accelerating the journey to software-defined data …based on modular and elastic hyper-converged...

Accelerating the Journey to Software-Defined Data Center and Private Cloud with VMware EVO SDDCW H I T E P A P E R

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Accelerating the Journey to Software-Defined Data Center and Private Cloud with VMware EVO SDDC

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Software-Defined Data Center: The Architecture for Hybrid Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Challenges of Traditional Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Introducing VMware EVO SDDC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Compute and Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

VMware EVO SDDC Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

EVO SDDC: Key Features and Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Day 0 Automated Bring Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Simplified Resource Provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Automated Lifecycle Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Integrated Management of Physical and Virtual Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Scalability and Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Choice in Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Unified Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

EVO SDDC Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Virtual Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Infrastructure-as-a-Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15



Executive SummaryFueled by the need for greater business agility and scalability to support the next generation of applications, cloud-based IT services have seen rapid adoption in recent years. Achieving the operational and cost efficiency of web-scale cloud service providers has become a top priority for CIOs. While public cloud services can be a good fit for many applications, company-owned data centers continue to play a critical role especially for those mission-critical applications that require greater control and security. Additional data suggest long-term costs of public cloud associated with on-premises investment for better efficiency. As a result, most companies today have adopted a hybrid cloud strategy that aims at combining resource from public cloud providers with on-premises, company-owned data center infrastructure.

With the Software-Defined Data Center, VMware laid out the vision for the architecture of the hybrid cloud. SDDC redefines the architecture and operational model of the data center, enabling IT to complete the transition to hybrid cloud and maximize its benefits. In an SDDC, compute, storage, and networking services are decoupled from underlying hardware infrastructure and abstracted into logical pools of resources that can be more flexibly provisioned and managed.

To accelerate the customer journey to SDDC, VMware has introduced VMware EVO™ SDDC™, an integrated software suite that powers a new class of integrated systems designed to provide the easiest path to an SDDC private cloud. VMware EVO SDDC systems deliver a turnkey solution for SDDC that allows customer to complete the journey to SDDC in a fraction of the time and with a fraction of the resource that would be required with traditional infrastructure. Based on modular and elastic hyper-converged architecture, VMware EVO SDDC systems leverage market leading VMware technologies for compute, storage, network virtualization and cloud management and adds unique system management capabilities to deliver simplified operational experience.

Software-Defined Data Center: The Architecture for Hybrid CloudA software-defined architecture leverages logical infrastructure services for compute, storage, networking, availability and security. Unlike legacy hardware-defined infrastructure, where such services are tied to and dependent on physical devices, in an SDDC, infrastructure services are abstracted and decoupled from the underlying hardware. Applications in an SDDC run entirely on logically defined resources for which the underlying hardware is abstracted away. In this sense, the SDDC architecture is hardware agnostic and can be deployed on basic commodity x86 servers with disks and a simple packet-forwarding network backplane.

An SDDC is characterized by several unique aspects as compared to traditional data centers:All infrastructure in an SDDC is fully virtualized. Physical servers, networking gear, and storage are abstracted from the workloads that run in the SDDC. Virtualization not only decouples workloads from hardware but also makes data center services easy and inexpensive to configure, manage, and consume;

The control plane is application-centric with automation delivered via policies or programmable API. Unlike the traditional data center where IT services are rigidly defined and mapped to fixed classes of service ahead of the application provisioning in SDDC, IT services can be dynamically composed and changed on the fly on an application-by-application basis. APIs and policy deliver automation at scale; and

An SDDC architecture is also geographically agnostic because the logically defined infrastructure resources can span across data centers, including those owned by IT or cloud service providers leveraging the same SDDC platform.



Figure 1: Software-Defined Data Center Architecture

Challenges of Traditional InfrastructureTo date, enterprises have had two infrastructure alternatives to build a private cloud:

1. “Build Your Own” by purchasing and integrating open systems from server, networking, and storage vendors

2. Integrated Systems, i.e. pre-integrated solutions that combine certified and interoperable hardware, and in some cases software, components delivered as a single system

After selecting the infrastructure of choice, customers then deploy and integrate software components from VMware and other vendors to abstract, pool and automate physical infrastructure and create an SDDC.

Figure 2: Approaches to a Software-Defined Data Center



Legacy infrastructure poses numerous challenges to customers looking to build a cloud solution. The traditional operating model of the data center is built around silos of infrastructure (server, storage, networking, security) mapped to teams of IT specialists that require complex processes for coordination and integration. Beyond organizational structure, there is significant upfront investment required to design a reference architecture, select compatible components and procure them from different vendors. Significant time and resources have to be dedicated to deploy, test, configure and integrate hardware and software. The many interdependencies that exist between hardware, firmware, and various layers of infrastructure make day Day 2 operations on tasks like monitoring, troubleshooting, upgrades and patches, cumbersome and error prone. Last but not least, with many vendors and systems in place, troubleshooting and support become more complex.

As a result, CIOs are increasingly looking for turnkey solutions that drastically simplify how they architect, procure, deploy, and manage IT infrastructure software and hardware to enable a new, more agile IT organization. To address these challenges, VMware introduced EVO SDDC.

Introducing VMware EVO SDDCVMware EVO SDDC is an integrated software suite that powers a new class of integrated systems designed to provide the easiest path to an SDDC private cloud. Available from several major OEMs and ODMs, EVO SDDC systems are turnkey solutions that combine qualified hardware (compute, networking, storage) with integrated VMware software to deliver a complete SDDC in a box. Based on modular hyper-converged infrastructure, EVO SDDC systems deliver elastic, scalable, and high performing infrastructure capable of addressing the needs of large-scale SDDC deployments in a variety of use cases, including virtual infrastructure, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). Every EVO SDDC system contains VMware’s innovative system management software – VMware EVO SDDC Manager™ – that radically simplifies infrastructure management by automating and simplifying many resource intensive administration tasks, such as system bring up, configuration of physical and virtual networks, resource provisioning, and lifecycle management of upgrades and patches.

Architecture EVO SDDC integrated systems are based on a prescriptive set of hardware and software components that are pre-integrated at the factory to deliver a simplified operational experience out of the box. Customers can choose between a number of configurations and vendors to address the specific needs of their environments.

Figure 3: Components of an EVO SDDC Integrated System



EVO SDDC leverages hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) to deliver compute, storage and networking from the hypervisor using modular x86 servers and standard top-of-rack switches. HCI is rapidly emerging as the ideal building block for SDDC thanks to its ability to deliver greater elasticity, simplicity and performance at a lower cost. Unique to the EVO SDDC system is the ability to converge not just compute and storage – as most HCI solutions in the market do — but also networking into a unified solution.

Figure 4 provides a sample hardware configuration of an EVO SDDC integrated system. In this configuration, the integrated system has two points of connectivity to an existing data center — power and network uplinks. Within the system, there are 24 x86-based servers with Direct Attached Storage (DAS), providing 9 terabytes of memory and 230 terabytes of raw storage. In addition, there are two top-of-rack switches for connectivity within the rack, one management switch for out-of-band connectivity within the rack, and two network spine switches; the latter is added only to the second rack of any EVO SDDC deployment, to provide connectivity between racks in a highly resilient, scale-out, leaf-spine architecture.

Figure 4: Sample Configuration of an EVO SDDC Integrated System

The EVO SDDC software, as shown in Figure 5, includes at a minimum VMware vSphere®, Virtual SAN™, NSX®, vRealize® Operations™, Log Insight™ and EVO SDDC Manager. Compute, storage and networking infrastructure is virtualized and presented to the end user as a pool of capacity that can be flexibly deployed to individual use cases. A single pool can be created from multiple physical racks either from a single or multiple heterogeneous vendors. EVO SDDC Manager is a new innovative system management automation component specifically developed by VMware for EVO SDDC systems. EVO SDDC Manager complements the existing suite of VMware



management software (VMware vCenter Server™, vRealize Operations Management, vRealize Log Insight) to provide simplified operational experience at the system level allowing customers to manage a highly distributed architecture as a single logical system.

Figure 5: EVO SDDC Software Architecture

Compute and StorageEVO SDDC integrated systems leverage hyper-converged nodes (Intel x86-based servers) to deliver both compute and storage to virtual machines. Each server typically contains redundant, multi-gigabit network interfaces, power supplies, a combination of hard drives and solid state drives. To provide a reliable power source to the servers, every rack is equipped with redundant power distribution units.

SOFTWARE COMPONENT

FEATURE / CAPABILITY SUPPORTED BY EVO SDDC

vSphere Live Migration (VMotion) •

Load Balancing (DRS) •

High Availability (HA) •

Fault Tolerance (FT) •

Data Protection (vDP) •

Replication •

Virtual Volumes (VVOL) •

Virtual SAN Hybrid Storage Architecture •

All Flash Storage Architecture • 1

Autotiering •

Snapshots •

Replication •

Data Services (Deduplication/compression/erasure coding) • 1

1 Available in 2016



VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus software serves as the virtualization layer enabling VMware vSphere® vMotion®, Distributed Resource Scheduler™ (DRS), High Availability (HA) and Network IO Controller, and many more features. While EVO SDDC Manager constructs and manages the virtualization environment, cloud administrators continue to have full administrative access to the ESXi™ hypervisor and vCenter Server.

VMware Virtual SAN is a distributed layer of software that runs natively as a part of the ESXi hypervisor and aggregates direct-attached disks to a host cluster to create a storage pool shared across all hosts in the Virtual SAN cluster. While supporting VMware features that require shared storage, such as HA, vMotion, and DRS, Virtual SAN simplifies storage configuration and virtual machine provisioning activities when compared to external storage options. For additional flexibility, the EVO SDDC integrated system provides interfaces to external IP-based storage in addition to Virtual SAN.

NetworkingEVO SDDC integrated systems deploy, configure, and manage two layers of networking: the physical network and the virtual network overlay.

Physical NetworkingThe software-defined compute and storage infrastructures change the predominant network traffic patterns from north-south to east-west. EVO SDDC integrated systems deploy an integrated spine-leaf network topology that creates a self-contained cloud instance in which all the inter-rack traffic is carried across the leaf-spine network. This network architecture offers a number of benefits in today’s data center, including:

1. Scale-out networking design

2. Lower latency between hosts

3. Reduction in congestion points compared to three tier architectures

4. Isolation from the existing corporate network so that there is a well-defined single point of attachment to the existing corporate network to carry north-bound traffic and enforce security and access control policies

The EVO SDDC integrated system’s networking hardware includes:

1. Redundant spine switches for connectivity among racks

2. Redundant top-of-rack (ToR) switches in each rack for aggregated/redundant connectivity to the servers

3. Management switch for out-of-band connectivity to the management consoles on the servers, top-of-rack, and spine switches

4. Highly available network design with multiple paths between any two servers

Redundant ToR switches provide intra-rack connectivity and multi-chassis link aggregation to each host. To scale out, the top-of-rack switches are connected to redundant spine switches as new racks are brought online. To integrate with a customer’s existing data center network, EVO SDDC Manager configures the top-of-rack switches to connect to the corporate network using highly available Layer 2 or Layer 3 protocols.



Virtual NetworkingVMware NSX® is a networking and security virtualization platform that delivers the operational model of a virtual machine for the network. Virtual networks reproduce the Layer 2 — Layer 7 network model in software, allowing complex multi-tier network topologies to be created and provisioned programmatically in seconds. NSX also provides a new model for network security. Security profiles are distributed to and enforced by virtual ports and move with virtual machines.

NSX includes a library of logical networking services — logical switches, logical routers, logical firewalls, logical load balancers, logical VPN, and distributed security. EVO SDDC Manager deploys and configures these logical networking services. For example, in VDI deployments, EVO SDDC Manager enables micro-segmentation to secure each virtual desktop from unauthorized access or the spreading of network-based worms. Virtual networks are programmatically provisioned and managed independent of networking hardware. This decoupling from hardware introduces agility, speed, and operational efficiency that can transform data center operations.

SOFTWARE COMPONENT FEATURE / CAPABILITY SUPPORTED BY EVO SDDC

NSX L2 Logical switching •

NSX Gateway •

Logical routing •

Logical firewall •

Logical load balancer •

Logical VPN •

NSX API •

L3 Networking • 1

ManagementvCenter Server provides centralized management for a vSphere environment, with visibility scaling across many ESX servers and virtual machines. The most utilized features of vSphere, such as vMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler, High Availability and Fault Tolerance, rely on vCenter Server.

vRealize Operations Management and vRealize Log Insight extends management beyond vCenter Server to include performance management, capacity optimization, and real-time log analytics, using predictive analytics leveraging both structured and unstructured data, for proactive issue avoidance and faster problem resolution.

SOFTWARE COMPONENT FEATURE / CAPABILITY SUPPORTED BY EVO SDDC

vCenter Server Centralized visibility and management of virtual infrastructure

•

vRealize Operations Management

Performance Monitoring and Analytics •

Operational Visibility and Management •

Capacity Management •

Workload Management •

Change, Configuration and Compliance Management •

Application Dependency Mapping •

vRealize Log Insight Universal log collection, Real-time monitoring, search, log analytics and log management

•

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VMware EVO SDDC ManagerFor the logical infrastructure, EVO SDDC includes the market-leading VMware virtualization and management components augmented by a new component, EVO SDDC Manager. EVO SDDC Manager, as shown in Figure 6, serves as the single interface for managing the logical and physical infrastructure of the private cloud. From this interface, the IT administrator can provision new private cloud resources, monitor changes to the physical and logical infrastructure, and manage lifecycle and other operational activities. EVO SDDC Manager also provides REST-based APIs to integrate with the existing data center’s management and monitoring tools.

Figure 6: EVO SDDC Manager Dashboard

To configure and manage the underlying hardware, EVO SDDC Manager relies on the Hardware Management Service (HMS). The HMS is a hardware abstraction layer that interfaces with the hardware components, such as servers, switches, PDUs, and other physical devices. It is responsible for discovery, inventory, monitoring, configuration, and lifecycle management of individual servers or switches. For example, HMS automatically discovers new servers, bootstraps or resets them, and processes hardware events (e.g., alarms, sensor data threshold triggers) and state changes. The Hardware Management Service then exposes events and states changes to the rest of the EVO SDDC environment in a hardware-independent manner. HMS also supports rack-level boot-up sequencing of hardware components and provides services, such as secure, remote, and hard reset of these components. HMS is part of a dedicated management infrastructure running in each physical rack.



EVO SDDC: Key Features and CapabilitiesIn addition to the core features and capabilities provided by the individual components of the software stack, EVO SDDC adds several unique capabilities as described below.

Day 0 Automated Bring UpEVO SDDC simplifies the Day 0 private cloud deployment and instantiation process. Each EVO SDDC integrated system is pre-racked, pre-cabled and pre-imaged at the manufacturer before the rack is shipped to the end user. Once the rack is delivered and power and networking are provided to the rack, the EVO SDDC software leverages its knowledge of the hardware bill of materials and user-provided environmental information (e.g. DNS, IP address pool, etc.) to initialize the rack. Time savings will vary by customer, but upfront setup time is estimated to be reduced from several weeks to as little as two hours due to the automation of certain previously manual functions related to provisioning workloads, including automated provisioning of networks, allocation of resources based on service needs, and provisioning of end points. When the process completes, the customer has a virtual infrastructure ready to start deploying vSphere clusters and provisioning workloads.

Simplified Resource ProvisioningExtensive coordination is required in today’s legacy environment across server, storage and networking silos to construct private clouds that are highly available and meet performance requirements. However, with EVO SDDC integrated systems, a cloud administrator simply needs to create and manage pools of resources, one for each workload type.

To achieve this, EVO SDDC introduces a new abstraction, Workload Domains, for creating resource pools across compute, storage, and networking. Workload domains are a policy-driven approach for capacity deployment, where each workload domain provides the needed capacity with specified policies for performance, availability, and security. For example, a cloud administrator can create one workload domain for a dev/test workload that has balanced performance and low availability requirements, while creating a separate workload domain for a production workload requiring high availability and high performance.

EVO SDDC Manager provides and automatically implements a deployment workflow to translate the workload domain specifications into the underlying pool of resources. For example, based upon the availability policy, EVO SDDC Manager would choose hosts from one or more fault domains. A cloud administrator need only focus on specifying policies and capacity needs and treat each workload domain as a separate, atomic entity for the purpose of operational management. Workload domains relieve a cloud administrator from having to research and implement best practices needed to achieve the operational goals.

Automated Lifecycle ManagementData center upgrades and patch management is typically a manual, repetitive task that introduces configuration and implementation errors. The reason being that validation testing of software and hardware firmware to ensure interoperability among components when one component is patched or upgraded requires extensive quality assurance testing in proof-of-concept environments. Often strapped for time, IT must sometimes make the difficult decision to deploy new patches before they are fully vetted or defer new patches, which slows down the roll-out of new feature or security and bug fixes. Both situations increase risk for the private cloud environment.

The EVO SDDC Manager automates upgrade and patch management for both the logical and physical infrastructure, thereby freeing resources to focus on business critical initiatives, while improving reliability and consistency. VMware tests all components of the EVO SDDC private cloud together before shipping new patches to the customer. Components eligible for upgrades and patching include all VMware software, including the EVO SDDC Manager, as well as physical switching and server firmware.



Upgrades and patches are made available in two different cadences:

1. Regular, pre-scheduled releases include feature, bug, and non-critical security fixes

2. Asynchronous releases deliver critical security as required

EVO SDDC’s lifecycle management can be applied to the entire infrastructure or to specific workload domains one at a time and is designed to be non-disruptive to tenant virtual machines (VM). By intelligently utilizing live VM migration, EVO SDDC Manager can intelligently patch servers, switches and the EVO SDDC software to improve infrastructure security and reliability, while maintaining tenant uptime.

Integrated Management of Physical and Virtual InfrastructureEVO SDDC Manager understands the physical and logical topology of the Software-Defined Data Center and the underlying components’ relation to each other, and efficiently monitors the infrastructure to detect potential risks, degradations and failures. EVO SDDC Manager provides stateful alert management to prevent notification spam on problem detection. Each notification includes a clear description of the problem and provides remediation actions needed to restore service quickly. Degradations or failures are aggregated and correlated to workload domains to enable a clear view of the impact of any issue to the business services being deployed within a domain. Therefore, the EVO SDDC Manager can greatly reduce the mean time to resolution across organizational and technology silos.

Furthermore, EVO SDDC leverages VMware vRealize® Operations™ to provide advanced monitoring and analytics across the physical and virtual infrastructure and vRealize Log Insight to enable easier problem diagnosis and repair from unstructured data. EVO SDDC Manager also provides REST API’s for integration with third-party monitoring tools.

Scalability and PerformanceEVO SDDC integrated systems deliver a private cloud instance that can be easily deployed within an existing corporate network. Based on a scale-out, hyper-converged architecture, an EVO SDDC implementation can start as small as one-third of a rack, or 8 nodes, and can scale out to multiple racks. Additional capacity and performance can easily be added linearly in increments as small as one server node at a time within a single rack, scaling out to 8 full racks per EVO SDDC Manager instance. This enables IT organizations to better align CapEx spend with business needs. EVO SDDC automatically discovers any new capacity and adds it into the larger pool of available capacity for use.



EVO SDDC HARDWARE

Min per Rack Max per Rack

Physical servers 8 24

CPU cores 192 576

RAM 3 TB 9 TB

Storage capacity (Raw) 76.8 TB 230 TB

Number of Server VMs2 250 1,000

Max Number of VDI VMs3 700 2,000

Choice in HardwareCustomers begin by sizing their EVO SDDC deployment. The sizing process translates into a bill of materials (BoM) consisting of both hardware and software components. With this BoM in hand, EVO SDDC partners integrate these components and ship the integrated system, consisting of physical racks, servers, server sub-components, power distribution units, switching infrastructure and the EVO SDDC software suite, to customers.

Within the hardware BoM, customers have flexibility in the following:

1. Hardware vendor(s) across racks4

2. Initial rack size starting at one-third of a rack, or 8 servers5

3. Server model

4. CPU and memory (amount of RAM, number of cores, CPU version, etc.)

5. Storage drive sizes and combinations of SSD and HDD

Unified Support When operational issues arise, it is often difficult for IT administrators to identify the root cause or a component contributing to the issue to quickly resolve problems. This is especially difficult when hardware and software components are sourced from multiple vendors. To remove this burden from customers, EVO SDDC integrated systems have a single owner responsible for managing all support issues. In cases where software is purchased directly through VMware, customers will receive Premier Support, which provides the highest level of personalized, proactive customer support available from VMware, at the cost of production-level support. Key features of Premier Support include:

• Support Management Services – Support request escalation and management

• Onsite support – Rapid reactive onsite assistance, when necessary, to troubleshoot issues and help minimize downtime

• Senior-level Engineer Priority Access – Streamlined contact to senior-level Technical Support Engineers with specialized experience supporting hyper-converged environments. Available 24x7 for Severity 1 issues and additional local business-hour coverage on weekends for Severity 2 issues.

• Aggressive Target Response Times – 30 minutes or less for Severity 1 issues.

2 Assumes average size of general purpose VM is 2vCPUs, 8GB memory and 160GB storage.

3 Assumes average size of a virtual desktop VM is 1vCPU, 4GB memory and 80GB storage.

4 Within a single rack, all servers must be homogeneous. However, across several racks, customers can mix vendors

5 Beyond the initial purchase minimum of 8 nodes, customers can scale up incrementally per server within a single rack up to 24 nodes. Each new rack must start with a minimum of 8 nodes



BackupTo address both planned and unplanned downtime scenarios, customers require the ability to backup and restore VM’s located in the management cluster and other workload domains. The EVO SDDC solution provides customers the ability to install VADP compliant plug-ins on all vCenters. Backups can be placed on EVO SDDC-controlled hosts or external IP-based storage arrays. This architecture provides backup administrators with a set of choices along with the efficiency that comes from using a common set of tools across their data center.

Specifically related to lifecycle management, EVO SDDC considers data protection before any patching scenario, performing a snapshot beforehand. The lifecycle management capability also reverses changes in the case of a patch failure or merge snapshots if patches are successful.

EVO SDDC Use Cases

Virtual InfrastructureWith the base EVO SDDC SKU, customers have a turnkey solution to run their virtualized vSphere infrastructure. Cloud administrators have the ability to expand and contract the underlying infrastructure to meet their changing business needs. With a foundation that is based on the market leading virtualization platform, lines of business have the flexibility to deploy a wide variety of OS and application stacks within the tenant VMs. Virtual infrastructure admins can integrate with and monitor the underlying infrastructure using a unified EVO SDDC monitoring toolset that aggregates and correlates across physical and virtual infrastructure. In addition, customers have flexibility to integrate their vSphere compatible tools directly with vCenter.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service VMware vRealize® Automation™ can be optionally added to the EVO SDDC software BOM. With vRealize Automation, IT becomes a business enabler. IT is able to accelerate the delivery and ongoing management of personalized, business-relevant infrastructure, application and custom services, while improving overall IT efficiency. Policy-based governance and logical application modeling assures that infrastructure services are delivered at the right size and service level for the task and that needs to be performed. Full lifecycle management assures resources are maintained at peak operating efficiency.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure VDI infrastructure deployment is a non-trivial task requiring sizing and configuration of connections servers, authentication servers, databases, networking, and security. VMware Horizon® can be optionally added to EVO SDDC making VDI deployments faster and more secure. Private cloud administrators focus on specifying the policies and needs of the VDI infrastructure instead of dealing with details of deploying the VDI infrastructure. The EVO SDDC takes as input the logical capacity, service level agreements, and policy needs of target virtual desktops and automates provisioning of fully installed and configured VMware Horizon VDI. Customers experience a highly simplified integration of Active Directory (AD) and associated databases. EVO SDDC also automates the configuration and installation of VMware NSX-based networking and micro-segmentation security for virtual desktops.



ConclusionVMware’s vision for the Software-Defined Data Center extends virtualization across all data center resources (compute, storage, and networking) to offer a fully automated, policy-driven, resource provisioning, management, and operation of a private cloud, and EVO SDDC provides the easiest way to deliver an SDDC private cloud today. As the central orchestrator of the solution, EVO SDDC Manager provides:

• Automated and rapid setup and configuration of the entire SDDC private cloud

• Integrated management of physical and virtual resources, including integration with vRealize Operations and vRealize Log Insight for monitoring, capacity planning and log analytics, respectively

• Workload domain abstraction for ease of carving up resource pools into private cloud capacity to support workloads with distinct availability, performance, and security requirements

• Automated lifecycle management of the entire SDDC stack, including software and hardware firmware

• Easily scale up and out capacity starting with a minimum size of 8 server nodes, or one-third of a rack, and grow in as small an increment as per server

• Single vendor ownership of support issues

As a result, VMware’s EVO SDDC integrated systems offered jointly with select qualified partners significantly improves agility, while reducing risk. CIOs and IT administrators now have an easier way to deploy and run a private cloud.

For More InformationFor more information on the EVO SDDC solution, please visit the product page at http://vmware.com/products/evosddc/.

For the latest technical insights and tips from VMware EVO SDDC experts, please visit the blog at https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualbocks/products/evosddc/.

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VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www .vmware .comCopyright © 2016 VMware, Inc . All rights reserved . This product is protected by U .S . and international copyright and intellectual property laws . VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www .vmware .com/go/patents . VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc . in the United States and/or other jurisdictions . All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies . Item No: VMW9899-WP-EVO-SDDC-OVERVIEW-USLET-109 02/16

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