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1 2004 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Rich Gore

Cisco IT@Work Case Study:

Storage Networking and theCisco MDS 9509 MultilayerDirector Switch

Case study text

Cisco Information Technology

March 17, 2004
http://www.cisco.com/go/ciscoitatworkhttp://business.cisco.com/prod/tree.taf?asset_id=106059&IT=104252&public_view=true&kbns=1.htmlhttp://business.cisco.com/prod/tree.taf?asset_id=106059&IT=104252&public_view=true&kbns=1.htmlhttp://www.cisco.com/go/ciscoitatwork


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222 2004 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.Presentation_ID

Overview

ChallengeStorage growth within Cisco far outpaced the capabilities of thedirect access storage (DAS) or early storage area network (SAN)solutions available on the market

Solution

Offering storage as a utility service and moving away from theserver-centric model (DAS) to a network-centric model, inwhich storage is pooled within the network, increases utilization,improves manageability, and saves money

Results

Migration and consolidation of specific ERP SAN islands to theCisco MDS 9509 Multilayer Director Switch

Next Steps

Migration of all business functions in the Research Triangle Parkdata center to a single Cisco MDS 9509 SAN-based infrastructure


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BackgroundSummary

Cisco IT enterprise resource planning (ERP)storage evolved over the past five years, beforemigrating to Cisco MDS 9509 multilayer directorswitches

1997Mostly DAS over Small Computer SystemInterface (SCSI)

1998Fibre Channel switches extend storage

2001SAN switches consolidate storage, improveutilization


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ChallengeStorage Growth

Storage growth within Cisco far outpaced the capabilities ofthe storage management tools available on the market andwas very costly. Pushing storage utilization higher wascritical to Cisco cost savings.

Cisco storage growth with 2003 and 2004 projections


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ChallengeDAS Architecture Issues

In late 2000, Cisco realizedthat storage managementwithin the DAS architecturewould not scale because eachstorage subsystem, regardless

of its size, was a point ofmanagement

In early 2001, demand forstorage continued, creatinganother important concern with

the DAS architecturehowcould Cisco continue tosupport the growing storageenvironment without addingcostly resources?

Cisco Storage Architecture inthe Mid-to-Late 1990s


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SolutionNetwork-Centric Storage Model

Invest in a storage solution that includesoffering storage as a utility-like service to beshared across multiple hosts and applications

Move away from the server-centric model(DAS) to the network-centric (SAN) model, inwhich storage is pooled within the network


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SolutionThree Phase Plan

The vision of a networkcentric storage servicecapable of offering storage capabilities to anycorporate application would be achieved in threephases:

Phase 1 2001: Migrate DAS to SAN islands whereappropriate within current business function groups

Phase II 2003: Consolidate SAN islands and anyremaining DAS to a single SAN within each businessfunction per data center

Phase III 2005: Consolidate all business function SANs toa single SAN per data center



Early in the migration in 2001, Cisco decidedthat the ideal hardware solution would:

Physically connect all servers to a single pool ofstorage

Minimize overhead associated with SAN inter-switch links (ISLs)

Provide additional expansion capabilities forfuture growth

Support the business unit philosophy

Provide a migration path to emergingtechnologies such as Fibre Channel InterfaceProtocol (FCIP) and SCSI over IP (iSCSI).

SolutionIdeal Hardware Solution



ResultsStorage Architecture (Phase I)

The storage teams migrated 35 percent of businessstorage to a SAN environment

High-Level Cisco Storage Architecture After Phase I of Migration to Storage Vision (Late 2002)



The ERP/data warehousing business functions were combinedinto a single business function in 2002, exacerbating thescalability constraints of the available Fibre Channel switches

ChallengeMigration Challenge (Phase II)



Phase II of the migration was to consolidate the remaining DAS andany SAN islands within each business function into a single largeSAN per business function per data center

SolutionMigration (Phase II)



ChallengeMigration Challenge (Phase II)

Building a SAN largeenough to support an entirebusiness functionenvironment (even within asingle data center) provedchallenging

For example, providingstorage for the ERPbusiness function withinCisco would require morethan 400 ports

Multiple fabrics requiremultiple management

interfaces increasingmanagement costs

Multiple islands requireseparate storageutilization was better, butstill low



SolutionMDS 9509 Multilayer Director Switch

The Cisco MDS 9509 supports allthe high-availability features thatdefine directorclass operation

By bundling up to 16 FibreChannel ports into a logical portchannel, the Cisco MDS 9509

achieves higher interswitchbandwidth while preserving asingle interface instance withinthe fabric shortest path first(FSPF) routing process

Migrating to 2 fabrics from 22 in

the ERP improved storageutilization while reducingmanagement overhead

VSANs allowed separate storagenetworks on a single sharedfabric, keeping business functionsseparate



The Oracle 11i portion of the ERP developmentenvironment was chosen as the first to be migratedto the new Cisco MDS 9509 switches

The storage team planned a twostage migration:

Stage 1Migrate one half of the current two SANfabrics from their current 32-port SAN switcharchitecture to a single Cisco MDS 9509

Stage 2After testing, migrate the second half ofthe two SAN fabrics to an added pair of CiscoMDS 9509s

ResultsOracle 11i Migration



ResultsOracle 11i Before Migration



Each Cisco MDS 9509 is configured with redundantsupervisor engines, four 16port line cards, and three32port line cards.

ResultsOracle 11i Stage 1 Migration



The Cisco MDS 9509 switches were connected by asingle port channel composed of four ports, which istreated as a single ISL by the FSPF protocol

ResultsOracle 11i Stage 2 Migration



The Cisco IT storage group extensively tested the Cisco MDS 9509,the group was confident that the MDS 9509 would work in the Oracle11i development environment and that the migration could be donewith no effect on the hosted applications

ResultsOracle 11i Stage 1 and 2 Migration



ResultsSummary

The ERP Oracle 11i environment at Cisco is now betterpositioned for growth than ever before

VSANs, which add to the security and availability within theSAN as a whole, are being used to completely isolate theformer SAN islands from one another

Servers can access storage on any frame independent ofphysical cabling and switch interconnects, leading to greaterstorage usage potential

The new Cisco ERP/data warehousing SAN virtuallyeliminates the need for scheduled downtime associated withstorage, and further savings are derived through operational

efficiencies


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Consolidation of the entire Research Triangle Park data centeronto a single SAN

Migration of all business functions in the data center willfurther extend the ROI of the Cisco MDS 9509 switches

Migrations will take place without disruption to the hostedapplications, and VSANs will be used to maintain strict trafficseparation and to insulate applications from one another whereapplicable

Storage products such as SRM and SAN management tools are

maturing, and future technologies such as Cisco MDS 9000Series-based storage virtualization will play a critical role in thelarge-scale consolidation defined and required to meet theCisco IT storage vision

Next StepsSummary


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The storage pool concept would also allow Cisco toseparate the pool into various service levels.

SolutionStorage Pool Concept


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Cisco End-to-End Network Solutions

Firms that require highavailability and maximum ROIchoose Cisco enterprisenetwork solutions to:

Low er costs , prov ide storagenetwo rks that integrate well

with their data center

networks , con trol netwo rk

resou rces more effect ively,

speed p roject imp lementat ion,

imp rove secur i ty , and

m inim ize r isk and complexi ty


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This publication describes how Cisco has benefited from the deployment of itsown products. Many factors may have contributed to the results and benefits

described; Cisco does not guarantee comparable results elsewhere.CISCO PROVIDES THIS PUBLICATION AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY

KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIESOF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some jurisdictions do not allow disclaimer of express or implied warranties,therefore this disclaimer may not apply to you.

cisco it case study mds erp rtp print

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