VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview · EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K Series storage arrays. EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K storage array: contains one to four engines and 24 -

1 © 2012 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Revision history

VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

Document revision 4.1 March 2013

© 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

www.vce.com


Revision history VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

Revision history

Date Vblock System Document revision Author Description of changes

February 2013 Gen 4.0 4.0 Julie Hamm Gen 4.0 release

March 2013 Gen 4.0 4.1 Julie Hamm Updated for VCE rebranding


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Table of contents

Table of contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 6

Accessing VCE documentation ................................................................................................................. 7

Overview ...................................................................................................................................................... 8 Vblock™ System 720 overview .............................................................................................................. 8 Base configurations and scaling ........................................................................................................... 11 Connectivity overview ........................................................................................................................... 13

Segregated and unified network architecture ................................................................................ 13 Segregated network architecture .......................................................................................................... 13

Block storage configuration ............................................................................................................ 13 SAN boot storage configuration ..................................................................................................... 15 Unified storage configuration ......................................................................................................... 16

Unified network architecture ................................................................................................................. 17 Block storage configuration ............................................................................................................ 17 SAN boot storage configuration ..................................................................................................... 18 Unified storage configuration ......................................................................................................... 19

Aggregating multiple Vblock Systems .................................................................................................. 20 Aggregation common services ....................................................................................................... 21

Compute layer hardware .......................................................................................................................... 24 Compute overview ................................................................................................................................ 24 Cisco Unified Computing System ......................................................................................................... 25 Cisco Unified Computing System fabric interconnects......................................................................... 26 Scaling up compute resources ............................................................................................................. 27

Blade packs .................................................................................................................................... 27 Chassis activation kits (CAK) ......................................................................................................... 27

VCE bare metal support policy ............................................................................................................. 28

Storage layer hardware ............................................................................................................................ 29 Storage overview .................................................................................................................................. 29 EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K Series storage arrays .............................................................................. 30

Supported drives ............................................................................................................................ 31 EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K Series storage arrays .............................................................................. 32

Supported drives ............................................................................................................................ 33 EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K Series storage arrays .............................................................................. 33

Supported drives ............................................................................................................................ 35 EMC Data at Rest Encryption ........................................................................................................ 35

(Optional) EMC RecoverPoint Appliance ............................................................................................. 36 EMC VNX VG2 Gateway and EMC VNX VG8 Gateway ...................................................................... 36 Scaling up storage resources ............................................................................................................... 37

RAID packs .................................................................................................................................... 37 Storage cabinet .............................................................................................................................. 40 DAE packs ..................................................................................................................................... 40


Table of contents VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

Engines .......................................................................................................................................... 41 Storage features support ...................................................................................................................... 41

vStorage APIs for Array Integration ............................................................................................... 41 File deduplication ........................................................................................................................... 41 External NFS and CIFS access ..................................................................................................... 42

Network layer hardware ............................................................................................................................ 43 Network overview ................................................................................................................................. 43 Network layer components ................................................................................................................... 43

Switching components ................................................................................................................... 43 Network layer components ............................................................................................................ 44

Virtualization components ....................................................................................................................... 47 Virtualization overview .......................................................................................................................... 47 VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi ....................................................................................................... 47

Cluster configuration ...................................................................................................................... 47 Datastores ...................................................................................................................................... 47 Virtual networks .............................................................................................................................. 47

VMware vCenter Server ....................................................................................................................... 48 Databases ...................................................................................................................................... 48 Authentication ................................................................................................................................ 48 VCE supported features ................................................................................................................. 49

Management components ........................................................................................................................ 50 Management hardware components .................................................................................................... 50 Management software tools ................................................................................................................. 51

AMP software tools ........................................................................................................................ 51

Vblock™ Data Protection ......................................................................................................................... 52 Vblock Data Protection overview .......................................................................................................... 52

Data protection defined .................................................................................................................. 52 Vblock Data Protection capabilities ...................................................................................................... 53 Backup and recovery ............................................................................................................................ 54

One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar ............................................................................... 54 Multiple VCE cabinets that contain EMC Avamar .......................................................................... 56 One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain 670 Controller ................. 56 One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar and another VCE cabinet that contains EMC Data Domain 890 Controller ................................................................................................................... 57 One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar and multiple cabinets that contain EMC Data Domain 890 Controller ................................................................................................................... 59

Business continuity and workload mobility ........................................................................................... 59 EMC VPLEX ................................................................................................................................... 60 Cluster configurations .................................................................................................................... 60 Recommended configurations ....................................................................................................... 61 Single engine ................................................................................................................................. 62 Dual engine .................................................................................................................................... 63


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Table of contents

Quad engine ................................................................................................................................... 64

Vblock 720 Components .......................................................................................................................... 65 Cabinets overview ................................................................................................................................ 65 Cabinet types ........................................................................................................................................ 65

Sample compute and network cabinet ........................................................................................... 65 Array system bay cabinet ............................................................................................................... 66 Array storage bay cabinet .............................................................................................................. 66

Sample configuration descriptions........................................................................................................ 66 Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K sample configuration .............................................. 67 Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K sample configuration .............................................. 69 Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K sample configuration .............................................. 71

Power options ....................................................................................................................................... 74 North America power options for Vblock System cabinets ............................................................ 74 Power options outside of North America for Vblock System cabinets ........................................... 74 North America power options for EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K ..................................................... 74 Power options outside of North America for EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K .................................... 74 North America power options for EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K ..................................................... 75 Power options outside of North America for EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K .................................... 75 North America power options for EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K ..................................................... 75 Power options outside of North America for EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K .................................... 75

Additional references ............................................................................................................................... 76 References overview ............................................................................................................................ 76 Virtualization components .................................................................................................................... 76 Compute components .......................................................................................................................... 77 Network components ............................................................................................................................ 77 Storage components ............................................................................................................................ 78


Introduction VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

Introduction

The Vblock™ System from VCE is the world's most advanced converged infrastructure—one that optimizes infrastructure, lowers costs, secures the environment, simplifies management, speeds deployment, and promotes innovation. The Vblock System is designed as one architecture that spans the entire portfolio, includes best-in-class components, offers a single point of contact from initiation through support, and provides the industry's most robust range of configurations.

The Vblock System 720 is an enterprise, service provider class mission-critical system in the Vblock System 700 family, for the most demanding IT environments – supporting enterprise workloads and SLAs that run thousands of virtual machines and virtual desktops. It is architecturally designed to be modular, providing flexibility and choice of configurations based on demanding workloads. These workloads include business-critical enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and database, messaging, and collaboration services. The Vblock 720 leverages the industry’s best director-class fabric switch, the most advanced fabric based blade server, and the most trusted storage platform. The Vblock 720 delivers greater configuration choices, 2X performance and scale from prior generations, flexible storage options, denser compute, five 9s of availability, and converged network and support for a new virtualization platform that accelerates time to service and reduces operations costs.

This document describes the high-level design of Vblock 720. This document also describes the hardware and software components that VCE includes in each Vblock 720.

The target audience for this document includes sales engineers, field consultants, advanced services specialists, and customers who want to deploy a virtualized infrastructure by using Vblock 720.

The VCE Glossary provides terms, definitions, and acronyms that are related to Vblock Systems. Refer to Accessing VCE documentation.

To suggest documentation changes and provide feedback on this book, send an e-mail to [email protected]. Include the name of the topic to which your feedback applies.

mailto:[email protected]?Subject=Documentation%20Feedback&body=Document:%20ArchOverviewSystem720Please%20provide%20your%20comments:


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Accessing VCE documentation

Accessing VCE documentation

Select the documentation resource that applies to your role:

Role Resource

Customer support.vce.com A valid username and password are required.

VCE Partner www.vcepartnerportal.com/resourcelib-vce.asp?loc=331 A valid username and password are required.

Cisco, EMC, VCE, or VMware employee www.vceportal.com/solutions/68580567.html

VCE employee www.vceview.com/solutions/products/ or vblockproductdocs.ent.vce.com

http://support.vce.com/

http://www.vcepartnerportal.com/resourcelib-vce.asp?loc=331

http://www.vceportal.com/solutions/68580567.html

http://www.vceview.com/solutions/products/

http://vblockproductdocs.ent.vce.com/


Overview VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

Overview

Vblock™ System 720 overview

Vblock System 720 delivers a multi-controller, scale-out architecture with consolidation and efficiency for the enterprise. It allows scaling of resources through common and fully redundant building blocks. Vblock 720 is designed for deployments involving large numbers of virtual machines and users. Vblock 720 is a modular platform with defined scale points that meets the higher performance and availability requirements of an enterprise's business-critical applications.

Vblock 720 uses a SAN storage medium or a NAS (file) storage medium. Local book disks are optional and available only for bare metal blades.

The following table shows Vblock 720 architecture:

Component Vblock 720

Network access Segregated or unified Storage access Block or unified Cisco B-series blade chassis 48 chassis maximum (16 per domain, up to a maximum of five domains) B-series blades (maximum) Half-width = 384

Full-width = 192 Back-end FC buses 8 - 64 Storage protocol Block = FC

Unified = FC, CIFS, and NFS Datastore type Block = VMFS

Unified = NFS and VMFS X-Blades (Unified only) Minimum = 2

Maximum = 8 Boot path SAN Disk drives EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K = 24 – 1560

EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K = 88 – 2400 EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K = 88 – 3200


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Overview

Vblock 720 contains the following key hardware and software components:

Resource Components

Compute • Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) 5108 Server Chassis • Cisco UCS B-Series M2 Blade Server and Cisco UCS B-Series M3 Blade Servers • Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card (VIC):

– M81KR VIC converged network adapter for the Cisco UCS B250 M2 Blade Server – Cisco UCS VIC 1240 for all M3 Blade Servers optional port expander or UCS VIC 1280 – Cisco UCS VIC 1280 for all M2 Blade Servers

• Cisco UCS 2204XP Series Fabric Extenders or Cisco UCS 2208XP Fabric Extenders • Cisco UCS 6248UP Fabric Interconnects or Cisco UCS 6296UP Fabric Interconnects

Network • Cisco Nexus 7010 Switches, Cisco Nexus 5596UP Switches, or Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switches are placed in compute cabinet

• Cisco Nexus 7010 Chassis if Cisco Nexus 5596UP Switches, or Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switches are placed in separate cabinet , Cisco Nexus 5596UP Switches, or Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switches placed in compute cabinet

• Cisco MDS 9148 Multilayer Fabric Switch or Cisco MDS 9513 Multilayer Director • Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switch

Storage • EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K, EMC Symmetrix 20K, or EMC Symmetrix 40K • (Optional) EMC VNX VG2 Gateway or EMC VNX VG8 Gateway • (Optional) EMC RecoverPoint Appliance

Virtualization • VMware vSphere ESXi • VMware vCenter Server

Management • EMC PowerPath/VE • Cisco UCS Manager • Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS) • (Optional) EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager (UIM) • EMC Secure Remote Support (ESRS) on Windows • EMC Unisphere for VMAX on Windows • VMware vSphere Server Enterprise Plus



The following illustration provides a high-level overview of the components in Vblock 720 architecture:

The VCE Vblock System Release Certification Matrix provides a list of the certified versions of components for Vblock 720. Refer to Accessing VCE documentation.



Base configurations and scaling

For each Vblock 720, there is a base configuration that is a minimum set of compute and storage components, as well as fixed network resources. These components are integrated within one or more 28-inch 42U cabinets. Within the base configuration, the following hardware aspects can be customized:

Hardware How it can be customized

Compute blades B-series blade type including all supported VCE blade configurations Compute chassis Up to sixteen Cisco UCS Server Chassis per domain

Up to five Cisco UCS domains (five pair of fabric interconnects) yielding support for up to 128 half-width Cisco UCS Blade Servers per domain, up to 384 blade servers per Vblock System.

Storage hardware Drive types for up to three tiers of storage, the number of drives in each tier, the RAID protection for all tiers, and the number of disk array enclosures (DAEs)

Storage EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K storage array: contains two to eight engines with a maximum of 128 front-end ports. Combinations support 2 ½ inch drives, 3 ½ inch drives and a mix of both 2 ½ inch and 3 ½ inch drives. Depending on the configuration, the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K supports 88 – 3200 drives. Refer to EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K Series storage arrays. EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K storage array: contains two to eight engines, a maximum of 128 front-end ports and 88 - 2400 drives in up to eleven cabinets including one system cabinet and one to ten storage cabinets. Refer to EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K Series storage arrays. EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K storage array: contains one to four engines and 24 - 1560 drives in up to six cabinets. Support 2 ½ inch drives, 3 ½ inch drives, and a mix of both 2 ½ inch and 3 ½ inch drives. Refer to EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K Series storage arrays.

Supported disk drives

Tier 1 Drives – 100/200/400 GB Tier 2 Drives – 146/300/450/600 GB Tier 3 –1/2/3 TB Supported Capacity & Drive size vary by Array types. For a list of supported drives by array type, refer to EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K, EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K, or EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K.

Supported RAID types

Tier 1: RAID 1, RAID 5 Tier 2: RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6 Tier 3: RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6 RAID 10 striping is accomplished through striped meta volumes and striped virtual pools. Refer to Scaling up storage resources.

Management hardware options

An AMP centralizes management of Vblock System components. Optionally, a high-availability version of the AMP can be substituted. Refer to Management hardware components.

(Optional) EMC RecoverPoint appliances (RPAs)

Two to eight clustered appliances that facilitate storage replication and rapid disaster recovery. Refer to EMC RecoverPoint.

X-Blade enclosure packs

Base configuration has two control stations configured with one X-Blade enclosure and one pair of X-Blades. Upgrades are available on the EMC VNX VG8 Gateway with two X-Blades in a DME. Refer to EMC VNX VG2 Gateway and EMC VNX VG8 Gateway .

Together, the components offer balanced CPU, I/O bandwidth, and storage capacity relative to the compute and storage arrays in the Vblock System. All components have N+N or N+1 redundancy.

These resources can be scaled up as necessary to meet increasingly stringent requirements. The maximum supported configuration differs based on core components. To scale up compute resources, add blade packs

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/specification-sheet/h8716-symmetrix-vmax-10k-ss.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/specification-sheet/h6176-symmetrix-vmax-20k-ss.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/data-sheet/h9716-symmetrix-vmax-40k-ds.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/data-sheet/h9716-symmetrix-vmax-40k-ds.pdf



and chassis activation kits. To scale up storage resources, add engines, cache, RAID packs, and DME packs. Optionally, add expansion cabinets with additional resources. Refer to Scaling up storage resources.

Vblock Systems are designed to keep hardware changes to a minimum should the customer decide to change the storage protocol after installation. For example, changing from block storage to unified storage.

For the Vblock 720, cabinet space is reserved for all components that are needed for each storage configuration (MDS switches, X-Blades, etc.). All network and power cabling for these components are in place.



Connectivity overview

Components and interconnectivity within Vblock 720 are conceptually subdivided into three layers:

Layer Description

Compute Contains the components that provide the computing power within the Vblock System. The Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) blade servers, chassis, and fabric interconnects belong in this layer. Refer to Compute overview.

Storage Contains the storage components for both block and file storage types. The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K, EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K, or the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K array components belong in this layer. The Vblock 720 offers the VG NAS gateway components for file storage. Refer to Storage overview.

Network Contains the components that provide switching and routing between the compute and storage layers within a Vblock System, and between the Vblock System and the customer network. The Cisco MDS switches, for segregated only, and the Cisco Nexus switches belong in this layer. Refer to Segregated network architecture and Unified network architecture.

All components incorporate redundancy into the design.

Segregated and unified network architecture

In segregated network architecture, LAN and SAN connectivity is segregated into separate switches within the Vblock System. LAN switching uses the Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switches, the Cisco Nexus 5596UP Switches, or the Cisco Nexus 7010 Switches. SAN switching uses the Cisco MDS 9148 Multilayer Fabric Switch or the Cisco MDS 9513 Multilayer Fabric Switch.

In unified network architecture, LAN and SAN switching is consolidated onto a single pair of network devices within the Vblock System (Cisco Nexus 5596UP Switch), removing the need for a Cisco MDS SAN switch.

The following topics contain connectivity configurations for Vblock 720:

• Segregated network architecture

• Unified network architecture

The VCE Vblock System 720 Gen 4.0 Port Assignments Reference provides information about the assigned use for each port in the Vblock System. Refer to Accessing VCE documentation.

Segregated network architecture

This topic describes the segregated network architecture for Vblock 720 for block, SAN boot, and unified storage.

Block storage configuration

The following illustration shows a segregated network, block storage configuration for Vblock 720. The compute layer within Vblock 720 connects to both the Ethernet and Fibre Channel (FC) components of the network layer. The Cisco UCS fabric interconnect connects to the Nexus switches in the Ethernet network through 10 GbE port channels and to the Cisco MDS switches through 8 Gb FC port-channels. The storage



layer consists of an EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K, EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K, or EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K storage array. The front-end expansion cards connect to the Cisco MDS switches within the network layer over 8 Gb FC port-channels. The X-Blades and control stations are absent from the cabinets, however, space can be reserved in the cabinets for these components. All power and network cabling is present. This design makes it easier to add the components later if the customer upgrades to unified storage.



SAN boot storage configuration

VMware vSphere ESXi hosts always boot over the FC SAN. The remainder of the storage can be presented as NFS or VMFS datastores. Storage can also be presented directly to the virtual machines as CIFS shares. The following illustration shows a segregated network, unified storage with SAN boot configuration for Vblock 720:

Note: Components leveraged to support SAN booting in Vblock 720 are highlighted in a red, dashed line.



Unified storage configuration

In a segregated network, unified storage configuration, the compute layer accesses the storage layer through both file and block methods in the network layer using NFS/CIFS and FC respectively. The engines within the array connect to NAS gateway X-Blades through the FC SAN. The X-Blades also connect to the Cisco Nexus switches within the network layer over 10 GbE to provide NFS access to the compute layer in addition to the block access described in Block storage configuration. The following illustration shows the segregated network, unified storage configuration for Vblock 720:



Unified network architecture

With unified network architecture, EMC Symmetrix VMAX block and file access uses a Cisco Nexus 5596UP Switch for both LAN and SAN connectivity.

Block storage configuration

The following illustration shows a unified network, block-storage configuration for Vblock 720:

The X-Blades are absent from the cabinets, however, space can be reserved in the cabinets for these components (including the optional EMC RecoverPoint). This design makes it easier to add the components later if the customer upgrades to unified storage. In a unified storage configuration for block and file, the storage processors also connect to X-Blades over FC. The X-Blades connect to the Cisco Nexus switches within the network layer over 10 GbE.



SAN boot storage configuration

In a SAN boot storage configuration, the VMware vSphere ESXi hosts always boot over the FC SAN. The remainder of the storage can be presented as NFS or VMFS datastores. Storage can also be presented directly to the virtual machines as CIFS shares. The following illustration shows a unified network, unified-storage configuration with SAN boot for Vblock 720:

Note: Components leveraged to support SAN booting in Vblock 720 are highlighted in a red, dashed line.



Unified storage configuration

In a unified network storage configuration, the storage processors also connect to X-Blades over FC. The X-Blades connect to the Cisco Nexus switches within the network layer over 10 GbE: The following illustration shows a unified network, unified-storage configuration for Vblock 720:



Aggregating multiple Vblock Systems

Multiple Vblock Systems can be connected into a common network at a high level to support common services. The following illustration shows a segregated configuration in which two Vblock Systems are aggregated:



The Cisco UCS domain, SAN, and storage on each Vblock System are maintained separately. The SANs within the Vblock Systems share common services, such as migration and backup/data recovery, within an aggregated Cisco MDS 9500 Series Director and Cisco Nexus aggregation tier. However, no resources are shared between the Vblock System SANs.

LAN and SAN switching is consolidated in a pair of single network devices within the Vblock System, removing the need for an MDS SAN switch. The following illustration shows how LAN and SAN switching is consolidated in unified network architecture.

Aggregation common services

The VCE aggregation solution supports the connection of multiple Vblock Systems in a single physical environment to shared disaster recovery, replication, and backup services. It also provides cross-Vblock System IP connectivity and facilitates data movement both into and out of the Vblock System from the



customer environment. The aggregation solution also delivers a standardization of connections into the Vblock System which provides clarity for support personnel, and expansion flexibility.

The aggregation solution is only for support of Vblock Systems and requires these services to be dedicated exclusively to the Vblock System.

The following aggregation topologies are available:

• SAN only

• Ethernet only

• Mixed SAN and Ethernet

These topologies have various scaling points using different Cisco MDS and Cisco Nexus solutions to provide the required connectivity among the Vblock System, customer network, and external common services appliances.



The following illustration shows the incorporation of the unified network layer:


Compute layer hardware VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

Compute layer hardware

Compute overview

Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) B-Series M2 and M3 Blade Servers provide the computing power within a Vblock System. The blades are installed in Cisco UCS chassis.

Fabric extenders within the Cisco UCS chassis connect to Cisco fabric interconnects over converged Ethernet. Up to eight 10 GbE ports on each fabric extender connect northbound to the fabric interconnects, regardless of the number of blades in the chassis. These connections carry IP and storage traffic. The universal ports on the Cisco UCS 6248UP Series Fabric Interconnects or Cisco UCS 6296UP Fabric Interconnects handle Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and Fibre Channel (FC) transports.

Each fabric interconnect has multiple ports reserved by VCE for 10 GbE ports. VCE has reserved these ports for southbound connections to the Cisco UCS 5108 Server Chassis or for northbound connections to the network connectivity layer. The northbound ports connect to upstream access/aggregation switches. These connections carry IP traffic to and from the customer network. In a unified storage configuration, these ports also carry IP traffic to the X-Blades within the storage layer.

Each fabric interconnect also has multiple ports reserved by VCE for 8 Gb FC. These ports connect to Cisco MDS storage switches. These connections carry FC traffic between the compute layer and the storage layer. In a unified storage configuration, these connections also enable storage area network (SAN) booting of the Cisco UCS blades.

Another option for uplinks to customer networks is the disjoint layer 2 configuration. In this configuration, traffic is routed to different networks at the fabric interconnect to support two or more discrete Ethernet clouds, connected by the Cisco UCS servers. Upstream disjoint layer-2 networks (disjoint L2 networks) allow two or more Ethernet clouds that never connect, to be accessed by servers or virtual machines located in the same Cisco UCS domain.


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Compute layer hardware

The following illustration shows a representation of how to implement disjoint layer 2 networking into a Cisco domain:

Virtual port channels (VPCs) 101 and 102 are production uplinks that connect to Cisco Nexus 5548P Switch or Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switch. Virtual port channels 105 and 106 are customer uplinks that connect to customer-owned switches.

If you use Ethernet performance port channels (PC 103 and 104 by default), port channels 101 through 104 should have the same exact VLANs assigned.

Cisco Unified Computing System

The Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) data center platform unites compute, network, and storage access. Optimized for virtualization, the Cisco UCS integrates a low-latency, lossless 10 Gb Ethernet unified network fabric with enterprise-class, x86-based servers (the Cisco B series).

Vblock Systems contain a number of Cisco UCS 5100 Server Chassis. Each chassis can contain up to eight half-width Cisco UCS B-Series M2 and M3 Blade Servers or four full-width blades. In Vblock Systems, each chassis also includes Cisco UCS fabric extenders and Cisco UCS B-Series Converged Network Adapters.




Vblock Systems powered by Cisco UCS feature:

• Built-in redundancy for high availability

• Hot-swappable components for serviceability, upgrade, or expansion

• Fewer physical components than in a comparable system built piece by piece

• Reduced cabling

• Improved energy efficiency over traditional blade server chassis

The VCE Vblock System Blade Pack Reference provides a list of supported Cisco UCS blades in the Vblock System. Refer to Accessing VCE documentation.

Cisco Unified Computing System fabric interconnects

The Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) fabric interconnects provide network connectivity and management capabilities to the Cisco UCS blades and chassis. The Cisco UCS fabric interconnects offer line-rate, low-latency, lossless 10 Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) functions.

The Cisco UCS fabric interconnects provide the management and communication backbone for the blades and chassis. The Cisco UCS fabric interconnects provide LAN and SAN connectivity for all blades within their domain.

Vblock 720 uses Cisco UCS 6248UP Fabric Interconnects or Cisco UCS 6296UP Fabric Interconnects. Single domain uplinks of 2, 4, or 8 between the fabric interconnects and the chassis are provided with the Cisco UCS 6248UP Fabric Interconnects. Single domain uplinks of 4 or 8 between the fabric interconnects and the chassis are provided with the Cisco UCS 6296UP Fabric Interconnects.


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Compute layer hardware

Scaling up compute resources

To scale up compute resources, you can add blade packs and chassis activation kits. You can add packs and kits either when Vblock Systems are built or after they are deployed.

Blade packs

Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) blades are sold in packs of two. Each blade pack includes:

• Two identical Cisco UCS blades

• Two fabric interconnect port licenses

The base configuration of each Vblock System includes two blade packs. The maximum number of blade packs depends on the selected scale point.

Each blade type must have a minimum of two blade packs as a base configuration and can then be increased in single blade pack increments thereafter. Each blade pack is added along with license packs for the following software:

• Cisco UCS Manager (UCSM)

• VMware vSphere ESXi

• Cisco Nexus 1000V virtual switch

• EMC Ionix UIM (optional)

• EMC PowerPath

Note: License packs for VMware vSphere ESXi, Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switch, and EMC PowerPath are not available for bare metal blades.

The VCE Vblock System Blade Pack Reference provides a list of supported Cisco UCS blades in Vblock 720. Refer to Accessing VCE documentation.

Chassis activation kits (CAK)

The power supplies and fabric extenders for all chassis are pre-populated and cabled, and all required Twinax cables and transceivers are populated. However, in a base Vblock System configuration, there is a minimum of two Cisco UCS 5108 Server Chassis. There are no unpopulated server chassis unless they are ordered that way. This limited licensing reduces the entry cost for Vblock Systems.

As more blades are added and additional chassis are required, chassis activation kits are added automatically to an order. The kit contains software licenses to enable additional fabric interconnect ports.

Only enough port licenses for the minimum number of chassis to contain the blades ordered. At the customer's discretion, chassis activation kits can be added up-front to allow for flexibility in the field or to initially spread the blades across a larger number of chassis.



VCE bare metal support policy

Since many applications cannot be virtualized due to technical and commercial reasons, Vblock Systems support bare metal deployments, such as non‐virtualized operating systems and applications as described in this topic. However, while it is possible for a Vblock System to support these workloads (with caveats noted below), due to the nature of bare metal deployments, VCE is only able to provide “reasonable effort” support for systems that comply with the following requirements:

• The Vblock System contains only VCE published, tested, and validated hardware and software components. The VCE Vblock System Release Certification Matrix provides a list of the certified versions of components for Vblock Systems. Refer to Accessing VCE documentation.

• The operating systems used on bare-metal deployments for compute and storage components must comply with the published hardware and software compatibility guides from Cisco and EMC.

• For bare metal deployments that include other hypervisor technologies (Hyper-V, KVM, etc.), those hypervisor technologies are not supported by VCE. VCE Support is only provided on VMware Hypervisors.

VCE reasonable effort support includes VCE acceptance of customer calls, a determination of whether the Vblock System is operating correctly, and assistance in problem resolution to the extent possible.

VCE is unable to reproduce problems or provide support on the operating systems and applications installed on bare metal deployments. In addition, VCE does not provide updates to or test those operating systems or applications. Customers must work directly with their OEM support vendor for issues and patches related to those operating systems and applications.


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Storage layer hardware

Storage layer hardware

Storage overview

The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K series, EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K series, and the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K series are high-end storage systems built for the virtual data center. Built for reliability, availability, and scalability, EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K, EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K, and EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K use specialized engines, each of which includes two redundant director modules providing parallel access and replicated copies of all critical data.

The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K, EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K, and the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K offer the following software components:

Component Description

EMC Symmetrix Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) (For EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K and EMC Symmetrix 40K only)

Puts the right data in the right place at the right time to improve performance and reduce costs of tiered environments. FAST uses simplified policies to manage storage resources based on built-in automation and intelligence. FAST can optimize placement of data at either the volume/LUN or sub-LUN level.

EMC Symmetrix FAST for Virtual Pools (FAST VP)

Enables your business to optimize system performance while reducing cost. This optimizes array performance across drive types (Flash, SATA, and Fibre Channel) and across all engines in the array. Tiering is automatically optimized by dynamically allocating and relocating application workloads based on defined policies. FAST VP non-disruptively moves workloads across storage types, optimizing the overall system performance.

EMC Symmetrix Virtual Provisioning

Virtual Provisioning, based on thin provisioning, is the ability to present an application with more capacity than is physically allocated in the storage array. The physical storage is then allocated to the application on demand as it is needed from the shared pool of capacity. This lowers cost of ownership by reducing initial over-allocation of storage capacity and reducing labor costs by simplifying data layout and eliminating the steps required to accommodate capacity growth.

EMC Enginuity 5876 Storage operating environment for EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K, EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K, and EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K. Delivers performance, array tiering, availability, and data integrity.

EMC Unisphere for VMAX

Browser-based graphical interface for device creation, management, and monitoring on EMC Symmetrix arrays.

EMC RecoverPoint EX IO Splitter

Provides an array-based IO splitter for use with EMC RecoverPoint EX replication software to eliminate the need for an expensive SAN-based IO splitter.

For an overview of the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K series used in Vblock 720, refer to EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K Series storage arrays.



The VCE Vblock System 720 Gen 4.0 Port Assignments Reference provides information about the assigned use for each port in Vblock 720. Refer to Accessing VCE documentation.


Storage layer hardware VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K Series storage arrays

The following illustration shows the interconnection of the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K in Vblock 720:

The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K storage arrays include the following features:

• Minimum configuration contains two engines, and the maximum contains eight engines. Engines can be added one at a time.

• Available cache options are: 96 GB, 192 GB, or 256 GB

• Sixteen 8 GB Multimode Fibre Channel (FC) ports per engine

• EMC Data at Rest Encryption (DARE) is optional. Refer to EMC Data at Rest Encryption.

• Integrated EMC RecoverPoint Splitter. Refer to EMC RecoverPoint.

• Minimum of 88 drives with a maximum of 2400 3 ½ inch drives or 3200 2 ½ inch drives

• Choice of 2 ½ inch, 3 ½ inch or a combination of 2 ½ inch and 3 ½ inch drives are supported but must be in separate storage bays.

• Minimum of two racks and a maximum of 12 racks with 3 ½ inch drives or 10 racks with 2 ½ inch drives

• Dispersion of system bay (two system bays)

• Dispersion of daisy chain storage bays



Supported drives

The following table illustrates the supported drives for the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K:

Flash-FC Flash FC SAS NL-SAS SATA

3½ inch drive capacity/speed 100 GB 300 GB - 15K 300 GB -10K 2 TB - 7.2K

200 GB 300 GB - 15K 600 GB - 10K 3 TB - 7.2K

400 GB 600 GB - 10K

600 GB - 15K

2 ½ inch drive capacity/speed 200 GB 300 GB - 10K 1 TB - 7.2K

400 GB 600 GB - 10K

146 GB - 15K

300 GB - 15K

RAID protection Mirrored Mirrored Mirrored Mirrored Mirrored Mirrored

R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1)

R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1)

R6(6+2) R6(6+2) R6(6+2) R6(6+2)

R6(14+2) R6(14+2) R6(14+2) R6(14+2)





This illustration shows one Unified Computing System (UCS) domain. With Vblock 720, you can have a maximum of five UCS domains and eight EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K engines in a maximum configuration.

Vblock 720 enabled by SAN storage can support NAS with the provision that primary boot services are provided across the SAN. Mission-critical applications are hosted that require FC access to maintain performance. It is recommended that one or more NAS gateways are deployed for VMware vSphere, the exact number required being determined during the planning phase.

EMC PowerPath/VE (PP/VE) provides several benefits for block-based IOs in terms of performance, availability, and operations. The base PP/VE license is mandatory for Vblock 720.



Supported drives



3½ inch drive capacity/speed 100 GB 300 GB - 10K 300 GB -10K 3 TB - 7.2K 1TB - 7.2K

200 GB 300 GB - 15K 450 GB - 10K 2TB - 7.2K

400 GB 450 GB - 10K 600 GB - 10K

450 GB - 15K

600 GB - 15K

600 GB - 10K

146 GB - 15K

146 GB - 15K


R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1)

R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1)

R6(6+2) R6(6+2) R6(6+2) R6(6+2)

R6(14+2) R6(14+2) R6(14+2) R6(14+2)


The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K delivers scalable performance, simplified management and provisioning, automated tiering, local and remote replication, and the ability to support numerous virtual machines.

The core element of the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K is the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K engine, which includes the Intel XEON quad-core processors, cache, and front-end and back-end connectivity. The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K can scale by adding up to four EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K engines with a total of eight redundant directors.




A Vblock 720 enabled by SAN storage can support NAS with the provision that primary boot services are provided across the SAN. Mission-critical applications are hosted that require Fibre Channel (FC) access to maintain performance. It is recommended that one or more X-Blades are deployed for VMware vSphere, the exact number required being determined during the planning phase.

EMC PowerPath/VE (PP/VE) provides several benefits in terms of performance, availability, and operations. The base PP/VE license is mandatory for Vblock 720.

The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K contains the following features:

• A single engine with 96 GB or 128 GB of cache and 16 8 Gb FC front-end ports (per engine).

• Three available tiers of storage: EFD, FC, and SATA.

• In a base configuration, one storage cabinet and Tier 2 storage drives are populated with a minimum of 24 drives or 36 drives depending upon the RAID configuration.

• The base configuration can be expanded to four engines with up to 512 GB of cache and 64 FC front-end ports.

• The storage drives can be increased to a maximum of 1560 drives which can be configured within the three storage tiers.

The maximum configuration requires six storage cabinets. Some of the front-end FC ports are reserved for replication, external SAN access, and X-Blades. The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K chassis has two power supplies for full redundancy.



Supported drives



3½ inch drive capacity/speed 100 GB 200 GB 300 GB - 15K 300 GB -10K 2 TB - 7.2K 2TB - 7.2K

200 GB 400 GB 450 GB - 15K 600 GB - 10K 3 TB - 7.2K

600 GB - 15K

600 GB - 10K

2 ½ inch drive capacity/speed 100 GB 300 GB - 10K 1 TB - 7.2K

200 GB 600 GB - 10K

400 GB 300 GB - 15K


R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1) R5 (3+1)

R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1) R5(7+1)

R6(6+2) R6(6+2) R6(6+2) R6(6+2)

R6(14+2) R6(14+2) R6(14+2) R6(14+2)

EMC Data at Rest Encryption

EMC Data at Rest Encryption (DARE) protects data on hard drives that are members of EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K, EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K, and EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K arrays, by adding back-end at rest encryption to the entire array. While the mechanics of EMC DARE deal with keeping encryption in running systems, the objective is to minimize data-exposure risks for drives outside of operational arrays, such as failed or retired drives or drives in EMC Symmetrix VMAX array being moved between facilities. This feature must be added from the start; adding it later causes a total loss of the array.

The following list summarizes the main features of EMC DARE that are supported on Vblock 720:

• Hardware-based XTS-AES 256 bit encryption at the disk level.

• Leverages EMC RSA key management to provide secure encryption keys for each drive.

• EMC RSA Data Protection Manager is the default setting. It requires no user interaction.

• Functionality is provided by encryption-capable EMC Symmetrix VMAX engines.

• System-wide setting. It is not possible to have a mix of encryption engines and non-encryption engines.

• All disks, regardless of type, are encrypted.

• Supported on four Gb/s FC I/O module with encryption (backend module).



• Configurable when the storage array is installed. Cannot be enabled at a later time.

• Once enabled, it cannot be disabled.

• Provides Embedded Key Management and External Key Management. However, Vblock Systems currently support only Embedded Key Management. Embedded Key Management resides on the EMC Symmetrix Service Processor. The key is obtained for the Data Protection Manager (DPM) when the EMC Symmetrix array is initially installed or when a drive, director, or storage processer (SP) is added or replaced.

(Optional) EMC RecoverPoint Appliance

For block storage configurations, Vblock 720 can be upgraded to include EMC RecoverPoint Appliance (RPA). This replication technology provides continuous data protection and continuous remote replication for on-demand protection and recovery to any point in time. EMC RPA advanced capabilities include policy-based management, application integration, and bandwidth reduction. EMC RPA is included in the EMC Local Protection Suite and the EMC Remote Protection Suite.

To implement EMC RPA within a Vblock 720, add two or more EMC RPAs in a cluster to the Vblock 720. This cluster can accommodate approximately 80 MB/s sustained throughput through each EMC RPA.

To ensure proper sizing and performance of an EMC RPA solution, VCE works with an EMC Technical Consultant and the customer. They collect information about the data to be replicated, as well as data change rates, data growth rates, network speeds, and other information that is needed to ensure that all business requirements are met.

EMC VNX VG2 Gateway and EMC VNX VG8 Gateway

Vblock 720 configurations can be upgraded to include file-based storage by adding the optional EMC VNX VG2 Gateway or the EMC VNX VG8 Gateway. The EMC gateways provide NAS storage in a centrally managed information storage system. The gateways allow you to grow, share, and cost-effectively manage the Vblock System with multiprotocol file access.

The EMC VNX VG2 Gateway is an entry-level SAN and NAS storage platform.



The EMC VNX VG8 Gateway is a massively scalable, enterprise, SAN, and NAS platform.

The following table compares the EMC VNX Gateways available in Vblock 720:

EMC VNX VG2 Gateway EMC VNX VG8 Gateway

Two X-Blades Two to eight X-Blades Four core 2.40 GHz Intel Xeon 5600 processors with 6 GB memory

Six core 2.83 GHz Intel Xeon 5600 processors with 24 GB memory

200 TB usable capacity per X-Blade (200 TB per system) 256 TB usable capacity per X-Blade (1792 TB per system)

Scaling up storage resources

To scale up storage resources, add RAID packs, engines, cache, and Data Array Enclosure (DAE) packs. Optionally, expansion cabinets can be added with additional resources.

RAID packs

Storage capacity can be increased by adding RAID packs. Each pack contains a number of drives of a given type, speed, and capacity. The number of drives in a pack depends upon the RAID level that it supports.

The number and types of RAID packs to include in a Vblock System is based upon the following:

• The number of storage pools that are needed.

• The storage tiers that each pool contains and the speed and capacity of the drives in each tier. The following table lists tiers, supported drive types, supported speeds, and capacities.

Note: The speed and capacity of all drives within a given tier in a given pool must be the same.



Tier Drive type Supported speeds and capacities

1 Solid-state Enterprise Flash drives (EFD) 100 GB 400 GB

2 Fibre Channel (FC) 300 GB 10K RPM 600 GB 10K RPM 300 GB 15K RPM 450 GB 15K RPM 600 GB 15K RPM

3 SATA 1 TB 7.2K RPM 2 TB 7.2K RPM 3 TB 7.2K RPM



• The RAID protection for the tiers in each pool. The following table describes each supported RAID protection level.

Note: RAID protection levels for the three separate tier-related pools can differ. More than three pools can exist, but only three pools and tiers can exist in a single auto-tiering EMC Symmetrix Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) policy.

RAID protection level

Description

RAID 1 • A set of mirrored drives. • Offers the best overall performance of the three supported RAID protection levels. • Offers robust protection. Can sustain double-drive failures that are not in the same

mirror set. • Offers the best write performance since only two IOs are required to perform a

single write. • Lowest economy of the three supported RAID levels since usable capacity is only

50% of raw capacity. • Supported on EFD, FC, and SATA drives.

RAID 5 • Block-level striping with a single parity block, where the parity data is distributed across all the drives in the set.

• Offers the best mix of performance, protection, and economy. • Has a higher write performance penalty than RAID 1 because multiple IOs are

required to perform a single write. • With single parity, can sustain a single drive failure with no data loss. Vulnerable to

data loss or unrecoverable read errors on a track during a drive rebuild. • Highest economy of the three supported RAID levels. Usable capacity is 80% of

raw capacity. • EMC best practice for EFD and FC drives. Supported on SATA drives but not

recommended.

RAID 6 • Block-level striping with two parity blocks, distributed across all of the drives in the set.

• Offers increased protection and read performance comparable to RAID 5. • Has a significant write performance penalty because multiple IOs are required to

perform a single write. • Economy is very good. Usable capacity is 75% of raw capacity or better. • EMC best practice for SATA drives. Supported on FC drives but not on EFD

drives.



There are RAID packs for each RAID protection level/tier type combination. The RAID levels dictate the number of drives included in the packs. RAID packs are ordered in bundles of four. The following table lists RAID protection levels and the number of drives in the packs for each level:

RAID protection level Number of drives per RAID pack

RAID 1 8 (4 + 4) RAID 5 Should always be in quantities of 8 drives

4 (3 + 1) * 2 or 8 (7 + 1). Requires a minimum of 8 DAEs.

RAID 6 8 (6 drives + 2 parity) or 16 (14 drives + 2 parity)

Storage cabinet

Storage for Vblock 720 can be expanded by adding additional storage cabinets.

EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K storage cabinets

If the number of RAID packs in a Vblock 720 is expanded, more EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K storage expansion cabinets might be required. The maximum number of cabinets is 12 with 3 ½ inch drives or 10 cabinets with 2 ½ inch drives.


If the number of RAID packs in a Vblock 720 is expanded, more EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K storage cabinets might be required. The maximum number of cabinets is 11.


If the number of RAID packs is expanded, with a 3 ½ inch drive or mixed drive configuration, an additional storage expansion cabinet might be required. A maximum of two storage expansion cabinets are supported with a 3 ½ inch drive or mixed drive configuration.

DAE packs

If there are not enough drive slots to support additional storage, slots can be added based on the EMC minimums for the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K. DAEs are added in packs of 4 and 8 for the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K or EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K.



Engines

There is one engine in the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K base configuration. There are two engines in the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K or EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K base configuration. The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K can grow up to four engines. The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K and EMC Symmetrix 40K can grow up to eight engines. You can increment engines one at a time depending on your configuration.

Storage features support

This topic presents additional storage features available on the Vblock 720.

vStorage APIs for Array Integration

Vblock 720 supports VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). This technology improves overall storage performance by off-loading various host resource-intensive tasks to the SAN hardware.

VAAI is supported for block protocols only. VAAI is automatically enabled within a Vblock System with the following software version or higher: EMC Symmetrix VMAX Enginuity 5875 and VMware vSphere ESX(i) 5.0. The following features are supported:

• Full copy offload

• Block zeroing (Copy Same)

• Hardware assisted lock management

• Thin provisioning (TP) stun

File deduplication

File deduplication is supported on the EMC VNX VG2 Gateway or the EMC VNX VG8 Gateway, but is not enabled by default. Note that enabling this feature requires thorough knowledge of capacity and storage requirements. Refer to EMC VNX VG2 Gateway and EMC VNX VG8 Gateway.



External NFS and CIFS access

Vblock Systems can present CIFS and NFS shares to external clients provided that these provisions are followed:

• Requires dedicated X-Blades for access by hosts outside of Vblock Systems

• Vblock System shares cannot be mounted internally by Vblock System hosts and external to the Vblock System at the same time

• In a configuration with two X-Blades, mixed internal and external access is not supported. The following configurations are supported:

– External NFS and external CIFS only

– Internal NFS and internal CIFS only

• In a configuration with more than two X-Blades, external NFS and CIFS access runs on one or more X-Blades that are physically separate from the X-Blades serving VMFS data stores to the Vblock System compute layer


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Network layer hardware

Network layer hardware

Network overview

The Cisco Nexus 5000 series switches in the network layer provide 10 GbE IP connectivity between the components within the Vblock System and to the outside world. In a unified storage configuration, the switches also connect the fabric interconnects in the compute layer to the X-Blades in the storage layer. The switches also provide connectivity for out-of-band management through redundant connections to the Cisco Catalyst 3560X Ethernet switch or switches. Refer to Management hardware components for more information. Ports are reserved or identified for special Vblock System services such as backup connectivity.

The Cisco MDS 9000 series switches in the network layer provide Fibre Channel (FC) links between the Cisco fabric interconnects and the engines. In a unified storage configuration, this connection also supports SAN booting of the blades in the compute layer. Ports are also reserved for special Vblock System services such as SAN backup connectivity and aggregation uplinks.

Network layer components

Each Vblock 720 includes two Cisco Nexus 5548UP IP Switches, two Cisco Nexus 5596UP IP Switches, or two Cisco Nexus 7010 Switches in segregated architecture. If the unified network option is selected, the Cisco Nexus 5596UP Switches provide both Ethernet and Fibre Channel (FC) connectivity. In segregated architecture only, Vblock 720 contains two Cisco MDS 9148 Multilayer Fabric Switches or two Cisco MDS 9513 Multilayer Fabric Directors. These switches provide IP, SAN, and FC connectivity between the compute layer components and the storage layer components in Vblock 720. These switches also provide connectivity for backup and business continuity requirements when configured.


Switching components

For segregated architecture, two Cisco MDS 9148 Multilayer Fabric Switches or Cisco MDS 9513 Multilayer Fabric Directors provide:

• FC connectivity between the compute layer components and the storage layer components

• Connectivity for backup and business continuity requirements when configured

Note: Inter-Switch Links (ISLs) to customer's existing SAN are not permitted.


Network layer hardware VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

The Cisco MDS 9148 Multilayer Fabric Switches provides 16 to 48 line-rate ports for non-blocking 8 Gbps throughput depending upon the configuration. Sixteen ports are licensed; additional ports can be licensed on an as needed basis.

The Cisco MDS 9513 Multilayer Fabric Director switch provides 256 Gbps of back-panel throughput. VCE leverages the advanced 32 port line cards at line rate of 8 Gbps for all ports. The base configuration consists of two 32 port line cards, per director. Additional 32 port line cards can be added, as required.

Network layer components

Vblock System 720 supports additional network layer components for extremely high-throughput IP networking scenarios. These additional components must be installed in a separate network cabinet. VCE does not support Vblock System configurations where these components are installed within the storage/compute cabinets. Refer to Cabinet types.


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Network layer hardware

Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switches or Cisco Nexus 5596UP Switches

Each Vblock System 720 requires Ethernet switches as a base configuration to provide Ethernet connectivity:

• Between the Vblock System internal components

• To the customer site network

• To out-of-band management through redundant connections to the Cisco Catalyst 3000 Ethernet switches

The Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switch supports low latency line-rate 10 Gb Ethernet connectivity on up to 32 ports or 48 ports including the expansion module.

The Cisco Nexus 5596UP Switch supports low latency line-rate 10 Gb Ethernet and FC connectivity on up to 48 ports or 96 ports including the expansion module. FC is supported only with unified configurations.


Network layer hardware VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

Cisco Nexus 7010 IP switches

For extremely demanding IP networking scenarios, Cisco Nexus 7010 Switches can replace the Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switches or Cisco Nexus 5596UP Switches. The F1 32 port line card and F2 48 port line cards are leveraged to provide 10Gbe connectivity and are added in pair per director.


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Virtualization components

Virtualization components

Virtualization overview

VMware vSphere is the virtualization platform that provides the foundation for the private cloud. The core VMware vSphere components are the VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi and VMware vCenter Server for management.

The hypervisors are deployed in a cluster configuration and can scale up to 32 nodes per cluster. The cluster allows dynamic allocation of resources, such as CPU, memory, and storage. The cluster also provides workload mobility and flexibility with the use of VMware vMotion and Storage vMotion technology.

VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi

The VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi runs in the management servers and in the Vblock System. This lightweight hypervisor requires very little space to run (less than 6 GB of storage required to install) and has minimal management overhead. VMware vSphere ESXi does not contain a console operating system. VMware vSphere ESXi is booted from a dedicated SAN volume to provide stateless computing within a Vblock System. The stateless hypervisor is not currently supported.

Cluster configuration

VMware vSphere ESXi hosts and their resources are pooled together into clusters. These clusters contain the CPU, memory, network, and storage resources available for allocation to virtual machines. Clusters can scale up to a maximum of 32 hosts. Clusters can support thousands of virtual machines.

The clusters can also support a variety of Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) blades running inside the same cluster.

Note: Some advanced CPU functionality might be unavailable if more than one blade model is running in a given cluster.

Datastores

Vblock Systems support a mixture of datastore types: block level storage using VMFS or file level storage using NFS. The maximum size per VMFS5 volume is 64 TB (50 TB VMFS3 @ 1 MB). Each host/cluster can support a maximum of 255 volumes. VCE optimizes the advanced settings for VMware vSphere ESXi hosts that are deployed in Vblock Systems to maximize the throughput and scalability of NFS datastores. Vblock Systems currently support a maximum of 256 NFS datastores per host.

Virtual networks

Virtual networking in the AMP uses the vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS). Virtual networking in Vblock Systems is managed by the Cisco Nexus 1000V distributed virtual switch. The Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switch ensures consistent, policy-based network capabilities to all servers in the data center by allowing


Virtualization components VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

policies to move with a virtual machine during live migration. This provides persistent network, security, and storage compliance.

VMware vCenter Server

VMware vCenter Server is a central management point for the hypervisors and virtual machines. VMware vCenter is installed on a 64-bit Windows Server and runs as a service.

The AMP and the Vblock System each have a unified VMware vCenter Server instance, as well as an accompanying instance of VMware Update Manager to assist with upgrades and host patch management. VMware Update Manager is installed on a separate Windows Server and runs as a Windows service. Each of these systems resides in the management stack.

VMware vCenter Server provides the following functionality:

• Cloning of virtual machines

• Creating templates

• VMware vMotion and VMware Storage vMotion

• Initial configuration of DRS and VMware vSphere high availability clusters

VMware vCenter Server also provides monitoring and alerting capabilities for hosts and virtual machines. Vblock System administrators can create and apply alarms to all managed objects in VMware vCenter Server. These alarms include:

• Datacenter, cluster, and host health, inventory, and performance

• Datastore health and capacity

• Virtual machine usage, performance, and health

• Virtual network usage and health

Databases

The backend database that supports VMware vCenter Server and VMware Update Manager (VUM) is remote Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Vblock Systems also support the use of Oracle databases for vCenter and VUM databases. The SQL Server service requires a dedicated service account.

Authentication

Vblock systems support the integration of client-side Active Directory for authentication. This may be implemented by the customer, according to VMware best practices, and based on the individual needs of the customer’s security and directory services environments.

Technical Support assistance for Active Directory (AD) is provided by the AD vendor. VCE does not provide assistance with Active Directory.


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Virtualization components

VCE supported features

VCE supports the following VMware vCenter Server features:

• VMware vSphere high availability

• DRS

• Fault Tolerance

• VMware vMotion

• VMware Storage vMotion

• Raw Device Maps

• Resource Pools

• Storage DRS (capacity only)

• VMware vSphere Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) (except TP reclaim primitive)

• Storage driven profiles (user-defined only)

• Distributed power management (up to 50 percent of VMware vSphere ESXi hosts/blades)

• VMware Syslog Service

• VMware Core Dump Collector

• VMware vCenter Web Services


Management components VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

Management components

Management hardware components

Vblock Systems include an AMP that provides a single management point for Vblock Systems. It enables the following benefits:

• Monitors and manages Vblock System health, performance, and capacity

• Provides fault isolation for management

• Eliminates resource overhead on the Vblock System

• Provides a clear demarcation point for remote operations

The following table describes the AMPs:

AMP Description

Mini • One Cisco UCS C220 server • Two Cisco Catalyst 3560X Ethernet switches

High-availability (HA) • Two Cisco UCS C220 servers • One EMC VNXe3150 • Two Cisco Catalyst 3560X Ethernet switches

In a Vblock System configuration with a mini-AMP, space is reserved in the cabinet for the additional HA AMP components to make it easy to upgrade to the HA AMP later.

Cisco UCS C220 server Cisco Catalyst 3560X Ethernet switch

EMC VNXe3150


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Management components

Management software tools

This topic describes the management software tools available on Vblock 720.

AMP software tools

Each AMP is delivered pre-configured with the following software tools:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Standard R2 x64 (six licenses per Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) Blade)

• VMware vSphere Server Enterprise Plus

• VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi, vCenter Server, vCenter Database using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard, vCenter Update Manager, vCenter client

• Cisco Nexus 1000V virtual switch

• EMC PowerPath/VE License Management Server

• EMC Secure Remote Support (ESRS)

• Array Management modules, including, but not limited to, EMC Solutions Enabler with SMIS, EMC Unisphere for VMAX on Windows and PowerPath Viewer

• Cisco Device Manager and Data Center Network Manager (DCNM)

• System administration utilities such as PuTTY, TFTP Server, Java, etc.

• (Optional) EMC Ionix UIM/P

• (Optional) Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS)

• (Optional) EMC RecoverPoint management software that includes RecoverPoint Management Application and RecoverPoint Deployment Manager

• (Optional) EMC VG gateway management software that includes Unisphere Client and Unisphere Service Manager


Vblock™ Data Protection VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

Vblock™ Data Protection

Vblock Data Protection overview

This topic presents the following information:

• Defines data protection

• Describes the optional VCE Vblock Data Protection capabilities

• Illustrates and describes the typical, standard data protection configurations for backup and recovery

• Illustrates and describes the typical, standard data protection configurations for business continuity and workload mobility

The information in this section assumes prior knowledge of EMC Avamar, EMC Data Domain, and EMC VPLEX.

Data protection defined

Data protection encompasses a wide range of different technologies, techniques and methodologies used to ensure the integrity, availability, and currency of both the data and the underlying delivery systems in an IT environment. For Vblock Systems, data protection is defined as:

• Backup and recovery: Minimum required data insurance.

– Provides protection against data corruption, accidental data deletion, storage component failure, and site disaster.

– Ensures backups are fully recoverable, point-in-time copies of data that are typically done once per day.

• Replication of data snapshots: Additional data insurance.

– Provides additional level of data protection on top of daily backups since replication cannot always protect against data corruption.

– Takes multiple snapshots, or nearly continuous snapshots, throughout the day to reduce worst case data loss from 24 hours to time of last snapshot.

• Business continuity: Application availability insurance

– Ensures zero data loss and near-zero recovery time for business-critical data.

– Provides additional level of data protection on top of daily backups since replication cannot always protect against data corruption.

• Workload mobility:

– Moves workload to another site in anticipation of a disaster.


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Vblock™ Data Protection

– Moves workload for balancing sites or systems.

• Archive:

– Provides long-term copy of data that is typically done for legal compliance reasons whose retention period spans multiple years.

Refer to the VCE Vblock Data Protection white paper for more information about VCE data protection strategies and solutions. Consult with a VCE vArchitect or VCE Partner about data protection requirements and determine what type of solution is best for your environment.

Vblock Data Protection capabilities

The optional VCE Vblock Data Protection ensures continuous availability of the IT infrastructure, applications, and workloads running within VCE virtualized and cloud computing environments. The Vblock Data Protection family of solutions allows a choice of streamlined backup and recovery, data replication, business continuity, and workload mobility to deliver reliable, predictable, and cost-effective availability for Vblock Systems.

Vblock Data Protection scales from one to many Vblock Systems within and across data centers to provide the necessary data protection. The following table describes how Vblock Data Protection solutions provide data protection for the Vblock System:

Capability Solution Solution description

Deduplication backup software and system

EMC Avamar Provides highly efficient, variable-length deduplication, with tight integration to EMC purpose-built, backup appliances. Enables fast, complete daily backups of virtualized environments including the IT infrastructure, enterprise applications, and data. Deduplication on the client side reduces VMware vSphere ESX contention and network traffic by sending only changed blocks to the backup target. This shortens backup times while keeping full backups available for rapid, single-step restores.

Deduplication backup software and system, and deduplication storage systems

EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain

Client-side and target-based deduplication backup and recovery. Leverages high speed technology to reduce the backup data storage footprint at the target device by 10 times to 30 times.

Business continuity (disaster avoidance) and workload mobility

EMC VPLEX Shares, protects, or load-balances infrastructure resources across multiple Vblock Systems in the same data center or in different data centers within a campus or metro area. Moves live virtual machines between locations to avoid planned downtime. Handles unplanned events automatically with zero data-loss and zero to near-zero application recovery time.

Replication with continuous data protection and consistency groups

EMC RecoverPoint

Replication solution that can be rolled back to any point in time using snapshots that can be seconds apart to quickly restore critical applications and data. Migrates data from one virtualized Vblock System to another.

Vblock Data Protection solutions are extensions of the Vblock System and are contained in VCE cabinets. The solutions contain standardized components and are designed to be fully scalable.

Vblock Data Protection solutions are individually sized for each customer based on specific customer requirements and based on the results of the EMC sizing tool. The EMC sizing tool assessment must be completed by personnel who have been trained and certified by EMC.

http://www.vce.com/products/auxiliary-products/data-protection



Backup and recovery

The Vblock Data Protection solution for backup and recovery is available in the following VCE configurations:

• One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar

• Multiple VCE cabinets that contain EMC Avamar

• One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain 670 Controller

• One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar and another VCE cabinet that contains EMC Data Domain 890 Controller

• One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar and multiple cabinets that contain EMC Data Domain 890 Controller

Refer to the VCE Vblock System Backup and Recovery Best Practices white paper for more information about the Vblock Data Protection solution for backup and recovery.

One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar

This solution is best used when the EMC sizing tool determines that an EMC Avamar-only deployment is the most effective solution.

The VCE backup and recovery solution that contains EMC Avamar in one VCE cabinet contains EMC Avamar switches, Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switches, EMC Avamar data nodes, and utility nodes with built-in networking, and two external connection cables to the Vblock System. The minimum configuration has three data nodes and one utility node. Expansion space is provided in the cabinet for up to 13 additional nodes in any combination of spare node, data nodes (16 total maximum), and NDMP accelerator nodes. The Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switches connect the data protection cabinet to the Vblock System. When you add additional components in the available expansion area, add components starting from the bottom of the expansion area.

http://www.vce.com/pdf/solutions/vce-vblock-avamar-data-domain-white-paper.pdf



The following illustration shows the rear view of the VCE data protection cabinet with EMC Avamar solution:



Multiple VCE cabinets that contain EMC Avamar

When the Vblock System to be backed up requires more than one EMC Avamar instance, the solution scales up by simply adding additional EMC Avamar instances.

The following illustration shows the rear view of the multiple VCE data protection cabinets with EMC Avamar:

One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain 670 Controller

This solution is best used when the Vblock System will not require more than one cabinet of EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain components to meet the backup requirements (single cabinet excluding the backup replication system).

The VCE backup and recovery solution that contains EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain 670 Controller in one VCE cabinet has EMC Avamar switches, Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switches, a minimum of one EMC Data Domain 670 Controller, one EMC ES30 expansion (storage) shelf, three EMC Avamar data nodes, and one EMC Avamar utility node. This solution includes built-in networking and two external connection cables to the Vblock System. It contains three expansion spaces providing room for an additional head unit, an additional storage unit, and an additional ten nodes in any combinations of data notes and accelerator nodes. The Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switch connects the data protection cabinet to the Vblock System. When you add additional components in the available expansion area, add components starting from the bottom of the cabinet.

Note: If backing up multiple Vblock Systems to one VCE Vblock Data Protection cabinet that contains EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain, each Vblock System must be connected to a group of dedicated uplink ports from the data protection cabinet.



The following illustration shows the rear view of the VCE data protection cabinet with EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain 670 Controller:

One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar and another VCE cabinet that contains EMC Data Domain 890 Controller

This solution is best used when the EMC sizing tool determines that an EMC Avamar with EMC Data Domain 890 deployment is the most effective solution. This solution provides a single instance backup deployment that is highly scalable.



The first VCE cabinet is identical to the VCE data protection cabinet that contains EMC Avamar only, with the addition of inter-cabinet connections for connection of VCE cabinets containing EMC Data Domain 890 systems.

The second cabinet contains one EMC Data Domain 890 Controller, up to 12 EMC ES30 expansion (storage) shelves with 2 TB drives, and 2U space for a future head unit upgrade.

Note: If backing up multiple Vblock Systems to one VCE Vblock Data Protection cabinet that contains EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain, each Vblock System must be connected to a group of dedicated uplink ports from the data protection cabinet.

The following illustration shows the rear view of the minimum configuration for the combination of the VCE data protection cabinet with EMC Avamar and the VCE cabinet with EMC Data Domain 890 Controller:



One VCE cabinet that contains EMC Avamar and multiple cabinets that contain EMC Data Domain 890 Controller

The following illustration shows the rear view of the VCE data protection scaled-up solution with EMC Avamar in one VCE cabinet and EMC Data Domain 890 Controller in multiple cabinets.

This solution includes one cabinet that contains EMC Avamar components and can scale beyond two cabinets with EMC Data Domain components.

Business continuity and workload mobility

The Vblock Data Protection solution addresses the two most common use cases:

• Business continuity (disaster avoidance) that keeps the critical business applications operational, even after a disaster

• Workload mobility is the ability to identify and migrate a workload without disruption to the most appropriate platform at that point in time



EMC VPLEX

EMC VPLEX is an enterprise-class, storage federation technology that aggregates and manages pools of Vblock System storage within and among data centers. EMC VPLEX resides between the virtual machine servers and the FC attached storage. It presents local and distributed volumes to hosts.

EMC VPLEX enables dynamic workload mobility and continuous availability within and between Vblock Systems over distance. It provides simultaneous access to storage devices at two sites through the creation of EMC VPLEX Distributed Virtual Volumes, supported on each side by an EMC VPLEX cluster.

The EMC VPLEX data protection solution for Vblock Systems uses the following hardware and software components and technologies:

• Vblock Systems

• VMware vCenter Server

• VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat

• VMware vSphere High Availability

• VMware vMotion

Refer to the Vblock Data Protection: Best Practices for EMC VPLEX with Vblock Systems white paper for more information about the business continuity and workload mobility solution. Refer to the EMC VPLEX Architecture Guide for more information about EMC VPLEX.

Cluster configurations

A single Vblock 720 can be connected to a single engine, dual engine, or quad engine EMC VPLEX cluster. Some configurations have only 16 ports available for EMC VPLEX front-end and back-end connections and cannot be connected to a quad engine EMC VPLEX cluster.

http://www.vce.com/pdf/solutions/vce-vblock-vplex-metro.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h8232-vplex-architecture-wp.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h8232-vplex-architecture-wp.pdf



Recommended configurations

The recommended configurations for the Vblock Data Protection solution for business continuity and workload mobility are:

Configuration Description

Non cross-cluster connect

• Delivers zero Recovery Point Objective (RPO) in all single failures including that of an entire site

• Delivers zero Recovery Time Objective (RTO) in the event of a storage array failure • For a server domain failure or EMC VPLEX failure, limits RTO to the application restart time • Requires a ping round-trip time of less than five milliseconds.

Cross-cluster connect

Servers in cross-cluster connect configuration can access data from the EMC VPLEX cabinet at either site. Cross-cluster connect is suitable for deploying within a campus, or in multiple isolated zones within a single data center. This configuration eliminates the need to do server failover when an entire storage cluster (EMC VPLEX) or the storage behind it) goes down. A cross-cluster configuration: • Delivers zero RPO in all single failures including that of an entire site • Delivers zero RTO in the event of a storage domain failure • For a server domain failure, limits RTO to the application restart time • Requires a ping round-trip time of less than one millisecond



Single engine

The following illustration shows the single engine configuration:



Dual engine

The following illustration shows the dual engine configuration:



Quad engine

The following illustration shows the quad engine configuration:


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Vblock 720 Components

Vblock 720 Components

Cabinets overview

Within each Vblock 720, the compute and network layer components are distributed within the cabinets. Distributing the components in this manner balances out the power draw and reduces the size of the power outlet units (POUs) that are required. Refer to Power options for more information.

Each cabinet has a capacity for physical dimensions such as weight, heat dissipation, power draw, RU space, and receptacle count. This design makes it more flexible to upgrade or expand each Vblock System as capacity needs increase.

For some configurations, VCE preinstalls all wiring based on the predefined layouts.

Vblock System cabinets are designed to be installed next to one another within the data center (that is, contiguously). If a customer requires the base and expansion cabinets to be physically separated, customized cabling is needed, which incurs additional cost and delivery delays.

Because we no longer have fixed configurations, we could not provide specifics for each configuration. Instead we have provided a sample small, medium, and large configuration with associated data for the samples. In addition, component by component data is provided for reference.

Note: The cable length is NOT the same as distance between cabinets. The cable must route through the cabinets and through the cable channels overhead or in the floor.

Cabinet types

This topic provides an overview of the sample cabinets for Vblock 720.

Sample compute and network cabinet

A sample compute and network cabinet can contain:

• Cisco Catalyst 3560X Ethernet switches

• Cisco UCS C220 Servers

• EMC VNXe3150

• Two EMC control stations

• EMC VNX 5300 DME

• Cisco Nexus 5596UP switches

• Cisco Nexus 6248UP fabric interconnects

• Cisco UCS 5108 Server Chassis


Vblock 720 Components VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

If a Vblock 720 configuration expands, a compute and network expansion cabinet can be added for additional Cisco UCS 5108 chassis. This modular design makes it easier to add hardware later if necessary.

A sample network cabinet may contain a Cisco Catalyst 3560X Ethernet switch and a Cisco MDS 9153 Multilayer Director. In Vblock 720 with a large networking core, redundant network switches such as Cisco Nexus 7010 Switch and Cisco MDS 9513 Multilayer Director would be split into separate cabinets to eliminate potential for a single failure domain.

The compute and network expansion cabinet can be expanded in a modular configuration.

Array system bay cabinet

In Vblock System 720, EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K and EMC Symmetrix 40K system bay cabinets house storage array engines only. Up to eight engines can be housed in a system bay cabinet. The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K array engines can be dispersed into two separate system bay cabinets with a separation between system bays of up to 25 meters.

Array storage bay cabinet

EMC Symmetrix VMAX storage bay supports 2 ½ inch or 3 ½ inch drive array enclosures (2 ½ inch and 3 ½ inch drives cannot be mixed in a single storage cabinet). In a 2 ½ inch drive configuration, a single storage bay can expand up to 400 drives, which means 25 drives per DAE with 16 DAEs per storage bay cabinet. in a 3 ½ inch drive configuration, a single storage bay can expand up to 240 drives, which means 15 drives per DAE with 16 DAEs per storage bay cabinet.

Sample configuration descriptions

This section provides sample configurations of a Vblock 720.



Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K sample configuration

The following sample of a Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K configuration illustrates how Vblock 720 provides high-end virtual storage capabilities to IT organizations and service providers with demanding storage requirements and limited resources.

The following illustration shows the front view of a Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K sample configuration:



The following illustration shows the rear view of a Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K sample configuration:

This Vblock 720 sample configuration has reserved floor space for an EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K disk expansion cabinet (storage expansion 1A).

The configuration contains two Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) 5108 blade chassis, two Cisco UCS 6248UP fabric interconnects or Cisco UCS 6296UP Fabric Interconnects, and blade servers. The base configuration can be expanded up to 16 Cisco UCS 5108 blade chassis with the addition of the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K disk expansion cabinet (storage expansion 1). Each Cisco UCS 5108 blade chassis has two fabric extenders that have four connections to each of the fabric interconnects. Each Cisco UCS 5108 blade chassis also has four power supplies (2500 W each) for full redundancy. The two installed Cisco UCS 5108 blade chassis are licensed in this configuration.




The following sample of a Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K configuration illustrates how Vblock 720 is deployed for massive scaling with ERP, CRM, and virtual desktops in configurations that are extensible to meet the most demanding IT requirements of any enterprises or service providers and uses SAN storage or a NAS (file) storage. UCS local boot disks are optional.

Note: When installing Vblock 720 cabinets, it is important to leave sufficient space between the compute base cabinet or network cabinets and the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K storage bay to allow for as many storage expansion bays as the customer plans to grow to. If this space is not pre-allocated, it will require an outage or exception request to move the cabinets during an upgrade.

The following illustration shows the front view of a Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K sample configuration for compute and network:



The following illustration shows the rear view of a Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K sample configuration for compute and network.



Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K storage sample configuration

The following illustration shows the EMC VMAX 20K storage array for the Vblock 720 storage sample configuration:


The following Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K sample configuration illustrates how Vblock 720 is deployed for massive scaling with ERP, CRM, and virtual desktops in configurations that are extensible to meet the most demanding IT requirements of any enterprises or service providers and uses a SAN storage medium or a NAS (file) storage medium. UCS local boot disks are optional.

Note: When installing Vblock 720 cabinets, it is important to leave sufficient space between the cabinet or network cabinets and the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K storage bay to allow for as many storage expansion bays as the customer plans to grow to. If this space is not pre-allocated, it will require an outage or exception request to move the cabinets during an upgrade.



The following illustration shows the front view of a Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K sample configuration for compute and network: The storage components are not shown in this illustration.



The following illustration shows the rear view of a Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K sample configuration for compute and network.

Vblock 720 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K storage sample configuration

The following illustration shows the EMC VMAX 40K storage array for the Vblock 720 storage sample configuration:



Power options

Vblock 720 supports several power outlet unit (POU) options inside and outside of North America.

North America power options for Vblock System cabinets

The following table lists the POUs that are available in North America:

POU Power specifications Number per CN or S

IEC 309 3P+PE 3-phase delta / 60A /208V 2 POUs per cabinet Hubbell CS8365 3-phase delta / 50A /208V 2 POUs per cabinet NEMA L15-30P 3-phase delta / 30A /208V 4 POUs per cabinet IEC 60309 3-phase delta / 60A /208V 2 POUs per cabinet IEC 60309 Single phase / 60A / 208V 4 POUs per cabinet NEMA L6-30P Single phase / 30A / 208V 6 POUs per cabinet

Power options outside of North America for Vblock System cabinets

The following table lists the POUs that are available for Vblock 720 configuration outside of North America:

POU Power specifications Number per CN or S

IEC 309 3P+N+PE 3-phase wye / 32A / 230 / 400V 2 POUs per cabinet IEC 309 2P+E 1-phase / 32A / 230 / 400V 2 POUs per cabinet IEC 60309 2P+E Single phase / 32A / 230V 6 POUs per cabinet IEC 60309 3-phase wye / 32A / 230 / 400V 2 POUs per cabinet IEC 60309 3-phase wye / 16A / 230 / 400V 4 POUs per cabinet

North America power options for EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K

The following table lists the POUs that are available for EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K in North America:

POU Power specifications Number per cabinet

Hubbell CS8365C 3-phase delta/50A/208V 2 POUs per cabinet

NEMA L6-30P Single phase/30A/208V 4 POUs per cabinet

Power options outside of North America for EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K

The following table lists the POUs that are available for EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K outside of North America:

POU Power specifications Number per CB/CE cabinet

ABL Sursum P/N S52.30 3-Phase wye/32A/230/400V 2 POUs per cabinet






Hubbell CS8365C 3-phase delta / 50A /208V 2 POUs per cabinet NEMA L6-30P Single phase / 30A / 208V 4 POUs per cabinet



POU Power specifications Number per CB/CE cabinet

Flying leads (add own plug) 3-phase wye / 32A / 230/400V 2 POUs per cabinet




NEMA L6-30P Single phase / 30A / 208V 2 POUs per cabinet




IEC 60309 2P+E Single phase / 32A / 230V 2 POUs per cabinet

The VCE Vblock System 720 Gen 4.0 Physical Planning Guide provides more information about power requirements. Refer to Accessing VCE documentation.


Additional references VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

Additional references

References overview

Use the following links to access documentation provided by Cisco, EMC, and VMware for each of the product lines that are discussed in this document.

• Virtualization

• Compute

• Network

• Storage

Virtualization components

Product Description Link to documentation

VMware vCenter Server

Provides a scalable and extensible platform that forms the foundation for virtualization management.

www.vmware.com/solutions/virtualization-management/

VMware vSphere ESXi

Virtualized infrastructure for Vblock Systems. Virtualizes all application servers and provides VMware High Availability (HA) and Dynamic Resource Scheduling (DRS).

www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/

http://www.vmware.com/solutions/virtualization-management/

http://www.vmware.com/solutions/virtualization-management/

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Additional references

Compute components


Cisco UCS 6200 Series Fabric Interconnects

UCS family of line-rate, low-latency, lossless, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and Fibre Channel functions. Provide network connectivity and management capabilities.

www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps11544/index.html

Cisco UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis

Chassis that supports up to eight blade servers and up to two fabric extenders in a six rack unit (RU) enclosure.


Cisco UCS 2200 Series Fabric Extenders

Bring unified fabric into the blade-server chassis, providing up to four 10 Gbps connections each between blade servers and the fabric interconnect

www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps10265/ps10276/ data_sheet_c78-675243.html

Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers

Servers that adapt to application demands, intelligently scale energy use, and offer best-in-class virtualization


Cisco UCS Manager

Provides centralized management capabilities for the Cisco Unified Computing System


Network components


Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches

A software switch on a server that delivers Cisco VN-Link services to virtual machines hosted on that server


Cisco MDS 9500 Series Multilayer Directors

Provides industry-leading availability, scalability, security, and management. The Cisco MDS 9000 family allows deployment of high-performance SANs with the lowest TCO.


Cisco MDS 9148 Multilayer Fabric Switch

Provides 48 line-rate 8-Gbps ports and offers cost-effective scalability through on-demand activation of ports


Cisco MDS 9513 Multilayer Director

Provides high availability, scalability, security, and transparent integration of intelligent features.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6780/index.html

Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches

Simplifies data center transformation by enabling a standards-based, high-performance unified fabric


Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches

A single end-to-end platform designed around infrastructure scalability, operational continuity, and transport flexibility




http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps10265/ps10276/data_sheet_c78-675243.html

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps10265/ps10276/data_sheet_c78-675243.html










Additional references VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview

Storage components


EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K

Delivers industry-leading performance, scale, and efficiency for hybrid cloud environments.

www.emc.com/storage/symmetrix-vmax/vmax-40k.htm


EMC high-end storage array that delivers infrastructure services in the next generation data center. Built for reliability, availability, and scalability, EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K uses specialized engines, each of which includes two redundant director modules providing parallel access and replicated copies of all critical data.



Delivers full enterprise-class availability, data integrity, and security.


EMC VNX VG2 Gateway EMC VNX VG8 Gateway

Provide NAS storage in a centrally managed information storage system. The gateways allow you to grow, share, and cost effectively manage the Vblock System with multi-protocol file access.

www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/data-sheet/c1119-celerra-gateway-storage-ds.pdf www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/specification-sheet/h7292-celerra-vg2-ss.pdf www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/specification-sheet/h7293-celerra-vg8-gateway-ss.pdf

EMC RecoverPoint

Provides continuous data protection for operational and disaster recovery of information on the Vblock System.

www.emc.com/replication/recoverpoint/recoverpoint.htm

http://www.emc.com/storage/symmetrix-vmax/vmax-40k.htm



http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/data-sheet/c1119-celerra-gateway-storage-ds.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/data-sheet/c1119-celerra-gateway-storage-ds.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/specification-sheet/h7292-celerra-vg2-ss.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/specification-sheet/h7292-celerra-vg2-ss.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/specification-sheet/h7293-celerra-vg8-gateway-ss.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/specification-sheet/h7293-celerra-vg8-gateway-ss.pdf

http://www.emc.com/replication/recoverpoint/recoverpoint.htm


VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview Additional references

ABOUT VCE

VCE, formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models that dramatically reduce the cost of IT while improving time to market for our customers. VCE, through Vblock Systems, delivers the industry's only fully integrated and fully virtualized cloud infrastructure system. VCE solutions are available through an extensive partner network, and cover horizontal applications, vertical industry offerings, and application development environments, allowing customers to focus on business innovation instead of integrating, validating, and managing IT infrastructure.

For more information, go to www.vce.com.

Copyright © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. VCE, Vblock, and the VCE logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of VCE Company, LLC. and/or its affiliates in the United States or other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

VCE Vblock™ System 720 Gen 4.0 Architecture Overview · EMC Symmetrix VMAX 20K Series storage arrays. EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K storage array: contains one to four engines and 24 -

Documents