Cisco AVVID Network Enterprise Data Center Solution Overview

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1 White Paper Cisco AVVID Network Enterprise Data Center Solution Overview Data centers enable the consolidation of critical computing resources, in controlled environments under centralized management, that make it possible for enterprises to operate according to their business needs. Cisco AVVID: Enabling E-Business Cisco AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video, and Integrated Data) is the intelligent network infrastructure for today s Internet business solutions. As the industry s only enterprise-wide, standards-based network architecture, Cisco AVVID provides the road map for combining your business and technology strategies into one cohesive model. Cisco AVVID Network Infrastructure Businesses that operate large enterprise networks increasingly seek an enterprise-wide infrastructure to serve as a solid foundation for emerging technologies such as IP telephony, content delivery, and IP storage. Cisco AVVID Network Infrastructure provides a documented road map for planning, building, and expanding enterprise networks with consideration for quality of service (QoS), high availability, and security. Cisco AVVID Network Infrastructure extends beyond a single-box approach, focusing on good design principles, interoperability between different network components, and the use of features and protocols needed to build a converged voice, video, and data network. Through solution reference network design (SRND) guides, which provide best-practice designs and implementation, Cisco AVVID Network Infrastructure enables enterprises to design networks that facilitate rapid and seamless deployment of emerging technologies to meet current and future business demands, and accelerate deployment cycles across the enterprise. Technological Framework for Cisco AVVID Cisco AVVID is the key enterprise network architecture from Cisco Systems. Cisco AVVID is an open-standards architecture that delivers the flexibility, reliability, and essential network enablers that enterprises need to be agile and adaptable. This network architecture also allows organizations to plan effectively for network upgrades and enhancements. Cisco AVVID Enterprise Data Center Solution Overview A data center is a physical location that houses critical computing resources. Data centers support business-critical applications and their attendant computing resources such as mainframes, servers, and server farms. The applications range from financial and human resources applications to e-commerce and business-to-business (B2B) applications. In addition to the server farms that support business applications, some server farms are used to support network operations and network-based applications. Network operation applications include Network Time Protocol (NTP), TN3270, All contents are Copyright All rights reserved. Important Notices and Privacy Statement. Page 1 of 9

2 File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Domain Name System (DNS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP), and Network File System (NFS). Network-based applications include IP telephony, video streaming over IP, media on demand (MOD), IP videoconferencing, and more. According to a report from the Renewable Energy Policy Project on Energy Smart Data Centers, data centers are an essential component of the infrastructure supporting the Internet and the digital commerce and electronic communication sectors. Continued growth of these sectors requires a reliable infrastructure because interruptions in digital services can have significant economic consequences. According to the META Group, the average cost of an hour of downtime is estimated at U.S.$330,000. Strategic Research Corporation reports the financial impact of major outages is equivalent to U.S.$6.5 million per hour for a brokerage operation, or U.S.$2.6 million per hour for a credit card sales authorization system. Virtually every enterprise has a data center, yet not every data center is designed to provide the proper levels of redundancy, scalability, and security. A data center design lacking in any of these areas will at some point fail to provide the expected service levels. Data center downtime means the consumers of the information are not able to access it; thus the enterprise cannot conduct business as usual. Cisco AVVID Enterprise Data Center Solution Benefits Building and operating data centers requires extensive planning. Management strategies and criteria for availability, scalability, and security should be clearly defined to support business requirements. The loss of access to critical data is quantifiable and impacts revenue. Companies rely on well-designed data centers to protect their businesses from a devastating loss of data or data access. Many organizations are legally required to make plans for business continuity, including U.S. government agencies, financial institutions, health-care providers, and utility companies. Many of these plans focus on data centers where critical business computing resources are stored. The following core benefits are achieved by a Cisco data center design: Redundancy No single point of failure Secure enterprise data Securing the data center and the server farms Lower operational costs A predictable and scalable architecture Other benefits resulting from current industry trends include: Optimization of application environments Server consolidation Application consolidation Storage consolidation Support for recovery and business continuance plans Technology Overview The architecture of enterprise data centers is determined by application requirements and traffic load, but most importantly by business requirements. These requirements dictate the extent of the data center service offering and the subsequent architectural design. All contents are Copyright All rights reserved. Important Notices and Privacy Statement. Page 2 of 9

3 It is important to translate business requirements into specific service goals that direct the design detail. These four design criteria are important to consider: Availability Scalability Security Management Business requirements determine application requirements, which in turn dictate data center design requirements. The design process must take into account current application trends, such as the n-tier model. After the application requirements are clear, the data center architecture must be qualified to ensure it meets those requirements. Achieving design goals translates into satisfying application requirements and ultimately attaining business objectives. Figure 1 presents the different building blocks used in the typical enterprise network and illustrates the location of the data center within that architecture. Figure 1 Enterprise Data Center Infrastructure Internet SP1 SP2 PSTN VPN Partners AAA RPMS Remote Access DMZ Internet Server Farm Internet Edge Core Switches Extranet Server Farm Private WAN Intranet Server Farm Campus All contents are Copyright All rights reserved. Important Notices and Privacy Statement. Page 3 of 9 Data Center

4 The Cisco AVVID Enterprise Data Center Solution incorporates the building blocks of a typical enterprise network, including: Campus Private WAN Remote access Internet server farm Extranet server farm Intranet server farm Data centers typically house many components that support the infrastructure building blocks, such as the core switches of the campus network or the edge routers of the private WAN. Data center designs may include any or all of the building blocks listed above, including at least one type of server farm. These server farms may or may not be built as separate physical entities, depending on the business requirements of the enterprise. For example, a company may build a single server farm and share all resources such as servers, firewalls, routers, switches, etc. Another company may require that three server farms be physically separated with no equipment shared. Enterprises make these choices according to business drivers and their own particular needs. Enterprise business applications control the data used in the everyday operations that sustain internal business processes as well as external processes involving business partners and customers. Therefore, a consistent approach is imperative when evaluating data center design options. The Cisco data center architecture supports the industry prevalent n-tier model used in application environments. The tiers of the n-tier model are mapped to the layers of the data center architecture. N-Tier Model Business applications include all applications that support a business function, which implies a potentially long list of applications. The n-tier model marks a significant step in the evolution of distributed computing from the classic client/ server model. The n-tier model is a trend in which the performance and maintainability of client/server applications is improved while the control of application code is simplified. The fundamentals of the client/server model include a thick client that provides a graphical user interface (GUI) on top of application or business logic where some processing occurs, and the server where the remaining business logic resides. The thick client is an expression referring to the complexity of the business logic required on the client and the necessary hardware to support it. The n-tier model uses a thin client and a Web browser to access the data in many different ways. The server side of the n-tier model is divided into distinct functional areas that include the Web and application and database servers. These distinct functional areas are mapped to the layers of the data center architecture. The following diagram presents the classic client/server architecture and its evolution to the n-tier model. All contents are Copyright All rights reserved. Important Notices and Privacy Statement. Page 4 of 9

5 Figure 2 Client Server Evolution to the N-Tier Model Classic client/server model N-Tier model Web server Application server Thin client application GUI Application server and Database server Thin client web browser Database server Some applications are logically architected into multiple tiers, which are organized by the functions they perform. Some tiers are dedicated to support the client-facing or front-end functions such as serving Web pages or providing the command line interface (CLI) to the applications. The front-end may or may not be Web based. Other functions include processing user requests and translating those requests to a format that is understood by yet other tiers of servers, such as database or back-end servers. This multi-tier approach is referred to as the n-tier model because, in addition to the front-end and the back-end, there are potentially many tiers in between. These tiers manage objects and their relationships, control interactions with the database systems, and provide the interface to other applications. Enterprise applications are typically focused in one the following major business areas: Customer relationship management (CRM) Enterprise resource planning (ERP) Supply-chain management (SCM) Sales force automation (SFA) Order processing E-commerce Cisco Enterprise Data Center Solution Design Approach The n-tier model is the basis for the server farm, and the Cisco data center architecture expands its support to include other critical components of highly available data centers. Architecture layers include: Aggregation Front end Application Back end Storage Data center transport All contents are Copyright All rights reserved. Important Notices and Privacy Statement. Page 5 of 9

6 Figure 3 Architecture Overview Internet Service Provider A Service Provider B Private WAN Campus Internet Edge Core Switches Aggregation S e r v e r Front-end Application Data Center Transport DWDM Distributed Data Center F a r m Back-end GE FC Storage Switches Storage Tape or Disk Subsystem Primary Data Center ESCON Within each layer several features support the requirements of applications housed in the data center. These different features are the basis of the data center service offerings, so describing the architectural components is best done from a service perspective. All contents are Copyright All rights reserved. Important Notices and Privacy Statement. Page 6 of 9

7 Enterprise Data Center Solution Services Figure 4 introduces a logical view of data center services. Figure 4 Data Center Services Storage Services NAS SAN: Fibre Channel/SCSI over IP SAN Fabric: Fibre Channel, iscsi Fibre Channel to ISCSI Fan-out Server Farm Services Content Switching SSL Termination Caching Content Transformation Infrastructure Services Layer 1 Layer 2 Layer 3 Intelligent Network Services Security Services ACLs Firewalls IDSs Management Services Configuration Management Fault Mgmt Performance Mgmt Security Mgmt Accounting Mgmt Cisco data center design supports the following services: Infrastructure Layer 2, Layer 3, intelligent network services, and data center transport Application Content switching, caching, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) termination, and content transformation Storage Consolidation of local disks, network attached storage (NAS), and storage area networks (SANs) Security Access control lists (ACLs), firewalls, and intrusion detection systems (IDSs) Management Management devices applied to the individual elements of the architecture because each service requires its own set of management considerations Infrastructure Services Infrastructure services include all the core features required for the data center infrastructure to function, and serve as the foundation for all other data center services. The infrastructure features are organized as follows: Layer 1 Layer 2 Layer 3 Intelligent network services All contents are Copyright All rights reserved. Important Notices and Privacy Statement. Page 7 of 9

8 Application Services Application services include several features that provide intelligence to the server farms. These features are equally available to scale server farm performance, or to perform packet inspection at Layer 4 or Layer 5. The application features are organized by the devices that support them. The following is a list of those features: Content switching Caching SSL termination Content transformation Storage Services Storage services include several features that support storage consolidation and provide storage-to-ip and storage-to-storage connectivity. The features are: Network Attached Storage (NAS) Storage Area Networks (SAN) to IP: Fibre Channel and Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) over IP Localized SAN fabric connectivity (Fibre Channel or SCSI protocol over TCP/IP [iscsi]) Fibre Channel to iscsi fan-out Security Services Security services include the features and technologies used to secure the data center infrastructure and application environments. The features, grouped by the devices that provide them, are distinct security capabilities that increase network security. The approach to security in the data center, given the importance of the data it houses, requires that you have a clear security plan in place encompassing all services and consequently all devices supporting those services. The security features are: ACLs Firewalls IDSs and host IDSs Authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) Other security services Management Services Overlaying management services on top of all other data center services, including security, is recommended. In fact, the approach to deploying management services is in line with the provision of data center services because each service requires its own set of management considerations. Each service is also likely supported by different organizational entities or even by distinct functional groups whose expertise is in the provisioning, monitoring, and troubleshooting of such service. All contents are Copyright All rights reserved. Important Notices and Privacy Statement. Page 8 of 9

9 Cisco recommends that you have a network management policy in place that follows a consistent and comprehensive approach to managing data center services. Cisco follows the fault, configuration, accounting/inventory, performance, security (FCAPS) Open System Interconnection (OSI) management standard and uses its management categories to provide management functionality. FCAPS is a model commonly used in defining network management functions and their roles in a managed network infrastructure. The management features focus on the following categories: Fault management Configuration management Accounting management Performance management Security management Getting Started To find out more about Cisco data center design practices, contact your Cisco channel account manager or your Cisco specialized partner, or visit to download the Cisco Enterprise Data Center Solution Design Guide (Cisco.com login required). Corporate Headquarters 170 West Tasman Drive San Jose, CA USA Tel: NETS (6387) Fax: European Headquarters Cisco Systems International BV Haarlerbergpark Haarlerbergweg CH Amsterdam The Netherlands www-europe.cisco.com Tel: Fax: Americas Headquarters 170 West Tasman Drive San Jose, CA USA Tel: Fax: Asia Pacific Headquarters Capital Tower 168 Robinson Road #22-01 to #29-01 Singapore Tel: Fax: Cisco Systems has more than 200 offices in the following countries and regions. Addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers are listed on the Cisco Web site at Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Brazil Bulgaria Canada Chile China PRC Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Czech Republic Denmark Dubai, UAE Finland France Germany Greece Hong Kong SAR Hungary India Indonesia Ireland Israel Italy Japan Korea Luxembourg Malaysia Mexico The Netherlands New Zealand Norway Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Romania Russia Saudi Arabia Scotland Singapore Slovakia Slovenia South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Thailand Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom United States Venezuela Vietnam Zimbabwe All contents are Copyright , All rights reserved. Cisco, Cisco Systems, and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks of and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document or Web site are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. (0208R) SPS 10/02