EMC Integrated Infrastructure for VMware Enabled by Celerra Reference Architecture EMC Global Solutions Centers EMC Corporation Corporate Headquarters Hopkinton MA 01748-9103 1.508.435.1000 www.emc.com
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Contents About this Solution Purpose...5 Audience...5 Scope...6 Related documents...6 Solution Overview Business challenge...7 Technology solution...7 Solution components...8 EMC Celerra NS40... 8 VMware ESX Server 3.5... 8 Avamar Deduplication... 9 Solution advantages...9 Solution Architecture Overview of architecture...12 Environment profile...15 Hardware resources...16 Software resources...17 Conclusion Summary...19 3
About this Solution EMC is committed to consistently maintain and improve quality as exemplified by the Total Customer Experience (TCE) program, which is driven by Six Sigma methodologies. As a result, Global Solutions Centers (GSC) has built customer integration labs to reflect real-world deployments in which TCE solutions are developed and validated. Purpose Audience This document describes the reference architecture of the EMC vpod 1.0 EMC Integrated Infrastructure for VMware Enabled by Celerra solution, tested and validated by EMC Global Solutions Centers. The purpose of this solution is to provide the specifications for the initial build of the EMC vpod solution. The EMC vpod is an integrated VMware ESX Cluster design that includes servers, storage, network switches and Avamar backup appliances, pre-configured in a data center rack to be ordered and deployed at customer locations. The vpod facilitates the rapid deployment of a standardized ESX Cluster configuration for general purpose consolidation and Branch office deployment. The vpod solution is provided with standard build and operating blueprints that eliminate time-consuming, customer-configuration setup. This Reference Architecture (RA) is intended for: Members of the Global Solutions Center (GSC) who are tasked with designing, building the use-case environment, and executing the test scenarios. Representatives of the Virtualization Solutions Practice who are tasked with communicating the results of the RA to a wider virtualization field audience. 5
Scope This document is intended to be used by both pre- and post-sales technical consultants to assist with the design and configuration of a customer environment. You need to be familiar with the following EMC products: EMC Celerra NAS EMC Avamar VMware Scope The information contained in this document is not intended to replace existing, detailed product implementation guides or pre-sale site evaluations. The steps outlined during each stage are high level in nature and should be read in conjunction with the documentation referenced throughout this document. Note: It is important to understand that actual customer configurations may be different. Related documents The following documents provide additional, relevant information: EMC Avamar Data Store System Installation Manual EMC Avamar System Administration Manual Celerra Network Server Technical Module Managing Celerra Volumes and File Systems Manually Configuring iscsi Targets on Celerra Configuring NFS on Celerra Configuring and Managing EMC Celerra Network High Availability 6
1 Solution Overview The following sections are detailed: Business challenge...7 Technology solution...7 Solution components...8 Solution advantages...9 Business challenge Technology solution <Rewrite this section Business challenge by Mark or Marketing> With limited resources and increasing demands for cost efficiency, performance, and scalability enterprises,... With remote offices, you must manage IT costs and avoid delays to procurement, while meeting the highest, performance standards to ensure the quickest deployments, the most seamless interoperability, and the effective solution supportability. To meet these challenges, these enterprises need a pre-packaged hardware and software model to simplify the procurement, assembly, deployment and management processes involved in implementing an effective server, storage and application platform The EMC vpod 1.0 is a reference blueprint to build an integrated "Datacenter in a Rack" that includes the following components: Dell Servers Celerra Multi-protocol Storage (NAS, iscsi, FC) with easy virtual provisioning VMware for simplicity and efficiency 7
Solution components Solution components Avamar de-duplication to minimize the amount of data to back up Infrastructure services to ensure the solution is tied to and is manageable from internal systems As part of the solution, scripting is used to facilitate: Baseline configuration Customer customization Customer deployment In addition, this solution provides operational basic best practices for: Cluster use Performance management Backup support In this solution, a standalone, single-rack Datacenter In A Box is offered that provides the industry proven performance, scalability and reliability of EMC Celerra storage, VMware ESX server virtualization, EMC Avamar deduplication and Dell servers. This section briefly describes the solution's EMC components. For details of all the components that make up the solution, see Hardware resources and Software resources. EMC Celerra NS40 The EMC Celerra NS40 unified storage system brings high availability to multi-protocol environments. With the Celerra NS40, you can connect to multiple storage networks via NAS, iscsi, and Fibre Channel SAN in an integrated package that includes dedicated EMC CLARiiON networked storage. In this solution environment, NAS and iscsi storage was used by the ESX servers. This mid-tier system gives you a stand-alone solution that can consolidate multiple file servers and/or Microsoft Exchange, SQL, or Oracle applications across multiple ESX servers for a virtualization solution that is robust and scalable. <Do we want to reference specific applications since this vpod is agnostic in nature? Chris> 8
Solution Overview VMware ESX Server 3.5 Avamar Deduplication Solution advantages VMware ESX 3.5 is the market leading virtualization hypervisor in use across thousands of IT environments around the world. VMware ESX abstracts server processor, memory, storage and networking resources into multiple virtual machines, forming the foundation of the VMware Infrastructure 3 suite. VMware ESX is a bare metal hypervisor that partitions physical servers in multiple virtual machines. Each virtual machine represents a complete system, with processors, memory, networking, storage and BIOS. With the ability to share single server resources across multiple virtual machines, and cluster ESX servers for further sharing of resources, VMware ESX Server enables the most scalable and efficient use of server hardware in a robust fault tolerant environment. EMC Avamar backup and recovery solutions utilize patented global data deduplication technology to identify redundant data at the source, minimizing backup data before it is sent over the network. With Avamar, you can achieve new levels of data reduction and enable fast, secure backup for your VMware environments, remote offices, and data center LANs. In the process, you ll reduce backup time, growth of secondary storage, and network utilization. Avamar deduplicated backups function like full backups and can be recovered in just one step, without restoring full backups and subsequent incrementals. In addition, Avamar verifies backup data recoverability and encrypts data for secure electronic backups The following advantages of deploying the vpod include: Build & Operational blueprints for best practices Common standard across a repeatable automated deployment model Common management tools and existing processes/training Single solution to reduce deployment from weeks to days 9
Solution Overview 10
2 Solution Architecture The following sections are described: Overview of architecture...12 Environment profile...14 Hardware resources...15 Software resources...16 11
Overview of architecture Overview of architecture Figure 1 illustrates the overall physical architecture of the vpod 1.0 solution. Figure 1 vpod Solution Physical architecture 12
Solution Architecture Figure 2 illustrates the logical architecture of the vpod 1.0 so EMC Celerra NS40 ESX server cluster Option: Virtual Center server deployed as vm in cluster Avamar datastore Customer Network Customer user and application access to virtual environment. Web servers Application servers IP Storage network vmotion network Public network lution. GEN-001057 Figure 2 vpod Solution Logical architecture 13
Environment profile Environment profile The following table lists the details of the Use Case profile. Table 1 Use Case Profile Profile Components DELL 2950 Servers (two socket, quad core), 32GB RAM, two 73-GB internal disks - Raid (1), 10 network interfaces (1-GigE). Quantity 5 NS-40 Multi-protocol Storage Array 1 NS Control Station 1 NS Storage Processor (four 1-GigE interfaces per) 2 NS Battery Backup 1 NS DAE Storage Enclosures (fifteen 146GB/15K per enclosure) 3 Avamar DataStore 1 Avamar Software Licensing 1 VMware ESX Server 3.5i <ESX 3.5i License? I was under the impression that it will have ESX 3.5 update 2. Am I wrong? Suresh> 5 Cat6 Cables 60 Cisco 3750 Switches with backplane cable (forty-eight 1-GigE, and two10-gige port per) 2 14
Hardware resources Hardware resources The hardware resources used in this environment are listed in Table 2. Table 2 Hardware Equipment Quantity Configuration DELL 2950 Servers 5 Two socket, quad core, 32GB RAM, two 73-GB internal disks - Raid (1), 10 network interfaces (1-GigE) NS-40 Multi-protocol Storage Array 1 Configured to support NFS, and ISCSI protocols ENS Control Station 1 Configured using Celerra startup assistant. NS DAE Storage Enclosures 3 (Fifteen 146GB/15K per enclosure) NS Storage Processor 2 (Four 1-GigE interfaces per) NS Battery Backup 1 Avamar Backup Datastore 1 Cat6 Cables 60 Cisco 3750 Switch 2 (Forty-eight 1-GigE Ports per) Note: The above Hardware resources table needs to contain only VENDOR NEUTRAL information per 12/15 email. EMC is the only vendor that remains unchanged. Please review the table, and make the appropriate edits for DELL and Cisco, and whatever else applies. See also the attached JPG as an example. Thank you!! 15
Solution Architecture Software resources The software resources used in the solution are listed in Table 3. Table 3 Software Software Version Configuration Avamar Backup Software VMware ESX 3.5i (Update 3) Each ESX server will be configured with a predetermined IP address, which will be used to boot strap the customer configuration process. VMware Virtual Center (DRS, VHA, VMotion) <What about Windows 2003? Suresh> 2.5 (Update 3) In standalone implementation, the Virtual Center server is deployed as VM on the HA cluster (Virtual CentEMC Integrated Infrastructure for VMwareer server license provided bycustomer). EMC Celera Management 5.6 Configure iscsi devices for ESX servers. 16
3 Conclusion The following section is detailed: Summary...19 Summary Deploying a server virtualization solution that encompasses everything from IP network to server and storage configuration up to backup and recovery is a complicated process. Individual components must be procured, deployed and configured to not only work independently, but to work together in an effective and efficient manner. Using the EMC vpod 1.0 solution detailed in this reference architecture greatly simplifies this process by bundling all of the physical components together in a pre-configured product and providing configuration automation, through pre-built scripts, which allow a customer to customize the solution to the environment and to the needs. Taking full advantage of EMC offerings around multi-protocol Network Attached Storage, server virtualization, and data de-duplication, all in one bundled offering which can be quickly deployed, is a key solution for consolidating branch office and/or data center technologies. To learn more about the EMC vpod solution and other solutions, contact an EMC representative or visit www.emc.com. 19