Cisco – vZilla

Veeam demo labs in Cisco dCloud

michaelcade — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 13:02:14 +0000

In recent years, On-Demand Labs have become an important part in our IT industry to train employees but also to run customer demos and get hands-on experience. One of the most innovative and capable On-Demand Labs is Cisco’s dCloud.

Cisco dCloud is a huge catalog of demos, trainings and sandboxes for every Cisco architecture that are fully scripted. The customizable environments are available almost instantly in the cloud. It’s very easy to work with and to get started all you need is a Cisco account.

That’s why I’m more than happy to let you know that as of mid-November we
provide you a with full hands-on experience of our Veeam Availability Platform and the integration in Cisco HyperFlex as part of Cisco dCloud. There are two different labs available to you:

Veeam Demo Lab

This demo is used to demonstrate our integration into Cisco HyperFlex and different backup/recovery scenarios:

Introduction to Veeam
HyperFlex Integration
Backup HyperFlex VMs
Restore VMs in a HyperFlex Cluster

Veeam installation and configuration lab

This lab can be used to perform a full installation, configuration and integration of Veeam into the HyperFlex environment. Furthermore, it guides you through the backup, recovery and replication scenarios:

Install Veeam Backup & Replication
Add Cisco HyperFlex Storage to Veeam
Perform a Backup
Perform a Restore
VM Replication

The labs are globally available and can be accessed with your Cisco login. Here are some of the components available for you:

Cisco HyperFlex HX Data Platform 2.5 (Simulator)
Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 2 (Windows Server 2016)
UCS Director 6.0 (Emulator)
Microsoft Active Directory 2012 (Windows Server 2012 R2)
SQL Server 2016 (Windows Server 2016)

Let us know about your experience using Veeam and its integration with HyperFlex in Cisco’s dCloud in the comment section down below.

Read the “Cisco HyperFlex with Veeam Availability Suite” validated design guide

Cisco dCloud Labs – Veeam & HyperFlex

michaelcade — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 07:44:17 +0000

I wanted to share some cool stuff that is available over at Cisco, it’s to do with the dCloud offerings they have over there. Custom environments with a huge catalogue of demonstrations, training and sandbox environments for every Cisco product and architecture. The one that I want to bring to your attention is the Cisco HyperFlex and Veeam Availability Suite demo environment.

Yes, it brings the HCI platform from Cisco but also the Veeam Availability Suite, allowing you to run through backup and restore scenarios for either full virtual machine recoveries or application item level recovery. Replication between multiple sites including the failover and failback of those workloads. It also highlights, and you are able to look at the storage integration that Veeam have with the HyperFlex HCI platform.

Below you will see the overview of the lab and topology included in this 5-part lab.

Scenarios

Installing Veeam Backup & Replication

This first scenario is to walkthrough the steps to install the Availability suite. This also will run through the basic configuration you require when installing Veeam, adding a VMware virtual centre to see your production workloads is also included.

Add Cisco HyperFlex Storage to Veeam Backup & Replication

The purpose of this scenario is to add the HyperFlex storage platform to Veeam Backup & Replication, which will allow the HyperFlex native snapshot integration for faster backups.

Perform a Backup

The purpose of this scenario is to import backups, and then walk through the Veeam backup wizard to take a comprehensive look

at the capabilities available for backups.

Perform a Restore

There are many ways of restoring data from Veeam backups. The purpose of this scenario is to explore the three most popular

recovery scenarios:

Instant VM Recovery

• File level Recovery

Application Item Recovery (using SQL Server and Active Directory)

VM Replication

The purpose of this scenario is to create a replication job, replicate important VMs to a recovery site, create a failover plan, and test out the failover process.

Veeam Replication is a VM based replication that replicates VMs that require higher availability (low RTO/RPO criteria). Veeam replication jobs have the ability to replicate one or more VMs from a source host to a destination host (either local or at a remote location). These replicated VMs will be available in VM format at the replicated site for quick power up in the event of a primary site failure. For remote replication, Veeam does use compression, and optional WAN accelerators, to minimize the traffic over long distance, high latency connections.

This scenario replicates VMs from one HyperFlex cluster to a second HyperFlex cluster, simulating a local replication scenario. Both the source and target proxy server will be on the Veeam Backup Server.

There are some more deep dive detail going into Veeam Replication here.

How do we gain access to this lab?

The biggest question I have been getting is I am a customer and I don’t believe I can access the lab. This is not correct everyone is capable of launching any of the dCloud lab sessions and scenarios. However it is down to the Cisco Account teams to support you as a customer with access to these labs.

Once the above administration has been done though, customers are able to access and run sessions on their own.

To get started you do need to register, simply register for a Cisco.com account and then use that account to log in.

If you register as a Customer, the initial account defines them as an L2 user. This level of access provides:

Direct and full access to dCloud content enabled for L2 access

Full access to any dCloud session shared with them by a Cisco employee or partner

If you register as a Guest, their initial account defines them as an L1 user. This level of access provides full access to any dCloud session shared with them by a Cisco employee or partner.

I would love to hear more from people that have tried this out and have some feedback around what to do next?

#CLUS – NetApp Announced the new FlexPod SF

michaelcade — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 14:29:12 +0000

In this busy world of HyperConverged and Converged Infrastructure offerings. Last week NetApp released a new beast. The FlexPod SF, and it’s exactly that. A converged offering from Cisco and NetApp with SolidFire storage capability running alongside Cisco networking and compute in a validated and reference architecture.

A cool marketing video if anything –

The FlexPod Portfolio

As I said FlexPod isn’t new from both Cisco & NetApp they have been doing it for years. Before I joined Veeam this was my bread and butter from a design and implementation point of view.

Introducing FlexPod SF

It is suggested that the FlexPod SF use case is going to be for the following 3 areas and I will share my opinion on why this will most likely work:

Core Data Centre – Although NetApp are and have branded SolidFire the Next-Generation Data Center answer to storage, there is for a while yet going to be the “traditional” data centre requirements that we love or hate today, granted todays VMware might be tomorrows OpenStack and this is geared up for both to quote some marchtecture from NetApp “Linear Compute and Storage scaling without interruption”

Service Providers – This was the first place I saw SolidFire a few years back in a Data Centre where I was implementing a FlexPod environment, I did some reading up after that and published a 101 on my blog site and I mention there about how QoS engine within the Element OS is great for offering that performance to multi-tenant environments, also now being able to put a policy and automation against the compute and storage just adds more control in those environments.

DevOps – Another area that seems to have come with the SolidFire badge is the “DevOps” buzz, full APIs available and built with APIs first is the new normal but this alone really allows for that true DevOps environment to achieve easy automated deployment and allows for much faster services to be consumed and removed.

The bit that really did catch my eye though was the fact that storage is not the traditional storage array, when I was installing those FlexPod systems 5 years ago they would consist of a FAS controller plus disk shelves, a couple of Cisco Fabric Interconnects, Nexus Switches and UCS blade chassis. With the FlexPod SF offering it takes consists of “Storage Nodes” these storage nodes are Cisco C220 M4 servers containing some SSD, 10GbE interfaces.

SF9608 Storage Node

Built-on Cisco C220 M4 Chassis
8 Samsung 960GB SSDs (non-SED)
10GE iSCSI only solution
Supported within FlexPod Configuration only
Minimum 4-node cluster

Hold Up. A C220 is 2U, minimum 4-node cluster means 4 x 2 which is 8U to begin with. There’s your maths lesson today kids. But wait theres more.

NetApp and Cisco are saying that these 4 nodes, 8U configuration will provide you with 300,000 IOPS and 30TB effective storage. That’s impressive.

But then you are also able to add single nodes to your cluster effectively giving you 10TB and 75,000 IOPS with each increment.

From a compute point of view, it uses the same Cisco UCS B-Series M4 servers found in the traditional FlexPod as well as being able to connect to either the UCS 6300 or the 6200 Cisco Fabric Interconnects.

Converged Infrastructure – A Validated Physical Topology

As I previously stated the components are shown below, as with all converged infrastructures they should be validated and have a reference architecture to validate its capabilities and that it serves its purpose.

One thing for sure is whilst out at Cisco Live this week I will be catching up with the SolidFire guys to understand more about this. I am a big advocate of the FlexPod storage from both Cisco and NetApp and this is only going to add more options and capabilities to the FlexPod Portfolio.

The Veeam & Cisco Overview #CLUS

michaelcade — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 18:53:16 +0000

Sitting here at 38,000ft on the way over to my first Cisco Live US frantically preparing slide decks for sessions and webinars I have fast approaching. (That bit is done at this point don’t worry boss)

I wanted to touch base and give an overview of all the super cool stuff that Veeam does with Cisco.

Cisco HyperFlex

Veeam over the short lifetime of HyperFlex (just over a year) have really jumped on board this hyperconverged offering from Cisco. A lot of joint roadshows in the beginning on how Veeam can keep data Available by backing up but also replicating across sites. More recently the release of the Cisco HyperFlex integration with Veeam in Backup & Replication update 2, allowing for a more efficient method of taking virtual machine backups when they reside on Cisco HyperFlex.

Cisco HyperFlex snapshot integration coming soon with Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 2

I am really looking forward to hearing what’s lined up next from Cisco in this area. 3.0 must be around the corner and the cadence so far has been around that 6-month mark so expecting some news this week at Cisco Live.

Converged Infrastructure

For a few years now Veeam have been adding storage integrations left right and centre which has only helped when it comes to the converged stacks that Cisco have with these storage vendors.

The Veeam storage integration allows for that reduced impact on the production VMware environment by leveraging the storage Array snapshot technologies causing minimal impact on performance of the live virtual machine.

At VeeamON around the middle of May, Veeam announced that in v10 they would be releasing a Universal Storage API that would allow for the on boarding of storage vendors who were asking for integration thus giving that same level of performance when it came to VMware virtual machine backups.

Also announced was Infinidat, Lenovo and IBM would be the first vendors to be on boarded with that integration. This means that the VersaStack offering from both Cisco and IBM would join the fold of Veeam integrated storage. Also, announced last week at the Pure Storage conference is that they would also be joining in with the integration giving FlashStack the ability to take advantage of the integrations. The universal API will provide the ability to not only Backup from those storage snapshots but also the following features will be available. This is also true of the storage integrations we have today apart from where listed. The NetApp storage also offers some additional integrations.

VeeamON – Veeam Version 10 – Universal Storage API

The Ultimate Backup Appliance

Veeam is agnostic when it comes to backup repositories or targets, if you want to go to direct attached storage, tape, NAS, SAN or even Cloud Providers then all that is fine with Veeam.

When you are taking the time to really consider that backup storage and target and the first things on your mind are scalability, density, performance and available capacity then the Cisco S3260 or the Cisco C240 should be top of mind.

Why I hear you cry after that amazing sales paragraph, promise no more.

I have written about the C3160 then C3260 and now we have the S3260. Let’s briefly break it down but here is a link to my post on the latest release the S3260.

The new and improved Cisco Storage Server – S3260

Ok so the top two aren’t ground breaking maybe even the first three aren’t unique today. But the ability to plug into the Cisco Fabric Interconnects that are also used in those HyperFlex and Converged Deployments and leverage that central management console to not only manage the S3260 or the C240 for that matter but also be able to scale them out accordingly.

Add to this scalable solution the Veeam Scale Out Backup Repository you have a pretty powerful Availability solution that can be bolted onto your Hyperconverged or Converged Infrastructures.

To wrap this up, I am really looking forward to hanging with some of the Cisco Champions and I must say they have some cool stuff going on this week, my calendar has been bombarded in a good way with all the events and stuff that Lauren and team have setup. Big shout out there and a big thank you.

I am also going to be keeping a close eye on the above areas from Cisco, I expect to hear about HyperFlex 3.0 at least as well as all things Data Centre for me. If you are here though in Las Vegas then you will see me floating about I also have a theatre session on Monday with the details below and I will be covering briefly what it is we do in those three areas I mentioned in this post.

Have a great week and come say Hi.

Cisco HyperFlex 2.0

michaelcade — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 08:48:04 +0000

Back in March 2016, fast approaching the 1 year ago mark, Cisco announced their journey into the HyperConverged space with HyperFlex, a solution leveraging the software defined storage technology from SpringPath. I wrote about this announcement back then here – http://bit.ly/1ngMmb6

Some of the key figures announced today were that over 70PB of storage has been sold as part of this solution and there around 950 new customers enrolled to the HyperFlex offerings.

As I covered in my launch post regarding HyperFlex, the differentiators being around the Integrated Network Fabric for that one stop shop for Compute, Storage and also Networking. The ability to integrate with existing Cisco Data Center tools.

What’s new in HyperFlex 2.0

I would suggest that a lot of the new features are just table stakes, such as non disruptive rolling upgrade in this day and age of the hyperconverged offering this has to be a table stake along with the simplicity of configuration and deployment. A given.

The next key new feature is the All Flash option now with the HyperFlex again you can see the paragraph above on this one. However it’s still noteworthy to point this one out.

All Flash I think this had to be just a matter of time, the world is absolutely moving this way and the Hyper Converged space is no different at all.

Generally speaking when we speak of All Flash we expect the “High Performance” the high IOPS, the consistent high throughput ability whilst keeping a low latency. What we don’t want to see is having to compromise against certain storage efficiencies. With 2.0 and the All Flash release you are not going to lose the Always ON, Inline Deduplication and compression.

We have seen from many storage vendors specifically Log Structured File Systems, which coupled with Flash will give a write optimised data path to help with compression and SSD wear.

Dynamic Data Distribution gives the ability to leverage the performance of all the SSDs which in turn spreads the wear and performance.

You will see from above in pre All Flash that they still leveraged some SSD for performance reads and deduplication tasks, this is simply soaked into the already present SSD tier in the All Flash options.

Another addition is the ability to now leverage the 40Gb 3rd Generation Fabric Interconnects, more details can be found here on those – http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/fast-and-flexible-new-third-generation-fabric-interconnect

HTML 5

With this new firmware release we also see a nice new shiny HTML 5 web interface for the native management of the HyperFlex systems.

New Web GUI for direct management
Simple and Smooth interface using HTML 5
Manage HX Cluster and Datastores
View Alarms, Events and Performance Charts
View VM inventory and resource pools

As i said in the opening the table stakes for the HyperConverged offerings should already include these new features, but its great to see that so much is being added in to the product set at only version 2.0.

The Big Easy button for setup and deployment is a must in this modular based approach to deploying infrastructure. Some of the improvements are listed below:

Improved Day 0 Experience
Integrated UI Workflow
Improved Validations
Single Configuration File
UCSM
Deployment
Cluster Creation & Expansion

On the flip to that the topical trend in our industry at the moment is around APIs and the new HyperFlex firmware boasts a range of new features and functionality when it comes to their API approach:

New RESTful API with HTTP verbs
Enables configuration, monitoring, queries
Management via an on-demand stateless protocol
Allows for external applications to interface directly with the HX management plane
Basis for enhanced policy driven integrations with products such as UCS Director.

Lastly i wanted to touch on the Options and Configurations available the Hybrid approach has not gone away as you can see below with the ability to still have a 22TB node but now with the All Flash array you have the ability to have a close to 40TB node with All Flash.

The new and improved Cisco Storage Server – S3260

michaelcade — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 08:48:04 +0000

Back in September 2015 I wrote a specific blog post around leveraging the Cisco C class range as an amazing scalable backup repository and management server for Veeam. In particular it was at this time that the Cisco C3260 was released.

Yesterday the S3260 was announced (1st November), and whilst everything is still true in the S3260 and what I said regarding the C3260 in my post there is a little more. I wanted to share the additional features that make this an even more great reason to consider these as an awesome Veeam Backup Appliance.

For reference here is my original post outlining the C Class series platform and how Veeam can really benefit from some of these great features.

Cisco & Veeam Appliance – A Match made in… – http://bit.ly/1jrb6fD

The compelling use case that I am seeing on a daily basis is simply some people for compliance, security or whatever reason cannot move to those giant fluffy public clouds in the sky. It might even come down to cost, and this platform is a said to be extremely efficient and cost effective to achieve a small price point than some of the public cloud storage offerings.

This is fine, because for a while yet there is going to be a need and a strong use case for the “traditional” infrastructure and to boot the price points seem to be falling for this hardware compared to public cloud costs. However I digress. The reason for this post is to outline the new features or the great capabilities that have been brought to the Cisco S3260 Storage Server.

Announced yesterday at the Cisco Partner Summit, this would be the first in the S range, this will provide an element of storage to the enterprise end users as well as those managed cloud service providers.

Stephen Lawson outlines some of those cost differences between this new appliance and the public cloud offerings that we have out there today – http://www.pcworld.com/article/3137440/storage/cisco-pits-modular-storage-servers-against-public-clouds.html
The long awaited addition to this Storage Server in the previous life as the C3260, was one thing that was strangely missing. Today this gap is filled and what a huge gap it is. This really joins up the Converged message that Cisco have been championing in their Converged Infrastructure offerings with various other storage vendors. The ability to connect this storage server to the already in-place Fabric Interconnect, not only meaning a central management layer with UCS Manager but now to be able truly achieve unified I/O connectivity in the same converged platform.On top of that though it doesn’t mean that only the converged platforms win, not at all, what this also means is that new fabric interconnects can be leveraged to allow multiple S3260 servers to be linked together to give a huge capacity offering.

“Each 4U chassis can be linked to a Cisco fabric interconnect, so as many as 26 of the S3260 servers can be linked together for a total capacity of just over 15PB.”

Let me bring this back to why Veeam and Cisco think this is a great “Appliance” for the Veeam Availability message, it really comes down to the high density of being able to fit 60 disks in 4U at a combined total of 600TB with the added bonus of being able to centrally manage this now using Cisco UCS Manager, but also being able to use this fast storage which is essential for the Veeam Instant VM Recovery function to really benefit.

Another final point to mention is this “Appliance” model really fits the amazing new file system from Microsoft which also offers great benefits for Veeam backups find out more here – https://www.veeam.com/blog/advanced-refs-integration-coming-veeam-availability-suite.html

Veeam blog announcing this – https://www.veeam.com/blog/cisco-ucs-s-series-with-veeam.html

#VDM30in30 – Post 14 – Tech Unplugged

michaelcade — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 08:45:44 +0000

Last week I had the pleasure of attending NetApp Insight in Berlin, having been to this conference in this same city for the past 3 years and also once for a Cisco Live, I knew the lay of the land and my bearings.

This however was the third Insight in Berlin and my third different role. This time I was over for the Technical Evangelist role. This gave a different steer to the attendance. I was able to attend a lot of good technical sessions some of which I plan to shake down in another post this week. It was also my debut session speaking at the event and again I want to dive a little deeper into this one too.

I was also invited as part of the NetApp A Team to speak on the TechUnplugged booth and I have reposted this below to go towards my #VDM30in30

Don’t believe the hype – Introducing Cisco HyperFlex

michaelcade — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 19:12:31 +0000

The unveiling of Cisco HyperFlex Systems

On the 1st March 2016 Cisco will announce a new HyperConverged solution based on their existing UCS C & B Class compute, existing UCS Fabric Interconnects and a new Software Defined Storage approach that allows Cisco to offer that “Complete Solution” inclusive of Compute, Storage and networking where as other HyperConverged are missing that element that Cisco do really well, Networking!

“True Hyper-convergence”

Before I dive into the deep information regarding this new range from Cisco I want to touch on the current state of Hyper-convergence, a caveat from myself here is that I for one do not do much in this space and I am working on resources that I have read since learning of this new range from Cisco.

The story so far with HCI, make it simple to deliver and bring to market as fast as possible then try and innovate to bring up to market speed, but ultimately its about delivering that modular way of increasing performance and capacity to an environment leveraging new technology and possibly software defined where possible.

Back to Cisco HyperFlex and the entrance of True Hyper-convergence, what does that mean? Well other main vendors within the HCI space only really bring Compute and Storage to the table. Cisco will bring Networking along with them.

Why does this make Cisco a bigger differentiator in this specific market? Basically the reason is simply because Customers need more from these HCI offerings, Simplicity is still key, having the ability for not having to have separate silos of hardware for different roles within the data centre, an easy scaling model for all entities. Being able to add resource efficiencies specifically around the storage. Today we have our applications but who knows what is coming and how our worlds will change with the likes of containers and other movements within the market.

Deliver Simplicity
Easy Scaling
Smash The Silo’s
Resource Efficiencies
Todays Applications and Tomorrow’s World

The Missing Part of the puzzle – Introducing Cisco HyperFlex Systems

Let’s move deeper into the stack, we have mentioned the “Complete Hyper-convergence” above being able to use Software Defined “Everything” Compute, Network and Storage. The HyperFlex system also brings additional “Always-on” storage optimisations and flexible scaling. The final piece of the puzzle is the ability to bring a “Future Ready Architecture” to market that is built for our applications today but also emerging workloads.

The fundamental backbone to this offering is the Cisco UCS platform, the already proven High performance network capabilities in the Fabric Interconnects. The virtualisation aware compute platform, and the ability to automate management of all hardware pieces.

The difference between first gen HCI and HyperFlex

Taken from Cisco press briefing
“Built on legacy file systems intended for local-machine write-in-place operations” in reference to first generation HCI systems.

The Cisco HyperFlex has been built from the ground up for Hyper-convergence. The key areas to mention here are as shown below, In the best endeavour to keep this post as short as possible I will look to dive deeper into each piece when the time allows.

Log-Structured File System.
Designed for distributed scale-out storage.
Inline data optimisation with low performance impact.
Superior flash endurance.

In particular, the feature rich software defined storage brings a lot of great benefits to the table

Independent Scaling of compute and capacity
Dynamic Data Distribution
High Resiliency / Fast Recovery
Continuous Data optimization
Integrated Management and Data Services
Native Snapshots
Native Clones

The HyperFlex Portfolio

The entry point is 3 nodes, VMware only on day 1 but with a roadmap to ensure other virtualisation platforms and future workloads. With the ability to add existing UCS platforms that are already in your Data Centre this allows for a seamless integration joining the picture and flexibility together.

I will be looking to look at how Veeam can sit well here and assist in delivering the availability for the new platform, this will include backup but also a key feature missing from the software defined storage is the ability to replicate to a secondary site or cluster, Veeam brings that to the table along with all the other great benefits around application consistent backups.

Resources

Tech Field Day – Springpath Corporate and Data Platform Overview – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq8J6OOLG5s

Tech Field Day – Springpath HALO Architecture Deep Dive – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krmkywnz970

Cisco Champions Call

Cisco & Veeam Appliance – A match made in ….

michaelcade — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 19:18:37 +0000

There have been some recent posts and articles around Veeam and the Cisco UCS 3160 being a great fit together, with the availability features offered within Veeam’s Availability Suite and with the Cisco UCS 3160 high density storage and compute capabilities.

When I say great fit the UCS 3160 offers compute function where Windows 2012R2 can be installed and can be used as a Veeam Backup & Replication server as well as a proxy, along with the high capacity direct attached storage it offers for a potential large backup repository. Whether the end user is looking to integrate into their existing Cisco UCS environment or just that high density backup solution, It Just Works.

Along with the UCS 3160 there is also a UCS 240 which I will also touch on in this post, the way I will position both of these products is one is aimed at the enterprise and one at the SMB arena, however it comes down to what compute and storage requirements the end user requirements are.

UCS C240

The UCS C240 rack server is designed for both performance & expandability over a wide range of storage-intensive infrastructure workloads.

·      Single Server – Dual CPU socket per server (2U)
·      24 slots for registered or unbuffered ECC DIMMs
·      5 PCIe slots
·      24 2.5 inch SAS, SATA or SSD hot pluggable drive bays
·      Supports up to two internal 32GB Cisco Flexible Flash Drives (SD)

UCS C3160

Designed for large unstructured data repositories, media streaming and content distribution, High performance compute and storage throughput. A stand alone CIMC management.

Up to 240TB (4TB HDD) and 360TB (6TB HDD), dense storage in a compact 4U form factor. That’s a lot of storage in a small space.

·      Single Server – Dual CPU socket per server
·      Up to 4GB RAID Cache – Enterprise Storage Features
·      Up to 512GB Memory – 8 DIMMs per socket
·      Dual Modular LOM (mLOM) – Multiple Connectivity Options
·      Up to 62 Drive Bays – 60 LFF plus 2 SFF
·      Up to 14 SSD – 400GB

Veeam Availability Suite

Delivers 5 key capabilities to the availability of data:

• High-Speed Recovery: Rapid recovery of what you want, the way you want it
• Data Loss Avoidance: Near-continuous data protection and streamlined disaster recovery
• Verified Protection: Guaranteed recovery of every file, application or virtual server, every time
• Leveraged Data: Low-risk deployment with a production-like test environment
• Complete Visibility: Proactive monitoring and alerting of issues before operational impact

Why Veeam & Cisco C Class Compute and Storage

It really comes down to both products being so easy to use, because of the great compute function apparent in both UCS C models mentioned in this post it acts as a really good Veeam Proxy Server (Data Mover) with Windows 2012 R2 installed as the operating system, it then uses the high density storage for backups. As well because of the compute Veeam are able to achieve up to 10-12 concurrent backup jobs. With a throughput of up to 5 GB/s bandwidth net per UCS C3160 (RAW includes deduplication and compression with 5+ GB/s)

Benefits of Veeam & Cisco C Class Compute and Storage

The Veeam features and benefits are widely documented I am just going to summarise some of the benefits as to why Veeam & Cisco UCS C models benefit together.

·      Granular recovery of virtual machines and files, including Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint application items.
·      Automatically verify every backup, Virtual Machine and replica.
·      Self-service recovery of virtual machines and guest files.
·      Instant VM recovery to recover a failed VM in less than two minutes.
·      Leverage Veeam deduplication and compression.

Options

Veeam & Cisco have some reference architecture configurations that range from a starter edition to a large implementation. The following list is a guide around what configurations fit into each pot.

*The below table has since been updated and there are now 4 available options on the Cisco Marketplace

An example of what these bundles include are outlined below.

Personal Conclusion

Apart from everything that has mentioned above about both technology vendors being a great fit there are also some further points to mention as to what makes this a great backup solution.

Reduces backup ingest bottlenecks
Provides faster backups through the use of parallel processing
Streamlines your data protection strategy with a solution designed for performance, flexibility and reliability

Amongst all of this this offering of both Veeam and Cisco UCS C class storage server is a validated, easy to deploy solution for Veeam backups. More agile and less complex is that way everything should be going in our industry.

With the scale out architecture from both Veeam and Cisco UCS this really does move with the enterprise future requirements.

UCS C3260

During the writing of this post the Cisco UCS C3260 was released, this platform offers a dual server node compared to the one node in the C3160, this basically means you can share the workload between the two nodes, all drives are available to to both server nodes.

This system uses the same chassis as the C3160 however you can only have a total of 56 drives to accommodate the second server node.

From a Veeam standpoint the C3260 with it’s two server nodes are an ideal solution, One server node can act as the Veeam Backup & Replication server, this will include Management, Proxy and Repository. The second node can be used for Veeam ONE, Enterprise Manager and WAN acceleration. (Dependant of environment requirements)

From a Veeam Backup configuration point of view the following should be adhered to gain the best performance and throughput.

•       3 Backup Jobs per 13-14 disks (max. 12 concurrent jobs)
•       Enable Parallel Processing
•       Limit the concurrent tasks at repository and proxy level
•       Start all Backup Jobs at the same time
•       Enable Veeam Deduplication and Compression

FlexPod 101

michaelcade — Sun, 27 Mar 2016 19:34:45 +0000

This post takes a high-level look at the FlexPod solutions NetApp offers today and provides the basic fundamentals: what comprises a FlexPod, the unique benefits FlexPod delivers, how to identify a FlexPod opportunity, standard configurations, etc. If you’re new to FlexPod, this should get you off to a great start.

FlexPod Architecture

What is FlexPod?

Shared infrastructure for a wide range of environments and applications.

•       Validated, standardised, shared infrastructure
•       Flexibility and scalability within a single rack
•       Centralised management of pooled resources
•       Deployment guides with step-by-step instructions
•       Solution guides pre-define multiple workloads
•       Multiple sizing tools

Minimum requirements for a “FlexPod” configuration

When is FlexPod a good fit?

Customer Challenge
Ineffective management and resource allocation

Increased costs associated with multiple network platforms

Lengthy testing and deployment processes

Risks associated with siloed technologies

FlexPod
Increased scalability
Faster application deployments
Simplified management
Orchestration and workflow automation

Unified network equals less cost.
Unified fabric provides single unified 10GbE no need for separate networks

Pre integrated solution
Standardise deployment processes

High Availability during outages
Reduction in overall cost of availability and disaster recovery.

What does FlexPod Offer?

Unified Systems

·         Simplified setup
·         Increased control
·         Lower costs

Single point for management

·         Higher productivity
·         Lower labour costs
·         Fewer errors (configuration drift)

Highly efficient

·         Self-Implementing
·         Increased workload agility
·         Lower costs
·         Lower power
·         Higher reliability
·         Simplified setup
·         Higher asset utilisation
·         Higher application performance

Scalable

·         More workloads with less gear
·         Better performance
·         Less cost per virtual machine

What FlexPod models are available?

FlexPod Express – for smaller, less dynamic requirements (MSB / Branch Office)

·         Pre-configured (small or medium)
·         Focus on simplicity and cost
·         Limited IT staffing
·         Target: less than 500 users
·         1 GB Ethernet

FlexPod Data Center Solution – Massively scalable shared virtual data center infrastructure.

·         Enterprise-class solution
·         Focus on strategic platform
·         Existing IT Staff
·         Target: 500 users and above
·         10 GB Ethernet

FlexPod Select – Big data analytics, Scientific, High Performance Computing

Where can i find FlexPod documentation?
Validated and supported FlexPod designs
There are two key “go to” places to find the FlexPod architecture design and run book documentation and these links are highlighted below.

Cisco Validated Design Program – www.cisco.com/go/flexpod tested end-to-end scenarios

NetApp Verified Architecture – http://www.netapp.com/us/solutions/flexpod/datacenter/validated-designs.aspx

What Solutions do FlexPod support?

VMware (Exchange, SQL Server, Sharepoint, View)

Microsoft Private Cloud/HyperV

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Citrix XenDesktop

SAP Applications

Validated vs Supported:

Validated means that everything has been tested end to end.

Supported required IMT checks etc to determine if the specific workload/application is supported with the specific configuration.

Why choose Unified Fabric?
Benefits of Cisco Nexus Unified Fabric with FlexPod

End-to-end convergence – Cisco Nexus, MDS, Director

Cisco Data Center network manager

Why choose Unified Fabric?

Scale

Cisco NX-OS
Cisco FabricPath
Cisco FabricPath Extender
OTV, LISP, IOA
vPC

Convergence

Unified ports
Data center bridging / FCoE
DCNM
VDC

Intelligence

Cisco Nexus 1000v & Virtual Extensible LAN
Cisco ASA 1000v Series, Cisco Virtual Security Gateway, Cisco vPath
Layer 4-7
Cisco Digital Media Manager, Cisco Storage Media encryption

Non-stop operations
Architectural flexibility/scale
Fabric extensibility to physical/virtual
Geographic span / workload mobility
Active-active oplinks

Deployment flexibility
Consolidated I/O
Consolidated management
Device consolidation

VM-Aware Networking
Secure/Separation/Multi-tenancy

Integrated Application Delivery
Storage Services

FlexPod with UCS Director
Challenges of the Datacenter Operations and Management

Disconnect processes:

·              Data center infrastructure managed in silos
·              Need for strong vendor specific skill sets
·              Manual administration
·              High-touch operations

Result in:

·               Direct increases in operational expense
·               Indirect increases in capital expense
·               Delays in time to market
·               Poor IT responsiveness to service requests

UCS Director for FlexPod

End-to-end infrastructure management

·         Unified click provisioning
·         Single management interface
o Physical and Virtual infrastructure
·         Model based orchestration
·         Converged Infrastructure management
o   Self-service portal
o   Multi-tenant / secure multi-tenant security

UCS Director allows the subject matter experts to create their own dedicated policies for their part of the infrastructure, these are all then driven by the UCS Director Management piece. The result is a single pain of glass for end-to-end automation and lifecycle management. A complete turnkey solution.

Additional Information

My fellow NetApp A-Team members and Cisco Champions Emad Younis (@Emad_Younis) and Melissa Palmer (@vmiss33) discuss a FlexPod 101 on an EngineersUnplugged episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZLPgVocXFQ

UCS Tech Talk: UCS-Based Converged Infrastructure Management With UCS Director: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy8gY5rLAdo

I have also included a link to the 3D FlexPod model. If you’ve ever been to a trade show that involves either Cisco or NetApp, you’ll be sure to see this life-size cardboard rack. If you have the app installed on your mobile device, point it toward the wall of cardboard and watch the magic happen. Learn more here along with how to get the app for your smart device: https://netappapp.wordpress.com/

Please ask your questions or provide any feedback below. Thanks.

Cisco – vZilla

Veeam demo labs in Cisco dCloud

Veeam Demo Lab

Veeam installation and configuration lab

Read more:

Cisco dCloud Labs – Veeam & HyperFlex

#CLUS – NetApp Announced the new FlexPod SF

The Veeam & Cisco Overview #CLUS

Cisco HyperFlex 2.0

What’s new in HyperFlex 2.0

HTML 5

The new and improved Cisco Storage Server – S3260

#VDM30in30 – Post 14 – Tech Unplugged

Don’t believe the hype – Introducing Cisco HyperFlex

The unveiling of Cisco HyperFlex Systems

“True Hyper-convergence”

The Missing Part of the puzzle – Introducing Cisco HyperFlex Systems

The difference between first gen HCI and HyperFlex

The HyperFlex Portfolio

Resources

Cisco & Veeam Appliance – A match made in ….

UCS C240

UCS C3160

Veeam Availability Suite

Why Veeam & Cisco C Class Compute and Storage

Benefits of Veeam & Cisco C Class Compute and Storage

Options

Personal Conclusion

UCS C3260

FlexPod 101