Composable Infrastructure: Treat Your Infrastructure as Code … · Evolving Infrastructure Models...
Transcript of Composable Infrastructure: Treat Your Infrastructure as Code … · Evolving Infrastructure Models...
Composable Infrastructure: Treat Your Infrastructure as Code
Evolving Infrastructure Models
• Richard Fichera, VP and principal analyst, Forrester Research
Cisco’s View of Composable Infrastructure
• Jim Leach, Director of Platform Strategy, Cisco
• Todd Brannon, Director of UCS Marketing, Cisco
Roundtable Discussion
• Richard, Jim and Todd
Agenda
Evolving Infrastructure Models Forrester Research
Richard Fichera VP & Principal Analyst
January 21, 2016
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At the Heart of the Problem: Complexity,
Scale and Shifting Architectural Models
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You’ve seen this before – this is our world
This is not new – what is new is the number of decimal places.
And it is more than just volume, it is also underlying complexity, forcing
a change in the way we engineer our infrastructure, incorporating new
relationships between data and processing
Growth: Inexorable Simple, Ubiquitous, Painful
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Our view: Data growth combined with the desire for infrastructure flexibility are forcing enterprise and midsized companies to rethink their both their data management and their network architectures.
• Storing more data for every business operation,.
• Performance requirements continue to increase
• Storage to compute ratios are highly variable
STORAGE MUST BE FASTER, SMARTER AND EASIER TO PROVISION!
Explosive Growth Is Changing Storage and Processing Requirements
VELOCITY, EFFICIENCY & SCALABILITY ARE KEY CHALLENGES, AND MATCHING STORAGE
TO CPU BECOMES A CHALLENGE
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But Architectural Diversity Drives Storage and Processing Requirements
0
2
4
6
8
10CPU
Memory
DiskNetwork -Thru
Network - L
OLTP
MemCache
Search
Analytics
VMInfrastructureLatency and throughput are strongly
linked to network characteristics
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The Architectural Dilemma - Cheap or Optimized?
Much of the I&O innovation in the past few years has been focused on trying to
“cheat” this seemingly inviolable rule of operations and infrastructure engineering
Lower TCO Optimal
Budget
pressures
force most
of us here
But
increasingly
we want to
be here
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New problems spawned new platforms
Rack systems
Blade Systems
Software-Defined Storage
Density Advanced Abstraction
Storage flexibility
Density & Abstraction
External Array Integration
Composable Systems
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The Reality Today is Most Organizations Have a Complex Set of Infrastructure
Portfolio
Management
Value Rack Enterprise rack
Density
Optimized/HPC
Tower
Blade
Hyperscale/semicustom
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Configuration Complexity Costs
› Increased complexity in systems management
› Complexity in vendor management – from both sides. Configuration diversity
makes forecasting, inventory management less precise, leading either to
requirements to carry extra inventory, or delays in acquisition and provisioning.
› Pushing the inventory issue off onto a distributor or the vendor provides illusory
savings – they are smart enough to build it into their costs
› Acquisition delays can impact productivity and time to solution – this is a big
loss
› Cost and management issues can force us into sub-optimal configurations
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Can we cheat?
The new wave of composable systems gives us the chance to have both highly
efficient and near-optimal systems in our infrastructure
Lower TCO Optimal
Now
You
Can Have
BOTH
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Composable Systems – The Future of Enterprise Infrastructure Definition – A composable system allows individual servers to be “composed” from
pools of CPU/memory, disks and shared network connections.
Pooled Disaggregated Elements
Magic
A “composed” server
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Essential Characteristics of Composable Systems
Usable Composition Requires More Than Just A Box of Components
› The composed systems must be indistinguishable from a standard physical
server with the same configuration (CPU, memory, disk and network)
› Composition must be independent of and have no effect on other composed
systems in the same management domain
• Systems must be capable of being “decomposed” and resources returned to pools
› Management functions must be accessible via API as well as CLI/GUI
› Subject to physical limitations imposed by packaging, elements must be as location-
independent as possible
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Closing Thoughts
Composable Systems Represent the Missing Link in Software-Defined Data Centers
› Previous approaches to the implementation of SDDC have fallen short due to
lack of a flexible physical layer
• At some point the fluidity of the VM layer ran into the inflexibility of the physical server layer
› Composable systems will allow a flexible coupling of the virtual layer with a
more fluid physical layer
› Vendor differentiation will be along several dimensions
• Number and selection of compute nodes and size of shared storage pools
• Network flexibility, configuration and integration
• Integration with higher levels of the SDDC, including OS, application and complete service
images
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A Final Thought – Simple and Uniform Building Blocks Do not Mean Mediocre Outcomes
Cisco’s View of Composable Infrastructure
Cisco Composable Infrastructure Journey
Disaggregation
CPU
Memory
Local Storage
Network I/O
CPU
Memory
Local Storage
Network I/O
SAN I/O
CPU
Memory
Local Storage
Network I/O
SAN I/O
CPU
Memory
Local Storage
Network I/O
SAN I/O
Physical, Fixed Ratio
Monolithic
UCS
Composable
Infrastructure
M-Series Nexus
• Composable systems allow flexible coupling of virtual layer with a more fluid physical layer
• Supports VMs, containers and bare metal applications
Composable Makes the Resources Fluid
X86 Architecture
Operating System
CPU NIC Disk SSD Memory
Application
X86 Architecture
Virtualization Layer
CPU NIC Disk SSD Memory
Intelligent Automation Software
Resource Pool
Ap
p
A
Ap
p
A’
Ap
p
B
Ap
p
B’
Bare Metal Virtualization Operating System
Container Engine
Conta
iner
• Cisco innovation treats hardware as code
• Software object model: hardware in not configured manually
• API centricity: a unified system control plane
• Virtual Interface card (VIC): all network and SAN adapters are software defined
UCS Management: “Infrastructure as Code”
UCS Management
Resource Pool
XML API
UCS Management
Resource Pool
• Determine which resources to allocate
• Compose infrastructure in a set that is optimized for the workload
Service Profiles Optimize Resources
Profile A Profile B
A A A B B B
Shared Local Resources
PCIe
Compute Cartridges
UCS M Series
UCS M-Series: Composable Infrastructure
Shared Local Resources
PCIe
Compute Cartridges
UCS M Series
Shared Local Resources Improved utilization of resources
Based on Cisco System Link Technology Enables disaggregated, composable infrastructure
Modular Design Improved subsystem lifecycle management
Lean Componentry Cost and power optimization
UCS M-Series: Composable Infrastructure
UCS Management and M-Series
System Link connects disaggregated resource elements
Create and modify
service profiles
Model abstracts of
required resources
Resources allocated
from ID pool
UCS Management
Fabric Interconnect
provides network
connectivity and
management Storage
Resources
Network
Resources
Compute
Resources
Power &
Cooling
Resources
Supports multiple types of cartridges and different processor generations
• Preserves investment in system
• Simplified management using service profiles
UCS M-Series: Flexibility
For more information about
Composable Infrastructure
Including videos and papers from other analysts
Go to
www.cisco.com/go/composable
Thank You
www.cisco.com/composable