The document discusses the transition from traditional IT infrastructure to converged infrastructure as an effective data center strategy. It outlines the benefits of converged infrastructure, such as increased resource utilization, streamlined management, and improved agility, emphasizing the importance of adopting new technologies and methodologies. The content also highlights the timing for making this transition and offers steps for assessing hardware and network topologies to support this change.

2. Adopting Converged Infrastructure as a
Go Forward Datacenter Strategy
James Charter, Solution Architect

3. Agenda
• About Long View Systems
• Traditional Infrastructure
• Converged Infrastructure
• What are the technologies?
• What is required?
• What are the benefits?
• When is the best time?
• Next steps
Slide 3

4. About Long View Systems
• One of North America’s largest IT Services/Solutions
organizations
• Focused on end-to-end, operational IT Infrastructure
• Industry leading expertise in key technology
innovations and best practices
• Extensive project experience (complete lifecycle)
with SMB to enterprise corporations
• A people-focused corporate culture dedicated to
“Being the Best”
Slide 4

5. What We Do
Long View
IT Consulting & Managed Services & IT Procurement
IT Project Delivery
Solution Architecture Outsourcing Services
Slide 5

6. Some of Our Partners & Awards
Advanced Technology Elite Partner,
Premier Partner Fast-Growth Partner
Partner of the Year ASL & PSL
Star & Authorized Premier Solution Provider
Large Account Re-Seller (LAR)
Professional Service Partner Partner
Slide 6

7. Traditional Infrastructure
• Most environments use a traditional approach now
• Technologies (Server, Storage, Network) and management are in silos
• Scaling environment often involves addition of all resources even if a single
resource is the constraint (i.e. compute)
• Each component is managed separately through many tools and skill sets,
often distributed across different teams
Slide 7

8. Traditional Infrastructure - Cables
Too many cables, means more management… 11 cables
11 cables connecting to a minimum of 4 managed devices
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9. Traditional Infrastructure - Scale
• Most uplinks are for redundancy not
bandwidth
• Low utilization of FC and Gigabit Ethernet
• Many components to manage
Slide 9

10. Traditional Infrastructure - Scale
• Wire once, Wire once again!
• Higher utilization in some components, not
all
• Capacity management is accomplished by
monitoring everything often with dissimilar
tools
Slide 10

11. Traditional Infrastructure - Scale
• Lack of ports drives scaling, not utilization!
• Manual balancing of workloads and
connections are used to distribute
utilization
Slide 11

12. Traditional Infrastructure - Scale
• The more we scale the more we have to
manage!
Slide 12

13. Converged Infrastructure
• Also referred to as “Fabric-Based Infrastructures”
• Similar to Server Virtualization only Broader – Every Resource is Shareable
• Involves the Virtualization of Servers, Storage, and Network in a
Management Framework
• Wire resources once, use many times (until target utilization is reached)
• Another logical layer of abstraction above physical resources
• Shared pools of resources enable higher utilization of the whole
• Orchestration and Automation of all resources enables agility and mobility
across the physical assets
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14. Pooled Resources
• Converged Infrastructure offers a pool resource approach to management
Servers Storage Network
Slide 14

15. Converged Fabric - Mixed
• Wire once, grow within the pod of
capacity
• Higher utilization of network and
storage
• Converged Fabric is managed as one
entity
• Compute could be rack mount or
blade form factor
Slide 15

16. Converged Fabric - Ethernet
• Wire once, grow within the pod of
capacity
• Full converged fabric with 10GbE,
Cisco DCB, or FCoE
• Converged Fabric is managed as one
entity
• Compute could be rack mount or
blade form factor
Slide 16

17. Virtual Connections = Flexible Bandwidth
• Virtual Connections provide required bandwidth and redundancy based on
profile
Less physical ports to
manage!
Higher flexibility!
Higher utilization!
Slide 17

18. Virtual Interfaces = Mobility
• Converged Network Adapters + Virtual Infrastructure offers a pool resource
approach to management
• If MACs and WWPNs are virtual they are portable across compute resources and
can be moved!
Slide 18

19. Analysts
What are the Analysts Saying?
• IDC
“…the next technology cycle will have a converged architecture as a central
design feature…”
• Gartner
“By YE 2012, 30% of Global 2000 data centers will be equipped with some
fabric-based blade architectures.”
“Critical Time Frame for Cloud Computing is 2010 – 2013”
Slide 19

20. An Evolutionary Path to IT as a Service
The VMware Customer Journey
Stage IT Production Business Production IT as a Service
Sponsorship IT IT / LOB CIO
Cost Efficiency Quality of Service Business Agility
CAPEX
CAPEX
OPEX
Business CAPEX OPEX Availability
Focus OPEX Availability Responsiveness
Responsiveness Compliance
Time-to-market
 IT Operations
 Server & infrastructure  Service catalog & self-
consolidation  Application service IT
Technology Lifecycle Efficiency
 Policy-driven automation
Focus  Service levels
 Increased IT innovation
 Desktop
Cloud
Readiness
Private Cloud
You are here
Slide 20

21. Technologies
• Emergence of different manufacturer architecture offerings
• Data center design shifting to ‘Pod ‘ or ‘Cell’ based architecture
• I/O Layer changing: 10GbE, Cisco DCB, FCoE
• What is available?
• Several Hardware Manufacturers have solutions today:
• Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS)
• HP BladeSystem Matrix
• IBM CloudBurst
• Build-Your-Own Solution
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22. Requirements
• Broader technology knowledge required
• Consider hybrid teams to increase collaboration and visibility across traditional disciplines
• Change how you design your data center
• Approach Capacity in Pods
• Design from the inside out, based on pods of capacity each with their own lifecycle
• Design for denser compute
• Design for denser network and storage I/O
• May require adopting new networking topology
• Adopt virtualization across Storage, Network, Compute to maximize
benefit of Convergence
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23. Benefits
• Enable faster response to Business
• Platform that enables ITaaS
• Flexible resource models using Pods or Cells
• Lower infrastructure management costs
• Streamline management with less tools
• Flexible capacity
• High utilization of resources – maximize ROI
• Orchestration & Automation
• Flexible bandwidth
• Mobility of compute resources
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24. When is the best time?
Consider Converged Infrastructure for:
• Faster response to changing business needs
• New capacity requirements
• Net new facilities
• Hardware Life Cycle Renewal
• When a major component is being replaced reconsider topology (storage,
network, compute)
• Change in management strategy – outsourcing, RBAC for delegation of
responsibility across groups
• Data center mobility to support facility moves or BC/DR
Slide 24

25. Time Frame – Next Steps
The next 12 months… 2011
• Review hardware life cycle
• Facility savings for new generation hardware may reduce the acquisition cost
• Investigate network topology options to increase I/O density
• IT-as-a-Service readiness assessment
• When do you need to get there?
• Review consolidation efforts, plan the next steps
• Identify ISV’s or architectures that aren’t yet supported virtual
• How about bare metal on a Converged solution?
Slide 25

26. Thank You
James Charter
Solution Architect
Main: 403.515.6900
Direct: 403.515.3331
Email: james.charter@lvs1.com