FS Converged Infrastructure.Indd

A Practical Strategy for Converged Infrastructure

Build a roadmap to the data center in your future that you can follow at your own pace

Converged Infrastructure

Specialist Converged Infrastructure All the technologies you use today— servers, storage, networks, applications and management—have evolved to the point where they can be converged into a single entity.

If you’ve been keeping up with the trends in with a high-level mandate, you could provision a The converged IT over the last few years, you’ve gone from new system from available capacity on demand, infrastructure in your runaway server sprawl with racks of physical and de-provision it and use the capacity future is as much a servers in your data center operating at less somewhere else when the project is complete. mind set as it is a bill than 10 percent of their capacity to runaway of materials for new server sprawl with images of virtual servers It would be possible to provide end users with technology. propagating with reckless abandon in your a range of choices—within parameters set by virtualized pools of resources. your operating environment—to provision their own computing capacity for specifi c projects. According to industry watchers, most IT Your department could also accurately allocate departments are still spending more than 70 costs to departments for the capacity they use, percent of their time scrambling to keep their turning the IT department into a service provider existing IT environments from self-destructing. instead of a cost center. That doesn’t leave much time for doing the innovative things that support the business in A Realistic Process creative and rewarding ways. If you don’t have an unlimited budget, what you need is a realistic process that will enable If you think there must be a better solution, you to incrementally transform your current you’re right. And it may be closer than you think. heterogeneous, somewhat jerry-rigged IT environment into the well-mannered, converged The good news is that a truly converged infrastructure that you’ve read about on your infrastructure for your data center is now vendor’s website as time and your actual budget technologically feasible. In fact, if you had an allow. It can be done. unlimited budget, you could build the future of computing today right in your own data center. The converged infrastructure in your future is And it would work great, too. as much a mind set as it is a bill of materials for new technology. According to Brandon Harris, Instead of deploying individual resources Logicalis’ vice president of HP solutions, your piecemeal, you could deploy compute capacity “data center of the future” begins as soon as and provision applications as they are brought you decide to stop thinking in terms of discrete online. You’d realize the key benefi ts of cloud servers and storage for every application computing—rapid self-provisioning, automation and start thinking about shared interoperable and capacity-on-demand—in your own data resources across your entire IT infrastructure. center. The next time you have a rush project As Kevin Gruneisen, vice president of Logicalis’ Breaking from the tradition of dividing the IT data center practice, likes to say, the fi rst step environment into silos by product category—i.e., in fi guring out how to get to where you want to server, storage, networks and management— go is fi guring out where you are. Understanding the HP converged infrastructure framework your current environment will determine where establishes four sets of related functions. to begin in a way that suits your unique situation. They are: Once you know where you are and where you want to go, you can develop a strategy that gets 1. HP Matrix Operating Environment—A you there at a pace you can afford. common management platform to manage technologies from infrastructure to application. The ultimate destination, admittedly, can seem a little hazy. Although they might 2. HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric—A common, call it a converged infrastructure, dynamic wired-once, virtual I/O network. infrastructure, unifi ed computing or even utility computing, every computer company in the 3. HP Virtual Resource Pools—Virtualized market claims to have a vision of your “data computer, memory, storage and network center of the future.” resources.

Breaking from Tradition 4. HP Data Center Smart Grid—An intelligent The devil, of course, is in the details. Today, energy management grid that encompasses all only HP, through a combination of acquisition systems and facilities. and innovation, has assembled an architectural framework and all of the building blocks to take Unlike the traditional silos in many data centers you from the conceptual level all the way down that are defi ned, and often jealously protected to the servers, storage, networks, desktops, thin behind their own acronyms and skill sets, the clients and management tools that you can use components of HP’s converged infrastructure to start implementing a converged infrastructure roadmap are defi ned by how they interact with in your data center right now. each other. Within HP’s converged infrastructure framework a rack-optimized or tower-based standalone there are several technologies that reach across server. the traditional silos that you can use as catalysts to accelerate the controlled, incremental HP recently introduced Integrity server blades, transformation of your data center environment. the industry’s fi rst line of 8-socket, Unix scale- up blades that have been optimized to run For example, HP introduced Virtual Connect in multiple operating systems, including: HP-UX 2006 to provide blade server edge connectivity 11i v3, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, HP that was wire-once and change ready. OpenVMS, and HP NonStop. Integrity server Two million ports later, Virtual Connect, in blades deliver all the benefi ts of the blade form combination with HP Networking technology, factor and are also capable of running mission- has become the foundation for HP’s FlexFabric critical applications. strategy. A key advantage of introducing blades to On a practical, if not personal level, what this your data center is that your investment in means is that if the server guy decides on Virtual blade chassis and racks is protected over Connect for his blade servers, he better be time because you can always add additional talking to the networking guy. Virtual Connect blades, unlike money spent on maintaining older converges up to four NICs over a 10 Gb server technology for which there is no roadmap to the connection. Bandwidth limits can also be future. dynamically confi gured on the fl y on each NIC, and the number of blade interconnect modules required can be reduced by as much as 75 Blade Everything percent. And, because it is based on open HP has more than servers in mind for the blade standards, it is possible to plug Virtual Connect transformation. And, HP is at the forefront of the into the network of your choice: HP Networking, “blade everything” approach to the data center Cisco, Brocade, etc. that makes it possible to physically integrate servers, storage, networking, applications and Wave of Change management in a single blade enclosure. Another catalyst that has initiated a wave of change through everything in the data center The best example of this concept is HP’s Matrix is blade technology. Blades are modular, need Operating Environment which is essentially fewer cables, require less fl oor space, use less the kernel of a converged infrastructure in a power, require less cooling and can be managed blade enclosure. Matrix works like a command by integrated management tools. These and center that uses your guidelines to automatically other dramatic effi ciencies enabled the blade provision and de-provision resources on the form factor to take the data center by storm. The fl y. If demands by one application require more fi rst commercial blade servers were shipped in storage, for example, it will provide it. If specifi c 2001, and the worldwide blade server market servers are hitting performance levels, it will is now projected to reach almost $16 billion by adjust the workload accordingly. 2013. Implementing the Matrix Operating Environment Blade servers like HP’s family of ProLiant is, frankly, not for everyone. Depending on servers built on the x86 platform became the the confi guration, it can approach $200,000 building blocks of the fi rst wave of virtualized for the hardware, software and services and consolidated data centers. Blade enclosure involved. Everyone, however, can use the deployments accommodate the ebb and fl ow Matrix Operating Environment as a model for of virtualized workloads. If more capacity is a converged infrastructure which they can needed, more blades can be added to the approximate in their own data center as budgets enclosure avoiding a complete replacement of and resources allow. The key to building your own converged 3PAR technology is recognized as leading the infrastructure command center is implementing category of highly virtualized, dynamically tiered, technologies in each area of your data center multi-tenant storage arrays built for public and that can communicate and interact with each private cloud computing. Industry analysts other. Matrix packages them together, but if say that 3PAR points the direction for the next you can’t afford the package, you can still move generation of HP storage. Shortly after the toward a functional operating environment acquisition, HP named 3PAR CEO David Scott by aligning technology building blocks that head of StorageWorks, HP’s storage portfolio. have the capacity to interact with each other according to the specifi c requirements of your IT The technologies in StorageWorks now include: environment. Modular Smart Array (now P2000)—for small businesses “Just to Be Sure” LeftHand iSCSI (now P4000)—for the SMB The concept of multi-tenancy and shared market resources has been around since the early days The Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) family (now of storage area networks (SANs) which made P6000)—for SMB and up disk arrays, tape libraries and optical storage 3PAR—enterprise level available to servers. P9000/XP Disk Arrays—for high-end enterprise storage Despite having a head start on shared resources, the prevailing tendency in most Ultimately, all of HP’s storage products will be organizations has been to buy more storage integrated and absorbed into what will become than you need—“just to be sure.” Predictably, a common storage platform that will make it the tendency to over-buy has fi lled many possible to dynamically select the best storage data centers with a variety of storage devices confi guration for a specifi c application from all performing at a small percentage of their a menu that includes all the choices. In the designed performance—kind of like where meantime, organizations need to carefully select servers were before virtualization when the rule a specifi c storage solution that meets their of thumb was a server for every application. current needs and leaves their future options open. HP is building a better approach to storage with the technologies in its StorageWorks portfolio “Knowing an organization’s requirements is that will deliver the same kind of dynamic going to drive you toward the right solution,” fl exibility—and higher performance levels—that says Marlin Kovaleski, a Logicalis account virtualization has made possible in servers. executive who has been helping customers Knowing that you can quickly and easily scale with storage for 30 years. “If you understand an up and out as demand changes allows you to organization’s storage requirements, budget and buy just the storage you need, when you need it. business continuity/disaster recovery strategy, the right product becomes obvious.” HP’s commitment to taking a leading role in the storage market was fi rmly declared HP’s EVAs have been the obvious choice for through its $2.35 billion acquisition of 3PAR. thousands of organizations for years. EVAs Besides wresting 3PAR from Dell’s grasp, HP’s have earned a reputation for being extremely acquisition of 3PAR was a shot across the bows dependable, and for those who appreciate of the major storage vendors—IBM, EMC, HDS the ease of use of the EVA for traditional, and NetApp—and a clear indication that HP predictable workload environments, it will was not satisfi ed as an also-ran in the storage continue to provide fi ber channel connectivity market. below 3PAR. HP is adding thin provisioning to EVA this year. To broaden its storage portfolio, HP acquired virtualization to consolidate its data center HP has made it very LeftHand Networks, a pioneer of iSCSI SAN down to three servers and a P4300 for storage. clear that networking is technology in 2008. LeftHand’s intelligent “Basically, we built a converged infrastructure in an essential part of HP’s cloning technology reduces the amount a room,” says Kovaleski. Once the central data converged infrastructure of disk space required for storage and its center was virtualized and consolidated, the city go-to-market strategy. thin provisioning features reduce power implemented a matching disaster recovery site consumption. Advanced data replication in the basement of a fi re station several miles technology with bandwidth management and away. failover protection also makes the LeftHand line (now rebranded as HP P4000) ideal for backup Prior to this solution, Kovaleski adds, the and disaster recovery operations between city’s off-site recovery plan consisted of the IT remote offi ces and a central location. manager taking backup tapes home with him on Monday nights…if he didn’t forget. Today, the Five Nines municipal data uses HP D2D for backup with Often a specifi c requirement will drive the right HP Data Protector software. There are no longer storage solution. For example, Kovaleski says a any tapes to forget. technology-savvy university client with a dread of downtime was on the verge of buying storage Acquisition. Absorption. Innovation. from Dell’s EqualLogic when Kovaleski told the The same pattern of acquisition, absorption client about the ability of HP’s P4000s to stripe and innovation that is happening in HP across nodes and effectively provide fi ve nines StorageWorks is underway in HP Networking. (99.999%) uptime. Networking is not a new idea at HP. HP’s ProCurve networking business dates back “Each P4000 is a tray with eight to 12 disk drives 25 years. Traditionally, ProCurve targeted the and two controllers. That’s the brick you build edge (where end-point devices are plugged in) with,” says Kovaleski. What Logicalis proposed and HP’s products were used in SMB, small for this university was a storage solution that campus, and wireless solutions. included two P4000s in its central data center and two more in a backup site in the business The acquisition of 3Com last year for nearly $3 administration building. Connecting the two billion brought HP a suite of solutions targeted locations with high-speed fi ber made it possible at the core networking space, particularly in to stripe data across all four nodes. The core routing, aggregation, campus core, and university could lose either site completely and enterprise core solutions that HP ProCurve did nothing would be lost. not have. It also gave HP Networking an array of products that spans the entire network space StorageWorks provides a range of storage from high-end routers and switches to security to choose from that can be matched to an and management. HP has since retired the organization’s unique requirements—and “ProCurve” name and has rebranded its entire their budget. One strategy that Kovaleski line of networking solutions as “HP Networking.” has followed with several budget-conscious customers is virtualizing their data centers to HP has made it very clear that networking is an reduce their footprint fi rst and then building essential part of its converged infrastructure a DR center. For a Midwestern city that was go-to-market strategy. HP Networking is led putting a new data center in a new addition by Senior Vice President and General Manager to the city hall, for example, Logicalis used Marius Haas, and is part of the Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking business unit Software Solutions led by Executive Vice President and General All the emphasis on infrastructure has upstaged Manager David Donatelli. the emergence of software building blocks that help you realize that converged infrastructure. Convergence has been a goal in networking since it became possible to integrate voice over A good example of this new generation of the same network infrastructure with data. Video software is HP’s StoreOnce which allows the is the new member of the converged network. If same software to be used on backup clients, your organization still has separate LAN traffi c virtual appliances, inline appliances and scale- and a PBX with twisted pair copper wire, this out storage systems. Developed in HP Labs, would be a good place to start converging. StoreOnce is implemented in all HP D2D backup Further Reading Even if you are not ready to implement VoIP, the systems. By enabling deduplication one time, Visit next time you upgrade your data network, you everywhere, StoreOnce frees organizations from www.us.logicalis.com/ should consider switches that support power the cycle of escalating storage demands every hpn over Ethernet (PoE) so that when you have time data is replicated from remote offi ces to the budget and resources to add voice, the regional offi ces and from there to headquarters. Read infrastructure will be there to support it. With the data compression of 20:1 that www.us.logicalis.com/ StoreOnce makes possible, you can store more pdf/HP%20Network- “To ensure that you are progressing toward backups online; instead of three to fi ve weeks, ing%20Feature%20 the goal of a converged infrastructure,” Brett you can now keep a whole year. Story.pdf Anderson, Logicalis’ director of HP servers and networking, says, “you need to align each new Industry analysts speculate that Léo Apotheker, project that crosses your desk with your long- the former CEO of SAP, was chosen to replace term vision. The strategic choice might be more Mark Hurd as HP CEO at least in part because expensive in the short term, but nothing is as of his background in software. Apotheker is expensive as fi nding yourself in a technological expected to drive software development within dead-end that forces you to start over.” HP and has already increased the funds for “To ensure that you are progressing toward the goal of a converged infrastructure, you Brett Anderson, Director, HP Servers need to align each new project that crosses and Networking, Logicalis your desk with your long-term vision.”

research and development. Analysts also expect organization. The emphasis on communication, to see more acquisition announcements from integration and interaction that is inherent in HP in the software area in the near future. the technology of a converged IT infrastructure is a good metaphor for the involvement of the The Unclaimed Silo IT department in the overall well-being of an One aspect of the IT environment that IT organization. departments have not been quick to claim is power and cooling. Many in IT have been It turns out that fi guring out the technology of a content to let the facilities department deal with converged infrastructure could be the easy part. the power and cooling requirements of their data Probably the single biggest barrier to realizing a centers, but as the cost of energy has soared, converged infrastructure is political, according integrating this all-important asset into the total to Anderson. “Before you can effectively converged infrastructure has become a practical change the technology, you have to change the necessity. culture of protected fi efdoms that make up the typical IT department. This is the hill on which a HP’s Smart Grid is a combination of converged infrastructure initiative will live or die.” technologies that includes building sensors into The implications of a converged infrastructure devices that make it possible to reduce power extend throughout an organization, not just consumption and maximize effi ciency by more the IT department. What’s possible with the than 50 percent. Smart Grid also has hooks into technology needs to be possible with the VMware that make it possible to migrate virtual politics. To succeed in today’s extremely machines to as few physical servers as possible competitive markets, everyone in every and, during periods of low demand, actually department has to have the overall well- shut the power down to un-needed servers. being of the organization as his or her focus. As demand increases, virtual servers are re- Technologists may not know anything about distributed to physical servers as necessary. double-entry accounting, but they should know that if they can help get a product to market As with other new technologies, the fi rst step in faster or ensure that manufacturing has less taking advantage of the Smart Grid is becoming downtime, that is going to have a positive impact aware of the possibilities and incorporating the on business. appropriate building blocks as you upgrade systems within your data center. The plus side for IT politically is that the changes required to implement a converged Metaphor for Involvement infrastructure will, in fact, tend to elevate the Stepping up to take ownership of the costs value and visibility of IT within an organization. of power and cooling is an example of a Technologists may have to give up their fundamental change that is occurring in the sanctuary in the data center, but the opportunity role of IT within an organization. Following the is there to spend more time in the executive roadmap toward a converged infrastructure in suite. IT inevitably leads an IT department into more direct participation in the business side of an

“Th e strategic choice might be more expensive in the short term, but nothing

Brett Anderson, Director, HP Servers is as expensive as fi nding yourself in a and Networking, Logicalis technological dead-end that forces you to start over.”

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