flexible Bandwidth

Less physical ports to

manage!

Higher flexibility!

Higher utilization!

Slide 18

• Converged Network Adapters + Virtual Infrastructure offers a pool resource approach to management

• If MACs and WWPNs are virtual they are portable across compute resources and can be moved!

Virtual Interfaces = Mobility

Slide 19

What are the Analysts Saying?

• IDC

“…the next technology cycle will have a converged architecture as a central design feature…”

• Gartner

“By YE 2012, 30% of Global 2000 data centers will be equipped with some fabric-based blade architectures.”

“Critical Time Frame for Cloud Computing is 2010 – 2013”

Analysts

Slide 20

An Evolutionary Path to IT as a Service

The VMware Customer Journey

Sponsorship

Business

Focus

Cloud

Readiness

Technology

Focus

Stage

IT

Server & infrastructure

consolidation

CAPEX

OPEX

Cost Efficiency

IT / LOB

IT Operations

Application

Lifecycle Efficiency

Service levels

Desktop

CAPEX

OPEX

Availability

Responsiveness

Quality of Service

CIO

Service catalog & self-

service IT

Policy-driven automation

Increased IT innovation

CAPEX

OPEX

Availability

Responsiveness

Compliance

Time-to-market

Business Agility

Private Cloud

IT Production Business Production IT as a Service

You are here

Slide 21

• Emergence of different manufacturer architecture offerings

• Data center design shifting to ‘Pod ‘ or ‘Cell’ based architecture

• I/O Layer changing: 10GbE, Cisco DCB, FCoE

• What is available?

• Several Hardware Manufacturers have solutions today:

• Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS)

• HP BladeSystem Matrix

• IBM CloudBurst

• Build-Your-Own Solution

Technologies

Slide 22

• Broader technology knowledge required

• Consider hybrid teams to increase collaboration and visibility across traditional disciplines

• Change how you design your data center

• Approach Capacity in Pods

• Design from the inside out, based on pods of capacity each with their own lifecycle

• Design for denser compute

• Design for denser network and storage I/O

• May require adopting new networking topology

• Adopt virtualization across Storage, Network, Compute to maximize benefit of Convergence

Requirements

Slide 23

• Enable faster response to Business

• Platform that enables ITaaS

• Flexible resource models using Pods or Cells

• Lower infrastructure management costs

• Streamline management with less tools

• Flexible capacity

• High utilization of resources – maximize ROI

• Orchestration & Automation

• Flexible bandwidth

• Mobility of compute resources

Benefits

Slide 24

Consider Converged Infrastructure for:

• Faster response to changing business needs

• New capacity requirements

• Net new facilities

• Hardware Life Cycle Renewal

• When a major component is being replaced reconsider topology (storage, network, compute)

• Change in management strategy – outsourcing, RBAC for delegation of responsibility across groups

• Data center mobility to support facility moves or BC/DR

When is the best time?

Slide 25

The next 12 months… 2011

• Review hardware life cycle

• Facility savings for new generation hardware may reduce the acquisition cost

• Investigate network topology options to increase I/O density

• IT-as-a-Service readiness assessment

• When do you need to get there?

• Review consolidation efforts, plan the next steps

• Identify ISV’s or architectures that aren’t yet supported virtual

• How about bare metal on a Converged solution?

Time Frame – Next Steps

James Charter Solution Architect Main: 403.515.6900 Direct: 403.515.3331 Email: james.charter@lvs1.com

Thank You