VM /ETC

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The VIRTUMANIA continues with Episode 14! Marc, Rick and I host very special guests David Davis and Greg Schulz for a discussion about networking for virtualization. The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 14 – Virtualization and Networking Turf Wars. Hosts Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com with regular Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.com are joined by special guests David Davis (@davidmdavis)vmwarevideos.com and Greg Schulz (@storageio) of storageioblog.com. This week’s episode covers the important but often overlooked network architecture needed for successful virtual infrastructure. Our discussion eventually compares the data center battle for control, management, and monitoring of virtual machine traffic to rival gangs dancing for superiority in the Michael Jackson music video "Bad". Thanks to Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) of Chi Corporation for this Infosmack Production.

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

The following links offer more information on some of the topics mentioned in VIRTUMANIA Episode 14:

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Episode 8 of the VIRTUMANIA Podcast was great! Marc and I team up again with Rick Vanover for a conversation with Vaughn Stewart of  NetApp. The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 8 – Barbecue SMT Architecture Plate. Hosted by Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC. Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com co hosts with guests Rick Vanover (@rickvanover www.rickvanover.com) and Vaughn Stewart (@vstewed http://blogs.netapp.com/virtualstorageguy/) of NetApp. After some general fun about Infosmack’s activities at SNW last week and the upcoming NetApp vs EMC debate scheduled for this year’s Charlotte VMUG in June, the conversation segues from the different types of regional barbecue in the Southeastern U.S. to Secure Multi Tennancy Architecture. Various technologies that make up SMT from VMware, Cisco, NetApp, and even other storage company’s solutions that can create similar multi tennancy scenarios are touched upon. An example is developed of an IT department responsible for various barbecue “departments” on a secure, isolated, but consolidated virtual infrastructure. This episode is sure to leave you hungry for more! Thanks to Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) for this Infosmack Production.

Farley gets Greg Knieriemen to laugh again and wins 1,000 VIRTUMANIA Bucks. Rick needs help securing the Rickatron.com domain, and the whole crew doubts my reference to Alabama BBQ styles.

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as all the episodes of Infosmack.

The following links offer more information on some of the SMT Architecture topics mentioned in VIRTUMANIA Episode 8:

Read the rest of this entry »

During the UCS Bootcamp in San Jose, Cisco made it clear that the value proposition of UCS is the Stateless Model. Unlike traditional server deployment use of the Service Profile (I covered the Opt-In Model earlier in this series), the Stateless Model allows the physical hardware to become generic and, since the operating system and application resides on the SAN, a server personality duplicated and restarted from blade to blade.

Cisco’s definition of Statelessness:

“In Unified Computing system (UCS) the underlying hardware (or server) can be made completely transparent to the OS or applications that run over it. The kind of environment which an OS or application requires can be moved from one server to another or can be changed very easily. This is made possible by moving resources, such as MAC addresses, WWN values, IP addresses, UUID, firmware versions and even server BIOS, from one server to another at the time of deploying the server. This is accomplished by using the concept of Service profiles; which is like software definition of a server. The concept of stateless computing facilitates much greater scalability and can be used in conjunction with virtualization to achieve maximum data center utilization.”

One of the labs during the week showcased the Stateless Model in action, so what better way to help explain this feature then to walk through it again for all to understand?

The Stateless Model Lab Overview

Quoting the lab introduction, the purpose of the lab was to:

“.. demonstrate the statelessness by booting an OS off of a SAN LUN.  The SAN connectivity and masking is specified by World Wide Names that are associated with the service profile.  When your service profile moves from one blade to the next, you will be booting the exact same SAN based OS. No configuration outside of UCS will ever be required at this time.”

The following overview is of the UCSM configurations performed in the lab. Once again, this is not a “how to” but is instead intended to provide insight into the process and advantages of the UCS Stateless Model.

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As a class and in smaller groups, I’ve participated in several discussions trying to understand UCS connectivity and communication both internally and externally to the LAN and the SAN. This post summarizes several diagrams and drawings from whiteboards, my notes, and the bootcamp manual to explain what hardware communicates with which protocol, and how redundancy and fail over works in Cisco’s Unified Compute System. If you are comparing UCS to other blade centers some details mentioned will jump out at you. I’ll conclude with some thoughts on these items.

Again I am using terminology and acronyms established in my post from day 1. Review that post if necessary.

The following diagram illustrates the current connectivity between the UCS Blades, Fabric Extenders (FEX), and the Interconnects. The diagram only includes a single chassis, a single half height blade, and a single full height blade for simplicity while covering all scenarios. Duplicate the same connectivity for each blade inside the chassis, and duplicate connectivity of 2 more FEX for each additional chassis in the solution. As shown, the 2 Interconnects can manage up to 20 different chassis if model 6140 and up to 10 chassis if model 6120. (The max number of chassis can not be achieved because 2 FCoE cables are being used to the Interconnects) Read the rest of this entry »

Part of the materials given to us this week at the Cisco Partner UCS Bootcamp is a publicly available book. For those interested in learning more about virtualization on Cisco UCS, this quick post provides the links for ordering the book as well as to a review published by Greg Ferro of Etherrealmind.com

Order

Project California: a Data Center Virtualization Server – UCS (Unified Computing System) by Silvano Gai, Tommi Salli, Roger Andersson

Book Review

Book Review: Pro­ject Cali­for­nia: Data Cen­ter Vir­tu­al­iz­a­tion Server
Greg Ferro of Etherealmind.com

Day 2 in San Jose, CA at the Cisco UCS partner Bootcamp focused around using the UCS Manager (UCSM). We dove deeper into UCSM navigation and explored the various objects found in the web browser Java interface. There was a discussion about the process to upgrade UCS component firmware, and the day concluded with an exercise on assigning “basic Opt-In” Server Profiles to blades in order to install an operating system.  This post will touch on the last two topics as the objects are self explanatory (for the most part) once in the Java interface, and then conclude with some screen shots showing the application of a profile and the installation of ESX 4 on a Cisco blade via the UCSM.

I am using terminology and acronyms established in my post from day 1. Review that post if necessary.

Upgrading Firmware

For those familiar with management of bladecenter chassis, blades, and modules from the leading manufacturers today UCS hardware is a bit of change. Specifically, the “management module” is not found in the chassis. Management is instead performed on the Interconnect switches via the UCSM GUI or CLI. Administrators used to configuration, troubleshooting, and upgrading hardware at the chassis level could be surprised to learn that even though there is a Chassis Management Console (CMC), it is not directly accessible without a special connector possessed only by TAC or authorized Cisco Partners. UCSM controls the CMC and orders it to make the configuration changes.

Once configured, a web browser is pointed at the switch ip address and all components are upgraded from there.

Firmware upgrades can be performed via the CLI, but using the UCSM GUI makes the entire process, from downloading the update bundle to applying individual component upgrades, much easier.

All of the following can be upgraded from the UCSM:

• Mezzanine Cards (IOMs)
• Blade BMC
• Blade BIOS
• Chassis CMC
• Interconnect switches
• Blade LSI RAID controller

The upgrade bundle download is initiated from the UCSM and then is viewable in the interface, and the installable images can be assigned to the hardware.

Deploying Server Profiles

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A recent partnership announcement between Cisco and the Miami Dolphins was showcased last night before the Monday Night Football game. The Dolphins have created a unique fan experience using Cisco TelePresence to enable virtual meetings between fans and Dolphin’s players. More from Cisco’s official announcement follows in this post, but I experienced Cisco Telepresence first hand during VMworld 2009 when I participated in a virtual meeting with people in 9 different locations all over the U.S. and Canada.

In my case, I and 2 co-workers took a break from attending VMware’s conference and sat down in Cisco’s TelePresence booth in San Francisco. We were able to participate in a live meeting with groups of customers hosted by fellow employees in locations such as Houston, Atlanta, Toronto, and Montreal just to name a few. Our meeting was actually about creating a unified data center with Cisco UCS  and VMware vSphere. TelePresence truly created a face to face experience by displaying the individuals talking and managing the conversation as others chimed in.

Participating in virtual meeting from VMworld

View of participants in other cities

It’s great to see Cisco’s technology used for NFL game entertainment. Like the NFL’s use of IBM bladecenters reported at last year’s Superbowl, I’m hoping my Atlanta Falcons will soon follow in the Miami’s lead for the Georgia Dome. According to a related feature article by Cisco titled Cisco Helping Stadiums Compete with the Couch, “some of the biggest teams in professional sports [omitted] are turning to Cisco Systems to wire new state-of-the-art stadiums and digitize older ballparks. In recent months the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Yankees, the Kansas City Royals and the Toronto Blue Jays have connected their stadiums from the locker rooms to the concession stands with Cisco technologies.” Falcons, I’d love to help!

Here’s some info on what exactly the Dolphins have created for fans from Cisco’s press release. Note the mention of fans sharing Flip Video at the end of the quote as well.

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