THE SOFTWARE DEFINED DATA CENTER THE THREE CABALLEROS FINALLY HAVE THEIR CLOUDY DAY Paul Brant Sr. Technical Education Consultant EMC Corporation 2013 EMC Proven Professional Knowledge Sharing 2 Table of Contents Table of Figures...................................................................................................5 Abstract ................................................................................................................6 Introduction .........................................................................................................7 Hitting Complexity Head On and the Rise of Orderliness ................................... 10 Coping with Complexity ..................................................................................... 11 Operations Are Being Transformed ................................................................... 14 Software Defined Storage.................................................................................. 14 Enterprise Applications are being Transformed ................................................. 15 Networks are Being Transformed ...................................................................... 16 The Consumerization of IT ................................................................................ 18 The Network Caballero ..................................................................................... 18 Today’s Network - An Artifact, Not a Discipline .................................................. 21 Best Practice – Extract simplicity and let go of mastering complexity ................ 21 Best Practice – Embrace the power of abstraction ............................................ 22 Network Evolution ............................................................................................. 23 Data and Control planes .................................................................................... 24 Drilling Down on the Network ............................................................................ 24 Software-Defined Networking (SDN) ................................................................. 26 Best Practice – Consider SDN’s Real-Time Decision making attributes............. 30 SDN USE CASES ............................................................................................. 30 OpenFlow .......................................................................................................... 31 Best Practice – Do not underestimate the “Network innovators dream” ..................... 32 OpenFlow Switch Components ................................................................................. 33 Best Practice – Consider using OpenFlow as a competitive differentiator ................. 36 Best Practice – Consider OpenFlow solutions from various vendors for the SDDC ... 38 The Storage Caballero ...................................................................................... 40 Software Defined Storage.................................................................................. 40 2013 EMC Proven Professional Knowledge Sharing 3 Best Practice – Consider Data Lifecycle Management as the new Software Defined Storage .............................................................................................................. 42 Best Practice – Consider legacy storage solutions in the SDDC ........................ 43 Best Practice – Consider that storage media itself is transforming ..................... 43 Best Practice – Do not underestimate how Flash Is Transforming Storage ........ 44 The Server Caballero ........................................................................................ 44 Network-aware applications ............................................................................... 45 Advantages of Application Awareness ............................................................... 47 Best Practice – Consider the infrastructure and Big Data as the emerging app for the SDDC ................................................................................................................ 47 Orchestration ..................................................................................................... 49 Best Practice – Understand the efficiencies of command and control in the SDDC .......................................................................................................................... 51 Best Practice – Consider that Simple Orchestration does not mean simple solutions .......................................................................................................................... 53 Security .............................................................................................................. 55 Traditional Network Vulnerabilities ..................................................................... 56 Best Practice – Consider implementing an Openflow Network security Kernel architecture ....................................................................................................... 57 Best Practice – Consider implementing an upcoming SDN security solution - FortNOX .......................................................................................................................... 59 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 61 Author’s Biography ........................................................................................... 61 Appendix A – References ................................................................................. 62 Index ................................................................................................................... 64 2013 EMC Proven Professional Knowledge Sharing 4 Table of Figures Figure 1 - The Three Caballeros ................................................................................................ 6 Figure 2 - Al Gore at his desk ..................................................................................................... 7 Figure 3 - The Three Caballeros singing .................................................................................... 7 Figure 4 - Cockpit of the Boeing 787 .......................................................................................... 8 Figure 5 - Confusion vs. Complicated ........................................................................................ 9 Figure 6 – Disorder and Complexity vs. time .............................................................................10 Figure 7 - Donald the Server, José the Network, and Panchito the storage ...............................12 Figure 8 - Siloed Applications ....................................................................................................12 Figure 9 - Single Logical Abstracted Pool ..................................................................................13 Figure 10 - IP Hourglass Protocol Stack....................................................................................21 Figure 11 - Network Technologies over the years .....................................................................23 Figure 12 - Traditional Network Switch ......................................................................................24 Figure 13 - Software Defined Network Switch Architecture .......................................................24 Figure 14 - Software Defined Network Layers ...........................................................................26 Figure 15 - Control Plane and Data Plane Visibilities ................................................................28 Figure 16 - Software Defined Network Virtulization Integration ..................................................29 Figure 17 - How to Enhance Innovation ....................................................................................32 Figure 18 - OpenFlow Instruction Set Examples .......................................................................33 Figure 19 - OpenFlow Internal Switch Architecture ..................................................................33 Figure 20 - OpenFlow Pipeline Architecture ..............................................................................34 Figure 21 - Flow Table Entry layout ...........................................................................................34 Figure 22 - SDN Controller Application Integration ....................................................................47 Figure 23 - Application Accelleration using SDN .......................................................................48 Figure 24 - The OODA Loop .....................................................................................................51 Figure 25 - SDN Defense Approaches ......................................................................................57 Figure 26 - Fort NOX Architecture .............................................................................................59 Disclaimer: The views, processes or methodologies published in this article are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect EMC Corporation’s views, processes or methodologies. 2013 EMC Proven Professional Knowledge Sharing 5 Abstract When we think of the data center, visions of large storage arrays, servers and network switches come to mind, with lots of hardware. Well, the data center is in major transformation mode. Data centers are going soft, meaning, the trend is data centers are defined not for its hardware components, even though