network evolution "fcoe or iscsi doesn't matter, it's about ethernet"

COVER STORY

UnravelingthesecretsofconvergedstoragenetworksBoth FCoE andiSCSI can use

Ethernet to simplifyyour environment

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CANVIRTUALIZATIONIMPROVE DISASTERRECOVERY?

Q&A: CONNECTIVITYBEFORE NETWORKCONVERGENCE

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 / V O L . 2 / N 0 . 1

evolutionNETWORK

BU I L D I N G TH E I N F RA S TRUCTUR E TO ENAB L E TH E CHANG I NG FAC E O F I T

NETWORK EVOLUTION E-ZINE • FEBRUARY 2011 1

A survey of attendees at Gartner’s recent Data Center Summit found that

27% are already converging with NAS and iSCSI,23% are planning

to use NAS and iSCSI and32% plan to use FCoE in the next three years.

No one reported using FCoE today.


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NetworkAttachedStorage in aVirtual-ized Environment

In a virtualized environment, networkattached storage appliances can serve asa swap space to move virtual machinesbetween servers, act as a backup medium,or play the role of central repository for allvirtual disk images.

NAS versus SAN for datacenter virtualization storageThere are two major approaches tonetwork storage: network attachedstorage (NAS) and storage area net-work (SAN). They vary in both networkarchitecture and how each presentsitself to the network client. NASdevices leverage the existing IP net-

work and deliver file-layer access. NASappliances are optimized for sharingfiles across the network because theyare nearly identical to a file server. SANtechnologies, including Fibre Channel(FC) and iSCSI, deliver block-layeraccess, forgoing the file systemabstractions and appearing to theclient as essentially an unformattedhard disk. FC operates on a dedicatednetwork, requiring its own FC switchand host bus adapters in each server.An emerging standard, Fibre Channelover Ethernet (FCoE), collapses thestorage and IP network onto a singleconverged switch, but still requires aspecialized converged networkingadapter in each server. SAN solutionshave an advantage over NAS devices interms of performance, but at a cost ofsome contention issues. �

idealabWhereevolvingnetworkconceptscometogether

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BY DEFINITION, failover is the capability toswitch over to a redundant or standbyserver, system or network upon the fail-ure or termination of an existing asset.This should occur without any kind ofhuman intervention or warning. Thiscontrasts with switchover, where you’redynamically making a transition fromone environment to another.Failback is the process of restoring a

system or another asset that’s in afailover state back to its original state.The assumption is that you’re able tobring it back to the state of operation

before the disruption.With a virtualized environment, you

can failover to the environment whichexists in real time, and it’s very easy tofailback to the original mode becauseyou can maintain images of your previ-ous environments. What’s nice aboutthis is that it speeds up your recoverytime and it’s possible to do testing on anactual system without adversely affect-ing your actual production environment.You can then turn it on or off as quicklyas you’d like, so virtualization really helpsin the area of testing. �

Understanding Failover and Failback

AREYOU EXPANDINGYOUR STORAGENETWORK?

SOURCE: TECHTARGET STORAGE PRIORITIES SURVEY, NOV. 2010

13%Yes, we willreplace existingswitches.

8%Yes, we will installa new storagenetwork at ourmain location.

4%Yes, we will installa new storagenetwork atanother companylocation.

34%No, we have noplans to expand

our storagenetwork

26%Yes, we will addswitches to ourexisting fabric

15%Yes, we will add

ports to currentlyinstalled switches.


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NAS inVirtualization:NetworkDesignConsiderations

� Ensure that all connections are atleast using Gigabit Ethernet.

� Verify that the network switches areat adequate subscription levels forthe number of ports in use, givingenough bandwidth to the storageappliance.

� Reassess any Quality of Service (QoS)policies that may impact the linksbetween the servers and storage andadjust if necessary to give additionalpriority to the increased storage traffic.

� Set network baselines before and afterthe NAS deployment to get a clearview of the impact of adding a NASdevice to the data center network.

� Test and compare each of the networkprotocols available on the NAS device,typically NFS and CIFS to determinethe best solution for your environment.

Moving forwardThe role of network storage can quicklyexpand, opening the door to I/O bot-tlenecks and other constraints. A quickfix for the virtualized environmentcould rapidly snowball into a piecemealenterprise storage solution, particularlyin smaller organizations. It should bean imperative that even a small NASdeployment is followed up with a dis-cussion about a more encompassingnetwork storage strategy for the enter-prise. Depending on the enterprise’sneeds, network storage could groworganically with larger scale NAS solu-tions or migrate to a SAN solution ifhigher throughput is required. �

To learn more about NAS, click here.

DR PLANNING IN AVIRTUALIZED ENVIRONMENT

BECAUSE OF its ease of deployment and integration, server virtualization can bea highly effective tool for disaster recovery. Here’s how:

k COST: It allows companies to reduce the number of physical servers they deployat production and recovery sites.

k PROCUREMENTDELAYS: It eliminates most hardware dependencies.

k RAPID RECOVERY:Virtualized server images can be rapidly deployed andin some cases, moved across physical systems. �

http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/Using-NAS-devices-for-data-center-virtualization-storage

TheBenefits ofUsingVirtualizationVirtualization can provide some clearbenefits for disaster recovery planning; itcan help save money, time and effort, andmake the often daunting task of designingand implementing a disaster recoveryplan easier.

Additional benefits of using virtualiza-tion as part of your disaster recoverystrategy include:

� Fewer physical servers needed at adisaster recovery site reduces one-time and ongoing costs, and resultsin less idle hardware.

� Lower cost virtual machine (VM)-level replication is storage independ-

ent and doesn’t require expensivestorage arrays.

�Hardware independence allowsfor more hardware options withoutcompatibility issues.

� Encapsulation turns a VM intoa single portable file for easiertransport and deployment.

� Snapshots provide an effectivemethod for backup of virtualmachines.

� Automated failover and easiertesting.

� Easier server deployment; scriptingcan be used to help automate manyconfiguration and operational tasks.�


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NETWORKING EQUIPMENTPROTOCOLS IN 2011When you purchase networking equipment in 2011,

what protocols/line speeds will the equipment support?

SOURCE: TECHTARGET STORAGE PRIORITIES SURVEY, NOV. 2010

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

8 Gbps Fibre Channel

10 Gpbs Ethernet

4 Gbps Fibre Channel

1 Gbps Ethernet

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)

InfinBand


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THEWANMANAGERS’ ROLE INSTORAGE: TheWANmanagershould be prepared to address additional bandwidth requests from the storageteam withWAN deduplication optimization. Because of its greater opportunity tosee data throughout the data lifecycle, theWAN device can provide a broadervalue to the organization. The storage team, though, will still benefit from the abili-ty to replicate more data more often and to have the remote sites in closer syncwith the primary site in the event of a disaster. The value is an investment thatpays off for the entire organization, including the original storage request. �

quoteskCan storage and network teams really get along?

“A priority is management changes to bring storage and net-working groups closer together, even though it’s like forcingthe cat to lie down with the dog.”—STORAGE ADMINISTRATOR, EDUCATION SECTOR

“I’ve had more collaboration [with the storage and server teams]in the last two months than I have had in the last 10 years. Thestorage and server guys have traditionally not talked to us. Ourcurrent Nexus and FCoE project has been a catalyst with movingforward with a more unified approach between these depart-ments. I’ve been at Boise for 23 years, and this is the first time inall those years that I’ve seen a collaborative effort between thesedepartments.”—GREG CATALANO, SENIOR IT STAFF SPECIALIST FOR BOISE INC.


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FCoE vs iSCSI?Howabout theone that’s ready?

VENDORS CAN push FibreChannel over Ethernet(FCoE) all they want, butthe technology is simplynot ready for deploy-ment, argues Stephen

Foskett (left), Gestalt IT communityorganizer. But iSCSI is another story.“I am not a big fan of FCoE yet. The

data center bridging (DCB) extensionsare coming … but we don’t yet have anend-to-end FCoE solution. We don’thave the DCB components standard-ized yet,” Foskett said.What does Foskett think it will take

to make FCoE work?

“It’ll take a complete end-to-endnetwork. I understand the incrementalapproach is probably now what mostpeople are going to do. It’s not likethey’re going to forklift everything andget a new storage array and get a newgreenfield system, but right now youcan’t do that,” Foskett said.iSCSI, on the other hand, works over

10 Gigabit Ethernet today and lendsitself to a total solution. So why aren’tvendors selling it?“iSCSI doesn’t give vendors a unique

point of entry. They can’t say we’ve gotiSCSI, so that makes us exceptional.But with FCoE they can say, ’We arethe masters of Fibre Channel’ or ’Weare the masters of Ethernet, so you cantrust us.’ iSCSI works too well for any-body to have a competitive advantage,”Foskett said. �

Before embarkingonanFCoE implementation, ask:kWill the storage team or the networking team own theinfrastructure? If co-managed, who has the deciding vote?

kWhich department will pay for it?How will chargeback be calculatedand future growth determined?

kWill the teams be integrated? Typically, the networking team is responsi-ble for IP switches, while the storage team is responsible for Fibre Channel.

kWho will own day-to-day operational issues? If a decision needs to bemade regarding whether more bandwidth is given to local area network (LAN)or storage area network (SAN) traffic, who makes the call?Will companies haveto create a single, integrated connectivity group?�


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COVER STORY

THE HYPE SURROUNDING data centernetwork convergence and the battlebetween FCoE vs. iSCSI can obscurethe core issue: At the end of the dayall storage will traverse the produc-tion Ethernet network and engineersmust be prepared for this transition.Listening to vendor stories can bemind-numbing since each is choos-ing its own corner. Cisco Systemsand Brocade lead the FCoE charge.Meanwhile, Dell tells its customersthat iSCSI over Ethernet is the pathto convergence. Chip vendors likeIntel and network adapter vendorslike QLogic and Emulex are backingall horses, ready to support whatevertechnology an enterprise chooses.Enterprises must overlook thevendor hype and instead considertheir existing infrastructure invest-ments to determine which technolo-gy to choose. They also must under-stand that network convergencemay occur in small increments, not

necessarily going beyond the racklevel in the short term.“Typically [customers] have onetype of convergence in mind whenthey come to us, and we have toopen their minds a bit to the factthat there are many differentoptions and they aren’t mutuallyexclusive,” said Joe Onisick, techni-cal solutions architect with the datacenter practice of a large systemintegrator.

WHYMOVE FORWARDWITHDATA CENTER NETWORKCONVERGENCE?

With the proliferation of 10 GigabitEthernet (GbE), server virtualizationand other technologies, enterprisesmust look seriously at network con-vergence to control capital andoperational expenses and reducecomplexity.“If you have a rack with a lot of

FCOEORISCSI?DOESN’TMATTER!

IT’SABOUTTHE

ETHERNET


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FCOE OR ISCSI? DOESN’T MATTER! IT’S ABOUT THE ETHERNET

servers, especially a VMware rack,you might have 10 copper GigabitEthernet connections and two FibreChannel connections to each serv-er,” said Darren Ramsey, director oftechnology for Wellmont HealthSystem, a Tennessee-based hospitalchain. “If you have 10 servers in thatrack, that’s 120 cables. That’s a lotto try to work around, a lot of inflexi-ble copper, lots of heat. Switch portsaren’t cheap.”In his data center, Ramsey recent-ly introduced network convergenceto eight racks of virtualized Dellservers using Cisco’s Nexus line. Heconsolidated 10 NICSs and two hostbus adapters (HBAs) on each serverto two QLogic converged networkadapters (CNAs) that provide dual10 GbE FCoE links to redundant top-of-rack Nexus 2232 Fabric Exten-ders. All eight pairs of Nexus 2232Fabric Extenders connect upstreamto two redundant Nexus 5020switches. Storage and data traffic isconverged via FCoE up to the Nexus5020s. From there, storage trafficreturns to native Fibre Channel andconnects to a pair of Cisco MDS9506 Director switches on the stor-age area network (SAN). The pro-duction data traffic continues up-stream to Catalyst 6509 switches.“The FCoE streamlined and down-sized the number of Fibre Channelports we needed since all hosts nowrun directly into the Nexus,” Ramseysaid. “We no longer need to tie

directly into the MDS [from theserver]. And it cut down on thecomplexity that was in each rack.And when we went to two 10 Giga-bit links on each server, that allowedus to have more virtual machines onthat box.”

CHOOSING ANETWORKCONVERGENCE TECHNOLOGY:ISCSI OR FCOE?

FCoE gets all the data center net-work convergence hype, but manyindustry veterans say iSCSI is anoth-er viable option. As an IP-basedstorage networking protocol, iSCSIcan run natively over an Ethernetnetwork. Most enterprises that useiSCSI today run the storage protocolover their own separate networksbecause convergence wasn’t anoption on Gigabit Ethernet. But with10 GbE switches becoming moreaffordable, iSCSI-based conver-gence is becoming more of a reality.“Certainly iSCSI is the easier tran-sition [compared to FCoE],” saidstorage blogger and IT consultantStephen Foskett. “With iSCSI youdon’t have to have data centerbridging, new NICs, new cables ornew switches.”Ultimately the existing infrastruc-ture and the storage demands of anenterprise will govern the choice ofa network convergence path.“There are very few times where Iwill steer a customer down an FCoE

route if they don’t all ready have aFibre Channel investment,” saidOnisick. “If they have a need for veryhigh performance and very lowthroughput block data, FCoE is agreat way to do it. If they can sus-tain a little more latency, iSCSI isfantastic. And if they have no needfor block data, then NAS [network-attached storage] and NFS [networkfile system] is a fantastic option.”For Ramsey, iSCSI was never aviable option because of Wellmont’shigh-performance requirements.“We played around with iSCSI, butthat was still going to run over TCP,and you’re still going to contendwith buffering, flow control, win-dowing or packet drops and queu-ing, so we stayed away from it.What FCoE brings to the table—Itdoesn’t run over Layer 3. It’s anencapsulation of your Fibre Channelpacket inside a native Layer 2 frame,and all we’re doing is transportingthat between the server and up tothe Nexus 2232 and the Nexus5020.”

NETWORK CONVERGENCE:NEW STRATEGIESAND CULTURAL CLASHES

With storage and data convergence,networking pros will have to thinkabout networking in a new way.“You have to realize you’re going

to have a lot more traffic and it’sgoing to be a lot more sensitive to

latency and it’s going to be incredi-bly sensitive to availability,” Foskettsaid. “You’ve got to make sure thenetwork doesn’t go down. If you lose

your data center, people cry about it.If you lose your storage network,then servers fall over and that’s areally big difference. ”What’s more, networking profes-sionals will need to familiarizethemselves with the managementconcerns of storage professionals ifthey are going to have storage trafficon their production networks,according to Stuart Miniman, princi-pal research contributor toWikibon,an online technology research com-munity.“A storage person is really con-cerned about data availability andmaking sure there is never a dataloss, as opposed to a networkingadministrator who is really con-cerned about making sure there isconnectivity, bandwidth andresiliency,” Miniman said.These different mindsets have tra-


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Withstorageanddataconvergence,networkingproswillhavetothinkaboutnetworkinginanewway.

ditionally led to culture clasheswhen storage and networking pro-fessionals work together. Now theymust find common ground.“We heard that there were a lot offolks who never do [convergence]because their network folks andtheir SAN folks don’t talk to eachother,” said Bob Cloud, executivedirector of IT infrastructure servicesat the University of Alabama atBirmingham. “We’re unique becauseour network guys work for me andour SAN guys work for me.”Cloud has brought his storage andnetworking teams together whilepiloting FCoE-based network con-vergence in his data center. As aBrocade customer on both the Eth-ernet and Fibre Channel side ofthings, Cloud elected to pilot FCoEwith Brocade’s technology begin-ning last September.In one server rack he has intro-duced two redundant Brocade 8000top- of -rack switches. The serversin the rack connect to each switchvia FCoE. The 8000 switches thenuse Fibre Channel connections tosend storage traffic to a BrocadeDCX storage director switch andEthernet uplinks to send productiondata traffic to upstream BrocadeFastIron SuperX switches. At firstthe storage and networking teamswere confused about who wouldown the Brocade 8000 FCoEswitches.“I think there was some natural

confusion over who was going toown the switch and who was goingto name the switch,” Cloud said.“But we got past that pretty quicklybecause in our data center both thenetworking group and the SANgroup report to me. I told them towork it out because it’s a trial. Thepurpose of the trial is to uncover theorganizational issues.”

DEFININGMANAGEMENTDUTIESA common management platformwill be essential to working outthose organizational issues, Cloudsaid. Brocade has announced a newunified management product, Bro-cade Network Advisor, which sup-ports management of Fibre Channel,FCoE, MPLS and IP switching androuting. Cloud is still waiting for theproduct.“We may always have a routeaccess level person in the network-ing group and I think the SAN folksare fine with that. The networkinggroup will have a little more authori-ty over management of the switchthan the SAN folks, but the SANfolks will have everything they needto troubleshoot and monitor FibreChannel,” he said.Wellmont’s Ramsey also managesboth the storage and networkingteams in his data center, so he’sbeen able to keep his eye on the bigpicture. “I’m not going to have any-one fight over a sandbox,” he said.


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He doesn’t see convergence asbeing that big a change organiza-tionally. The Fibre Channel demar-cation line has been pushed backfrom the server to his Nexus 5020switches, putting that into the net-working team’s domain, but thestorage guys do everything else inmanaging their SAN.“It’s just that, instead of managingports that correspond directly to aserver, now they go to the connec-tions on the 5020 and it’s all kind ofvirtualized. Our SAN guys are morethan welcome to jump in there andlearn [Ethernet], but they are busydoing what they do—provisioningstorage and making sure that SRDF[EMC Symmetrix Remote DataFacility] is working properly. And Ithink that they embraced the idea ofgetting that extra network burdenoff of them,” Ramsey said.

NETWORK CONVERGENCEBEYOND THE RACK

Although Cisco and other vendorswill begin delivery of end-to-endFCoE switching capabilities thisyear, with technologies like ShortestPath Bridging and Transparent Inter-connection of Lots of Links (TRILL),Ramsey doesn’t see moving beyondrack-level network convergencewithin the next five years.“What you’re talking about ismulti-hop FCoE, and Cisco is stillworking on fleshing that out. The

most bang for the buck right nowis to simplify the rack environment.If you want to go all FCoE, all yourEMC stuff is going to have to beretrofitted with FCoE 10 Gigabit.

And at that point you could proba-bly get rid of your Fibre Channel.Maybe in five years we’ll look atthat, but that’s not really going tobuy us anything right now. We’rejust not pushing into the type ofbandwidth where we would needdedicated 10 Gigabit to the storage.We don’t need that much data.Where FCoE helps us is simplifica-tion inside the rack, making it faster,cheaper and smaller.”Cloud is also not ready to lookpast the rack until he gets a betterhandle on management of con-verged networks.“[Brocade] just announced a lotof this stuff, and we want to test outthe management system. Once weprove that out, we’ll be looking to gofurther [with convergence]. We aretrying to figure out the total cost ofownership.”�SHAMUS MCGILLICUDDY, news editor,TechTarget Networking Media

Themostbangforthebuckrightnowistosimplifytherackenvironment.


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TECHNICAL FEATURE

TECHNICAL ARCHITECT Steve Hannahoriginally began deploying servervirtualization to reduce demand forphysical servers in a data centerthat was running out of floor space.But Hannah and the IT team atSchool Specialty Inc., a Greenville,Wisconsin-based provider of sup-plemental learning products, real-ized that the agility and flexibility ofvirtualization could also reinvent thecompany’s disaster recovery plan.School Specialty’s original disas-ter recovery strategy depended on atraditional hot site service providerthat would spin up physical serversusing backups of the servers in thecompany’s primary data center.“With a recovery of physicalservers, we had to be continuallyaware of the exact hardware, includ-ing model types and BIOS levels, tomake sure it was replicated in thehot site,” Hannah said.But getting the traditional hot site

up and running required the physicaltransfer of backup tapes from thecompany’s data center. Hannah esti-mated that it would take a week torecover School Specialty’s systemswith this method.

“Running to someone else’s sitewith backup tapes is simply notgoing to cut it anymore,” he said.“Virtualization gives us a boost inspeed not possible with tapes andbare metal server restores.”Server virtualization adds an

SERVERVIRTUALIZATIONFOR

SPEEDIERDISASTERRECOVERY?

ONESHOP’SSTORY

“Virtualizationgivesusaboost inspeednotpossiblewithtapesandbaremetalserverrestores.”—STEVEHANNAHSchool Specialty Inc.

abstraction layer to server hard-ware, allowing a virtual machineto move between physical serverswithout the need to change hard-ware drivers or ensure softwarecompatibility, Hannah said.

VIRTUALIZATION BRINGSANEWAPPROACHTODISASTER RECOVERY

School Specialty is about a thirdof the way through planning andimplementing its new disasterrecovery plan, which will entailbuilding a new, secondary remotedata center to take advantage ofthe mobility of server virtualization.Hannah has identified 50 of thecompany’s 600 virtual machineimages as mission-critical work-loads that must be synchronized tothe remote data center. School Spe-cialty uses VMware’s vCenter SiteRecovery Manager to manage thevirtual environment, and he uses thedeployed virtualized storage solu-tion to replicate virtual machinesfrom the primary and remote stor-age networks. The remote site holdsa subset of the server blades andhardware of the primary data center,and is designed to spin up the criti-cal virtual machines in the event ofa disaster.Hannah determined that theremote site only needed to be 30 to50 miles away from the primarydata center. “We are fortunate tolive in an area that is not impacted

by large, regional natural disasterslike hurricanes or earthquakes, sowe can keep our remote site rela-tively close,” he said.

MAKING THE HOT SITEUSEFUL BEYONDDISASTERS

Unlike a traditional hot site thatis only available during a disasterrecovery event, School Specialty canuse the infrastructure of the newremote site continuously. The com-pany’s developers and administra-tors use the remote data center asa staging environment for updatedbusiness applications. Performancetesting, user acceptance testing andany final quality checks are done on

new and updated applications inthis staging environment beforebeing pushed in the productionenvironment of the primary datacenter. In the event of a disaster, thecompany can spin up the latest pro-


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SERVER VIRTUALIZATION FOR SPEEDIER DISASTER RECOVERY? ONE SHOP’S STORY

Unlikeatraditionalhotsitethat isonlyavailableduringadisaster,SchoolSpecialtycanusetheinfrastructureofthenewremotesitecontinuously.


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SERVER VIRTUALIZATION FOR SPEEDIER DISASTER RECOVERY? ONE SHOP’S STORY

duction virtual machines at theremote site without restoring fromtape or other backup media. If nec-essary, both the production andstaging environments could operatein parallel.“During the spin up process in adisaster event, we can make thedecision as to whether or not toshut down the staging instances tofree up capacity,” said Jason Sey-mour, Unix system administrator atSchool Specialty, who also noted,“We actually like the idea of ourstaging and disaster recovery envi-ronments sharing the same hard-ware. Basically, we are running acontinual test on our disaster recov-ery hardware.”With a live environment runningon their remote site, the administra-tors can utilize the same monitoringand management tools as the pro-duction environment to detect andtroubleshoot any issues that mayarise, such as failed hardware orprocesses. This is in a sharp con-trast to relying on a third-party hotsite vendor to have all its hardwareready during a disaster.Since School Specialty has com-

plete control over the secondaryenvironment, it can always chooseto move production workloads overto that environment during times ofheavy load. In this way, the disaster

recovery site becomes another com-ponent of the virtualized environ-ment, rather than a service used forannual tests or rarely in a crisis. �

MICHAEL BRANDENBURG, technical editor,TechTarget Networking Media

“Weliketheideaofourstaginganddisasterrecoveryenvironmentssharingthesamehardware.Basically,wearerunningacontinualtestonourdisasterrecoveryhardware.”—JASONSEYMOURSchool Specialty Inc.


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PEER Q+A

WHEN Jeffrey Gray, Liberty Mutual’sdirector of network and communi-cations operations, set out to inter-connect three disparate data cen-ters and begin provisioningapplications on-demand from thestorage area network (SAN) toremote users on the wide area net-work (WAN), he knew just where tobegin network redesign … from theoutside connection going into thedata center.While other IT managers in Gray’sposition might start by grapplingwith server virtualization and cen-tralization of applications, or by con-verging storage and data center net-works, Gray decided that to makehis private cloud work, he wouldfirst need to ensure speeds andfeeds into the data center and makesure that each of the facilities were

interconnected and functioning asone source. In order to do that, histeam first worked to standardizeaccess into each of the data centersand interconnect them through anationwide carrier-provided Ether-net network on which capacitycould be spun up and down ondemand. The team also standard-ized the inside design of each datacenter so each could be mappedand managed the same way for per-formance optimization.

THINKCONNECTIVITYFIRST

RETHINKINGYOUR

DATACENTERNETWORK?

JEFFREY GRAY

With that taken care of, his teamwill now move on to expand its vir-tualization and private cloud strate-gy as well as to converge storageinto the data center network soapplications can flow freely end-to-end with visibility along each arm ofthe journey. Gray sat down withSearchNetworking.com to explainthe transition of his data center andstorage networks.

How have you transitionedLiberty Mutual’s data centernetwork so far?Prior to getting to this data-center-as-one strategy, Liberty Mutual hadgrown through acquisitions, and wepicked up data centers and networkinfrastructure through several acqui-sitions. So we worked diligently tomaintain the processing capabilities… and essentially go through theinfrastructure and normalize it toour computing standards. Forinstance, from a connectivity per-spective, a number of years back wemade the transition from a tradition-al frame relay hub-and-spoke net-work to a fully meshed MPLS net-work. In addition to that, from ourremote office locations we looked tostandardize our connectivity in ouroffices from a speeds and feeds per-spective. Then from a data centerperspective [the back-end accessnetwork], we standardized accessinto the data centers. Prior to that

we had multiple access methodsinto the data centers, looking ateverything from traditional OC-48192 technology to now operating

using DWDM (DenseWavelengthDivision Multiplexing). So in the lastfour or five years we’ve drasticallytransformed our infrastructure to aworld-class network.

How did you standardizeaccess into the data centers?There are different vendor offeringsbased on what part of the countryyou’re in, but essentially, usingDWDM technology allows for high-capacity, high-speed switching intoour data centers. It can scale, andthat’s the key component for theability to scale in short order. In atraditional build for carrier-madeaccess to a data center, you have ahuge computing environment, andadding incremental capacity some-times takes as long as building itfrom scratch. To be able to stan-dardize on DWDM technology gives


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RETHINKING YOUR DATA CENTER NETWORK? THINK CONNECTIVITY FIRST

“Inthelastfourorfiveyearswe’vedrasticallytransformedourinfrastructuretoaworld-classnetwork.”


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you the scalability in a much shorterperiod of time.With that comes the next tier,which is looking at what computingrequirements you need to push datafrom data center to data center, and

then standardizing that connectivity.This past 18 to 24 months we’ve hadsome success in standardizing con-nectivity across three data centersusing optical mesh technology thatgives you, from an industry perspec-tive, bandwidth on demand.

Can you explain optical mesh?Based upon where you’re locatedgeographically, you have the capa-bility to take advantage of high-speed Ethernet connectivity [lever-aging multiple carriers], in somecases across the country where itexists. Most people in the network-

ing industry grew up on Ethernet, sothey understand the failing condi-tions of it. It can be monitored andit’s very predictable, and the cost isright as well.

At Liberty Mutual, why is itnecessary to be able to provisionbandwidth on demand across thedata center network?For instance, if Liberty Mutual wereto run an ad campaign during theSuper Bowl, and we were expectingadditional demand on the networkfrom our call center’s perspective,or just transactions to be at a higherpeak, now we would have the capa-bility to provision the bandwidth ondemand across the data centers tohandle that increased capacity.

What kind of hardware andsoftware do you need for thistype of provisioning?If I had to put a wrapper on it, it’s inthe cloud. We’re leveraging serviceprovider technology. It’s an offeringthat AT&T and Verizon and othershave today. But in some cases we’vetaken a different approach thansome other enterprises. Where his-torically network managers lookedat techniques likeWAN optimiza-tion [to deliver application and dataperformance], we’ve built out a datacenter-to-data center infrastructureand also in parallel taken a look at

“Mostpeople inthenetworkingindustrygrewuponEthernet,sotheyunderstandthefailingconditionsof it. Itcanbemoni-toredandit’sverypredictable,andthecost isrightaswell.”

the remote office capabilities toaccess the data centers. If you startto centralize and virtualize thoseapplications, but you haven’t cov-ered the data center connectivity toaccess those applications in thedata center, you have a gap.We also continue to invest ininternal cloud infrastructure that ismore central to our data centers,and that’s the real sweet spot for us.Having uniformity across the datacenters and our computing environ-ment becomes simpler, and themore we take the complexity out ofit, we gain efficiency from a process-ing perspective.So we can have clones of the datacenter in the Northeast looking likeone in the Midwest, looking like oneon theWest Coast. We put thehardware in the same rack on thefloor so we know what the configu-ration looks like; we know what thespeeds are from data center to datacenter since they are uniform. It’spretty powerful for positioning our-selves for the future.

How is the data centerLAN architecture changing?We have a traditional multi-tieredprocessing environment. We are inthe process now of trying to look athow we want to evolve the core LANfrom a lifecycle perspective. [Weare considering] what the truespeeds and feeds and requirements

are. Also, as we continue to evolve,we’re looking at server virtualiza-tion, reducing server footprint andreclaiming cooling and power insome of the footprint.The [physical layer] is the biggestchallenge. [We’re considering] howto transform the environment soinstead of having 1,000 servers onthe floor, we’ll go down to 300 oreven to 100. It’s kind of a two-partpiece working closely with businesspartners and rewriting their applica-tions to marginalize and consolidatethe infrastructure while giving themon-demand computing capabilityacross multiple environments—notjust from production but test, devel-opment and performance.

The dynamic virtualizedenvironment has made itdifficult to manage the network.How do you approach that?Traffic management is right up therewith the efforts of increasing utiliza-tion for virtual servers. I say trafficmanagement as opposed to networkmanagement because essentiallywith the adaptive network thatwe’ve created comes tight partner-ship with our application develop-ers, with uniquely how they are de-veloping their applications to leverageall of the benefits of QoS and class-es of service on the network.So for instance, you have VoIPand video and SharePoint on the


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network. When there are a lot morecollaborative applications deployedon the network, it comes down totraffic management, and that to meis more about looking end-to-end

and having visibility of the transac-tions that take place on the net-work—not at the traditional networkmanagement where we take fiveminute samples of what’s happen-ing. In order to protect the user’sexperience, the network manage-ment applications need to evolveand have the capability to do one-minute-or-less samples on the net-work in order to capture the traffic.

How does storage play into all ofthis? Are your networks converged?We have a hybrid solution where wehave some network attached stor-age (NAS) and some storage area

networks (SANs) deployed, and ourroadmap is taking us to more con-vergence and more centralization ofstorage because of what I describedearlier about the data center net-work and the flexibility that it givesus to essentially [use] our own stor-age network across multiple datacenters. So, backup and recoverycan ride on its own uncontested net-work. We are positioning ourselvesto drastically reduce recovery times.

Is that storage networkFibre Channel?We are leveraging the MPLS net-work. We have premier sites thathave increased needs from a storageperspective. So how do you get thatdata from premier sites housing200-plus people that have a partic-ular need back to the data centers?We have some SAN [with someFibre Channel and some traditionalSAN switches] and some NAS, sofrom a convergence perspective, wesee huge value in investing in bothNAS and SAN technology. We alsohave host bus adapters (HBAs).We’ve got a little bit of everything.We even have some traditional tapehanging around.I think you have to look at datausage patterns to see what transac-tions look like end-to-end, and thenclassify your data to make sure youare applying the right tier of storageto the right business requirement.


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“Inordertoprotecttheuser’sexperience,thenetworkmanagementapplicationsneedtohavethecapabilitytodooneminute-or-lesssamplesonthenet-workinordertocap-turethetraffic.”

If you’re working toward conver-gence and you already have Fibre,will you eventually opt for an overallFCoE strategy?The long-term plan would be to lookat the Ethernet as a long-term solu-tion. In looking at how to get data inthose remote locations back to thedata center leveraging one cable—it’s that Ethernet connectivity—andthere’s a lot of efficiency that can begained by having that same cable toget the data from a premier officeonto the Fibre Channel infrastruc-ture, so I think that’s the way to go.

As you implement convergence,are you finding a disconnector cultural difference betweennetworking, storage and serverteams?There’s no disconnect. It’s actuallykind of unifying to some degreebecause everyone is now having thebenefit and the opportunity to shareinformation in a common language.Also, from an individual perspective,there’s some career growth andsome progression; and I say thisabout convergence of network andsecurity, voice and data, storage andnetworking. There is a unique skillset to be a solid network profession-al, and there is more collaborationthan ever before. �

BY RIVKA LITTLE, senior site editor, TechTargetNetworking Media


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Network Evolution Ezine is produced byTechTarget Networking Media.

Rivka Gewirtz LittleSenior Site Editor

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