Hyper-Convergence: Worth the Hype?

Eagle Technologies, Inc. © Copyright 2017

Hyper-Convergence: Worth the Hype?Brian Anderson, Senior Solutions Architect


Agenda: Hyper-Convergence: Worth the Hype?

2

• Traditional Infrastructure

– Where are we now, pros

• Converged Infrastructure

– Pros

• Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

– Pros

• Challenges

• What’s Next?

• Conclusion


Traditional Infrastructure

3


Virtual Machines: Applications and Services

Containers: Cloud-native Applications and Services

APP

OS

SERVER VIRTUALIZATION

APP

OS

APP

OS

APP

OS

APP

OS

vSphere, Hyper-V, RHEV, etc.

NETWORK Routers, Firewalls, Switches, etc.

STORAGE Disc Arrays, Controllers, etc.

COMPUTE & MEMORY Servers

The Components of a Traditional Datacenter(“Three Tier” Infrastructure)


– Enabled the Era of Virtualization

– À La Carte Approach – Allows for either:

• Best of Breed Components

– Great for startup companies

• Cheapest Solutions

– Easy to Scale Each Component

• Compute, Memory, Storage

– Comfortable model for most IT shops

Pros of Traditional Infrastructure

APP

OS


APP

OS

APP

OS

APP

OS

APP

OS

NETWORK

STORAGE

COMPUTE & MEMORY


– Typically a “rip and replace” model;

expensive tech refreshes

– CapEx is falling out of favor with C-levels

– Long implementation timelines

– Not much integration

– Lack of scalability

– Requires a lot of specialized IT skills

Challenges of Traditional Infrastructure

APP

OS


APP

OS

APP

OS

APP

OS

APP

OS

NETWORK

STORAGE

COMPUTE & MEMORY

Converged & Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

(CI & HCI)

7


Converged infrastructure (CI) is an approach to data center

management that seeks to minimize compatibility issues

between servers, storage systems and network devices while

also reducing costs for cabling, cooling, power and floor space.

Convergence attempts to reduce the complexity of modern

datacenters.

What is Converged Infrastructure?


Network

Compute & Memory

Shared Storage

Converged Infrastructure (CI)

Multiple vendors working together to provide a solution that is guaranteed to be inter-operable and easily supported.

• Certified/Validated Architecture/Design

• Examples:• vBlock (VCE; Cisco and EMC)• SmartStack (Cisco and Nimble)• FlexPod (Cisco and NetApp)• FlashStack (Cisco and Pure)• VersaStack (Cisco and IBM)• Hitachi UCP Select (Cisco and Hitachi)• Blueprints (Dell)

• More and more you see many of these components in a single chassis

• Some folks try to peg CI has a hardware-focused “building block” approach


– One group handles:

• Engineering – Architectural standards

• Manufacturing – Delivered from factory “ready to run”

• Management – Simplified operations

• Support – expertise over entire system

• Sustaining – Lifecycle assurance with documented standards

– Burned in at the factory

– Dramatically helps “time to first VM”, reduces implementation

headaches and “gotchas”

– Software/Firmware patched in bundles (simpler upgrades)

– Allows for a customer to use preferred storage array

Pros of Converged Infrastructure


Hyper-Converged infrastructure (HCI) is a type

of infrastructure system with a software-centric architecture

that aims to tightly integrate compute, storage, networking,

virtualization resources, and other technologies from scratch in

a commodity hardware box supported by a single vendor.

What is Hyper-Converged Infrastructure?


Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI)

Software-centric architecture that tightly integrates compute, storage, virtualization and (sometimes) networking resources and other technologies from scratch in a commodity hardware box supported by a single vendor.

• Examples:• Nutanix• VMware VSAN• VxRail (Dell EMC)• Simplivity (HPE)• ScaleIO (Dell EMC)• HyperFlex (Cisco UCS and OEM SpringPath)

*Networking is typically not included.

Network

Compute & Memory

Distributed Storage


– Also helps “time to first VM”, faster deployment

– Scale more cost effectively, with predictable building blocks

– Single “throat to choke”

• One vender/VAR makes life easier!

• Single support contract

– Promise of simplified management (reduced set of GUI’s)

• Per-VM policy-based management

– Full stack visibility (performance monitoring, logs, analytics)

– Lifecycle assurance

• Vendor ensures all FW is inter-compatible before releasing patches

– Updated in “bundles”, often orchestrated… Automation, Automation, Automation!

Pros of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure


Challenges of CI & HCI

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Eagle Technologies, Inc. © Copyright 2017 15

• Vendor Lock-in

– Less competition = Less discount

• Too Integrated?

– Issues w/ non linear growth

– Potentially less flexible

• Reliance on Network

– Parity/Redundancy/Rebalancing

– East/West traffic

• Lifecycle Assurance = Waiting For

Updates

Converged Infrastructure Challenges

• Interdependence Between Nodes

– Hot Spots \ Data Locality

– Troubleshooting

• New Operational Issues w/ Storage

– Node down = Storage down

• Hardware/Software TCO

– Scale-out Model = Higher TCO

• Platform Maturity

• Integrated Data Protection

• NVMe & XPoint is messing things up!


0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000

3D XPoint

NVMe SSD

SSD

Disk

Latency (µs)

Flash, NVMe, & 3D XPoint

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SSD brought about a ~100x reduction in latency (vs spinning disk)

NVMe further eliminates ~20 µs of latency

3D XPoint brings about a further ~10x reduction in latency (vs SSD)


Speeds & Feeds

Technology Latency (µs) 1 Second Comparison

L1 Cache 0.0005 1 second

L2 Cache 0.0070 14 seconds

DRAM 0.0350 1 minute, 10 seconds

NVRAM 0.1300 4 minutes, 20 seconds

Disk 7000.0000 162 days, 53 minutes, 20 seconds

Networking Switching 3.2000 1 hour, 46 minutes, 40 seconds

SCSI Translation 20.0000 11 hours, 6 minutes, 40 seconds

iSCSI Encapsulation 100.0000 2 days, 7 hours, 33 minutes, 20 seconds


Speeds & Feeds






NVMe PCIe SSD 30.0000 16 hours, 40 minutes

SSD 70.0000 1 day, 14 hours, 53 minutes, 20 seconds



Speeds & Feeds






3D XPoint 7.0000 3 hours, 53 minutes, 20 seconds










3D XPoint 7.0000 3 hours, 53 minutes, 20 seconds




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Speeds & Feeds

Networking Switching 3.2000 1 hour, 46 minutes, 40 seconds

iSCSI Encapsulation 100.0000 2 days, 7 hours, 33 minutes, 20 seconds


Gartner Hype Cycles

provide a graphic

representation of the

maturity and adoption of

technologies and

applications, and how

they are potentially

relevant to solving real

business problems and

exploiting new

opportunities.


What Camp

Are You In?

Traditional

Infrastructure

Hyper-Converged

Infrastructure

78%

5%

Blended

(Some HCI) 17%


Great Idea!

Wrong

Execution/Hardware/Technology?

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure


What’s Next?

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Modern servers are starting to include

features that make them more storage

controllers.

• Bootable Operating System Cards

• Non-volatile Memory – Intel Optane*

– <10µs latency

– 500,000 IOPS

• High-speed/Low-latency NICs

*3D XPoint memory instead of NAND flash

Hardware is Catching Up!

Faster networks will become more

mainstream.

• NVMe-oF* – NVMe over Fabrics

– RDMA

• InfinBand, RoCE, iWARP

– Fibre Channel (FC-NVMe)

*Provide distance connectivity to NVMe

with no more than 10 microseconds (µs)

of additional latency over a native NVMe

device inside a server.


VM/APP Processing

STORAGEPROCESSING

Shared Storage

COMPUTE

TRADITIONAL ARRAY

STATEFULSERVER & STORAGE STATELESS

SERVER

PERSISTENT STORAGE

Converged Infrastructure (CI)Hyper-Converged

Infrastructure (HCI) ???

The Execution is Evolving

Composable Infrastructure

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Full System Composability

STORAGE

NETWORK

COMPUTE

COMPUTE

COMPUTE

COMPUTE

STORAGE

NETWORK NETWORK

COMPUTE

STORAGE

STORAGE

STORAGE

STORAGE

COMPUTE

COMPUTE

COMPUTE

COMPUTE

STORAGE

COMPUTE

STORAGE

DYNAMIC RESOURCE POOLS

Compute Pool Storage Pool

Pod-wide storage & management

Workload A Workload B Workload C

5:3

2:4

3:1


Accelerators

FPGA GPU

Compute

SoC SoC GPUFPGA

Memory MemoryMemoryMemory

I/O

Pooled MemoryNetwork Storage

Direct Attach, Switched, or Fabric Topology

Rack Scale

− Provides end-to-end secure connectivity from node level to rack scale

− Supports unmodified OS for SW compatibility

− Graduated implementation from simple, low cost to highly capable and robust

− Leverages high-volume IEEE physical layers and broad, deep industry ecosystem

− Real time analytics

− Enables data centric and hybrid computing

− Scalable memory pools for in memory applications

− Abstracts media interface from SoC to unlock new media innovation

High Bandwidth

Low Latency

− Memory Semantics – simple Reads and Writes

− From tens to several hundred GB/s of bandwidth

− Sub 0.1 µs load-to-use memory latency

Advanced

Workloads &

Technologies

Secure

Compatible

Economical

Gen-Z Data Access

Technology


What is RedFish?

It is the first open effort toward building a single API

for all hardware. It replaces IPMI-over-LAN and is a

modern, scalable, secure management API.

DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force)

continues to expand Redfish to cover customer use

cases and technology, like the newer Composition

Service that provides support for binding resources

together into logical constructs.

Redfish is a foundational component of Rack Scale

Architecture (RSA).

What does Redfish deliver?

• A management API built for client applications and browser-based GUIs

• Schema-backed and human-readable output

• A way to address popular use cases and customer requirements

• An approach that meets OCP Remote Machine Management requirements.

RedFish Open API


In Conclusion

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35

Business will have a

variety of workloads

Modern systems must

use cloud computing

models

Must allow for portability

between public and

private clouds

Cloud: An important driver in your datacenter.

Systems of record Systems of engagement

Cloud-nativeTraditional


What Problem Are

You Trying to Solve?

Management &

Orchestration

Troubleshooting

17%

21%

Performance 12%

Agility19%


Summary

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Is Hyper-Convergence worth the hype FOR YOU?

Rely on a trusted partner to make good business decisions

The notion of convergence is here to stay

Tomorrow’s data centers will be based on software-defined principles

Technology is moving faster than ever

There is no magic bullet technology

Remember the considerations and pain points of these solutions


Eagle Technologies

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Got questions?

We’ve got answers.

39


Thank you!

Brian Anderson

Senior Solutions Architect

[email protected]