breaking barriers webinar - the data center of today
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
Today’s Discussion Points
• Introduction• Historical Data Center Design• Converged Infrastructure
Introduction
• Who is NWN?
NWN helps customers solve business problems through technology.
IT solutions company
Best-of-breed solutions and products
Fast-growing
Privately-held
Woman-owned 550 employees $300 million projected revenue in 2011
Introduction
• What is the Data Center of Today?• Typical Services
• Customer facing applications• Databases• Internal Applications• Voice PBX?• Video PBX?• Physical security applications?• The list goes on…..
Introduction
• Typical Components– Compute– Storage– Network– Management– Facilities– Physical Security
• All of these elements work together to deliver service to end-users
Historical Data Center Design
• Historically, data centers have been designed and operated in silos– Network– Compute– Storage
• Often, the applications drove the specific integrations deployed
• These integrations would vary widely in the same data center
Historical Data Center
Historical Data Center Design
• The silo approach creates challenges– Brittle– Complex– Difficult to deploy new services
• Slow to market• Error prone
– Barrier to deploying business applications
Converged Infrastructure
• What is converged infrastructure?– Voice Over IP?– Video Over IP?– Coffee over IP?
• Wikipedia‘Packages multiple information technology
(IT) components into a single, optimized computing solution.’
Converged Infrastructure Characteristics
• Virtualized– Compute, Network, Storage, & I/O
• Resilent– Redundancy is a key principle
• Open• Modular• Orchestrated
Why Converged Infrastructure?
• Increased IT Agility– Virtualized IP and Fiber Channel Storage– Single console management
• Provides a platform for cloud computing– Ability to pool IT resources– Automate resource provisioning– Scale up/Scale down quickly– Provides platform for dynamic
provisioning
Why Converged Infrastructure?
• Decreased complexity through the use of pre-integrated hardware with automation tools
• Lower costs– Reduced capital costs through higher utilization,
less cabling, and automation– Lower operating costs from reduced effort via
automation
• Reduced service provisioning times
Why Converged Infrastructure?
• Improved operational support– Simplified administration through fewer
management points– Reduced complexity due to fewer
components– Alignment with ITIL processes– Opportunity to vastly improve turnaround
times for provisioning and decommissioning
– Simplified capacity planning
Converged Infrastructure
Converged Infrastructure
• Components– Compute pools and virtualization– Converged network switches– Storage– Orchestration Software
• Enabling Technologies– Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCOE)– Converged Enhanced Ethernet– Compute Technology & Virtualization– Automation/Orchestration
Converged Infrastructure
• Compute Pools– Compute is a resource– Hardware is abstracted from the
application and OS using virtualization– Compute service is supplied by pools of
resources– Pools can be expanded or contracted– Specific hardware is not tied to the
application– Offerings from HP, IBM, and Cisco
Converged Infrastructure - Components
• Converged Network Adapter– Server PCI card– Appears as a Host Bus
Adapter to the OS– Appears as network
adapter to the OS– Fiber Channel Traffic is
encapsulated into ethernet frames (FCOE)
– Emulex, QLogic, Cisco, Broadcom, Intel
Converged Infrastructure - Components
• Converged Switch– Supports Ethernet and
Fiber Channel– Converts FCOE
frames to native FC– Often a single hop
away from the SAN– Some vendors
versions support either FC or Ethernet on any port
– Cisco, HP, Brocade
Converged Infrastructure - Components
• FCOE– Transport of mapping
of frames over Ethernet
– Ethernet provides the physical interface
– FC provides the transport
– A published standard of the T11 committee since 2008.
Converged Infrastructure
• Converged Enhanced Ethernet– 10 gigabit Ethernet provides the transport
for FCOE– FCOE requires lossless ethernet– Ethernet by design is not lossless– Standards are in progress for lossless
Ethernet • Data Center Bridging Taskforce• Multiple 802.1xx standards
– One hop FCOE is the answer today
Converged Infrastructure - Components
• Orchestration Software– Provides a single point of management– Service definition and provisioning
• Network• SAN• Compute
– Simplifies management• Role based access• Abstracts the hardware from the service
definition
– Reduces service creation times
Orchestration Software
• Orchestration software vendors– VCE– VBlock Unified Infrastructure
Manager– HP – HP Matrix – Multiple service
automation products– Open Source – Openstack
Converged Infrastructure Components
• Security– Service/management hardening– Multi-Tenancy– OOB protections– Virtual security devices– Secure administration– Abstract system management from IT
administrators
Summary
• Traditional Data Center Design• Converged Infrastructure
– Can improve service time to market– Simplifies the infrastructure– Reduces Costs– Improves service to business
• NWN can help!
Upcoming Seminar
Join us on April 28 to learn even more about transitioning your data center to be cloud ready.
Seminar – The Future of the Data Center– Sift through the marketing hype and learn how to a build a roadmap to
Infrastructure Convergence.– Develop a pragmatic approach to leveraging cloud and converged
technologies in your business.– Understand the approaches to operating and maintaining a converged
infrastructure.
Date: April 28, 2011
Time: 8:30am – 11:30pm
Location: Hyatt Regency (1209 L Street)
Call your NWN representative to reserve your space or to schedule a data center review today!
Thank you for your time and attention.
How may we be of help?