The IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud white paper provides an overview of the platform and its advantages for enterprises. It discusses how the solution combines servers, storage, networking, and software into an optimized unified architecture. The paper highlights how the platform delivers outstanding performance through its converged networking and scalable architecture. It also emphasizes how the solution provides reliability through redundancy and quality support from IBM.
Learn about IBM zEnterprise Strategy for the Private Cloud.The white paper defines the strategy for implementing the zEnterprise System as an integrated, heterogeneous, and virtualized infrastructure, ideal for supporting Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) in cloud computing deployments.To know more about System z, visit http://ibm.co/PNo9Cb.
Global data is on the rise, in terms of scale, complexity & functionality, paving a way for data centers to be more intuitive, coherent, holistic, & easily accessible.
This document provides an overview of virtual data centers and how to select a virtual data center provider. It discusses that virtual data centers offer scalable computing resources that can be customized to meet business needs. When selecting a provider, businesses should consider their hosting requirements, network uptime guarantees, power/cooling redundancy, and security solutions. Virtual data centers can boost business growth by providing cost savings, scalability, resilience, insights, and control over IT resources.
Sql Server 2014 Platform for Hybrid Cloud Technical Decision Maker White PaperDavid J Rosenthal
The document discusses options for running SQL Server in hybrid cloud environments, including both public and private clouds. In a public cloud, SQL Server can run in either Windows Azure Virtual Machines, which provides full feature parity with on-premises SQL Server, or Windows Azure SQL Database, which offers scalability to millions of users but less control over the operating system. A hybrid approach allows organizations to deploy applications across on-premises and cloud environments to realize the benefits of each.
The document discusses several concepts related to virtualization and delivering applications/desktops. It defines key terms like hypervisor, virtual machine manager, and desktop virtualization. It then provides overviews of specific virtualization platforms:
- XenServer allows pooling and sharing of server resources across physical servers.
- vSphere is designed for organizations to virtualize entire datacenters and deliver IT as a service.
- Hyper-V exists as a standalone product or Windows role for creating virtual machines on a single physical computer.
- XenDesktop is a desktop virtualization solution that delivers Windows desktops, applications, and data from the datacenter to any device.
The document discusses how server virtualization can provide significant cost savings and operational efficiencies for organizations. It provides an example of a regional utility that virtualized 1,000 servers over 1.5 years, reducing costs by over $8 million through lower hardware, power, cooling, and real estate needs. Additional case studies show how virtualization helped a bank reduce provisioning time from weeks to hours and a community college improve disaster recovery and flexibility with limited budgets.
The document outlines 11 criteria to consider when evaluating Infrastructure as a Service cloud computing providers:
1) References from past customers about reliability, quality of service, and support.
2) Details of the Service Level Agreement and compensation for downtime.
3) Documentation, ease of setup, and first impressions.
4) Performance metrics like storage input/output and network bandwidth.
VMware provides virtualization software that allows guest operating systems to run on virtual machines. This makes virtual machines highly portable between physical computers. Administrators can pause, move, or copy virtual machines. Virtualization treats hardware as a pool of resources available on demand. VMware was founded in 1999 and initially developed virtualization in the 1960s for mainframe computers. It offers two types of hypervisors - Type 1 is a bare metal hypervisor directly on hardware while Type 2 is hosted on a traditional operating system. VMware helps enterprises consolidate servers, provision applications quickly, isolate workloads, enable disaster recovery, and reduce costs. Welch's Foods case study showed VMware helped save over $100,000 by migrating servers to
Learn about IBM zEnterprise Strategy for the Private Cloud.The white paper defines the strategy for implementing the zEnterprise System as an integrated, heterogeneous, and virtualized infrastructure, ideal for supporting Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) in cloud computing deployments.To know more about System z, visit http://ibm.co/PNo9Cb.
Global data is on the rise, in terms of scale, complexity & functionality, paving a way for data centers to be more intuitive, coherent, holistic, & easily accessible.
This document provides an overview of virtual data centers and how to select a virtual data center provider. It discusses that virtual data centers offer scalable computing resources that can be customized to meet business needs. When selecting a provider, businesses should consider their hosting requirements, network uptime guarantees, power/cooling redundancy, and security solutions. Virtual data centers can boost business growth by providing cost savings, scalability, resilience, insights, and control over IT resources.
Sql Server 2014 Platform for Hybrid Cloud Technical Decision Maker White PaperDavid J Rosenthal
The document discusses options for running SQL Server in hybrid cloud environments, including both public and private clouds. In a public cloud, SQL Server can run in either Windows Azure Virtual Machines, which provides full feature parity with on-premises SQL Server, or Windows Azure SQL Database, which offers scalability to millions of users but less control over the operating system. A hybrid approach allows organizations to deploy applications across on-premises and cloud environments to realize the benefits of each.
The document discusses several concepts related to virtualization and delivering applications/desktops. It defines key terms like hypervisor, virtual machine manager, and desktop virtualization. It then provides overviews of specific virtualization platforms:
- XenServer allows pooling and sharing of server resources across physical servers.
- vSphere is designed for organizations to virtualize entire datacenters and deliver IT as a service.
- Hyper-V exists as a standalone product or Windows role for creating virtual machines on a single physical computer.
- XenDesktop is a desktop virtualization solution that delivers Windows desktops, applications, and data from the datacenter to any device.
The document discusses how server virtualization can provide significant cost savings and operational efficiencies for organizations. It provides an example of a regional utility that virtualized 1,000 servers over 1.5 years, reducing costs by over $8 million through lower hardware, power, cooling, and real estate needs. Additional case studies show how virtualization helped a bank reduce provisioning time from weeks to hours and a community college improve disaster recovery and flexibility with limited budgets.
The document outlines 11 criteria to consider when evaluating Infrastructure as a Service cloud computing providers:
1) References from past customers about reliability, quality of service, and support.
2) Details of the Service Level Agreement and compensation for downtime.
3) Documentation, ease of setup, and first impressions.
4) Performance metrics like storage input/output and network bandwidth.
VMware provides virtualization software that allows guest operating systems to run on virtual machines. This makes virtual machines highly portable between physical computers. Administrators can pause, move, or copy virtual machines. Virtualization treats hardware as a pool of resources available on demand. VMware was founded in 1999 and initially developed virtualization in the 1960s for mainframe computers. It offers two types of hypervisors - Type 1 is a bare metal hypervisor directly on hardware while Type 2 is hosted on a traditional operating system. VMware helps enterprises consolidate servers, provision applications quickly, isolate workloads, enable disaster recovery, and reduce costs. Welch's Foods case study showed VMware helped save over $100,000 by migrating servers to
The Citrix Virtual Desktop Handbook examines the project lifecycle for a desktop virtualization project.
The Handbook provides the methodology, experience and best practices needed to successfully design your own desktop virtualization solution
https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX136546
The document discusses the business case for virtualization using an HP and VMware solution. It outlines how virtualization can help reduce capital costs through server hardware consolidation and savings on storage, network hardware, and data center space. Virtualization also provides operational cost savings through reduced power and cooling costs, lower management costs from faster server provisioning, and reduced costs associated with disaster recovery and unplanned downtime. The document provides an example scenario showing how a company could realize over 60% savings over 3 years by consolidating 100 physical servers onto 13 physical servers using virtualization.
As a C-level executive, you are always on the lookout for ways to reduce IT costs while increasing systems capability in order to grow sales and/or improve service. Leveraging applications with automated business processes that enable user centric interconnected applications embracing interfaces that are inherently enabled for smart devices with efficient systems represents a proven way to improve the business.
This document discusses the challenges of building an optimal data management platform that can leverage on-demand hardware resources. It summarizes the CAP theorem, which states that a distributed system cannot simultaneously provide consistency, availability, and partition tolerance. The document introduces Pivotal's solution, called the Enterprise Data Fabric (EDF), which is designed to mine the gap between strong consistency and availability. The EDF uses service entities, membership roles, and configurable consistency levels to optimize for consistency and availability based on data and workflow requirements. It exploits parallelism and caches data to improve performance across distributed and global deployments.
Virtualized environments have become standard for organizations seeking benefits like reduced costs and flexibility. However, infrastructure elements often remain separated. Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) integrates compute, storage, and networking through software to provide these benefits. This document examines the pros and cons of HCI for small and medium-sized businesses, discussing how HCI simplifies management but may also create challenges around security, staffing needs, and scalability.
VDI-in-a-Box is a simple virtual desktop solution that reduces costs through integrated connection brokering, provisioning, load balancing and profile management. It provides virtual desktops to any user on any device for less than new PCs. The solution simplifies deployment and management of virtual desktops and scales easily by adding more standard servers. It ensures high availability without complex shared storage or load balancing components.
Sql server 2012_and_intel_e7_processor_more_capability_and_higher_value_for_m...Dr. Wilfred Lin (Ph.D.)
This document discusses how Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and Intel Xeon E7 series processors provide a powerful platform for mission-critical databases. Key capabilities include built-in support for enterprise analytics, big data integration, and hybrid cloud extensibility. When combined, SQL Server 2012 and Intel Xeon E7 processors deliver high performance, scalability, reliability and integrated analytics capabilities for transactional databases and data warehouses.
This document provides an overview of the new features in Microsoft SQL Server 2008, including enhancements that make it more trusted, productive, and intelligent. Key updates include improved security features like transparent data encryption, enhanced high availability options like automatic page repair for database mirroring, and new management capabilities like the policy-based framework to simplify administration.
Hosted desktop and evolution of hardware server technologies - 2015 editionAhmed Sallam
Three key server hardware technologies are shaping the future of Desktop Virtualization:
1. Hardware-Assisted System Virtualization.
2. Hardware-Assisted System Security
3. Hardware Servers Physicalization.
This paper covers the three of them.
VDI allows organizations to virtualize desktops by running them as virtual machines on centralized servers rather than individual physical machines. The document discusses implementing a VDI solution for the City of Hallandale Beach. It estimates that deploying an initial 50 VDIs would cost around $90,000, with additional costs to scale up to 350 VDIs. While VDI provides benefits like easier management and mobility, the costs include new storage, software licenses, thin clients, and implementation fees. ROI is not expected until year 5 due to upfront infrastructure investment.
The white paper compares the user experience of three server management platforms: Dell Management Console, HP Systems Insight Manager, and IBM Systems Director. User experience testing was conducted across 14 administrators performing common management tasks on each platform. Testers rated IBM Systems Director as providing a user experience around 4% better than HP Systems Insight Manager and around 13% better than Dell Management Console based on the graphic user interface, processes, and overall experience. The paper concludes that IBM Systems Director provided administrators with a superior management experience and a reason to select IBM servers when other criteria were equivalent.
Optimize your virtualization_efforts_with_a_blade_infrastructureMartín Ríos
The document discusses the benefits of using a converged and intelligent blade-based infrastructure to optimize virtualization efforts. Key points include:
- Blade servers allow for high-density deployments that support the high performance workloads of virtualized environments. Embedded intelligence in blades can automate management tasks and provide alerts to improve uptime.
- A tightly integrated blade solution with automated storage and network management can simplify tasks like workload migration and optimizing resource utilization across infrastructure components.
- HP offers blade server solutions that leverage built-in intelligence to maximize efficiency of virtualized environments through features like automated monitoring and updating.
The document discusses how hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) from NEC can unify a company's IT systems. HCI combines servers, storage, and networking into a single virtualized system that is managed from one interface. This simplifies IT management and reduces costs. HCI also minimizes maintenance tasks so IT staff can focus on innovation. NEC's HCI is powered by Scale Computing's HC3 software and provides a flexible, scalable solution for companies to simplify their IT infrastructure.
In this paper, the SMB Group examines different cloud computing models and the types of requirements that each can best address, and discusses what midmarket businesses should look for in a cloud solutions provider.
If you’re shopping for DaaS or cloud desktops there are a few questions you should be asking potential vendors regarding price. Below we’ve created a handy slideshare to help ensure you’re comparing apples to apples.
This document discusses the top 10 reasons for using Citrix XenApp for desktop virtualization. XenApp provides a hosted shared virtual desktop that offers lower hardware requirements and reduced storage costs compared to VDI. It allows simplified image management through centralized management. XenApp can meet the needs of the majority of users while addressing niche power users through FlexCast technology. It delivers a Windows desktop experience on a server OS and leverages existing XenApp knowledge. XenApp features HDX technology for an exceptional user experience and supports mobility through Citrix Receiver. Citrix has market leadership in desktop virtualization through XenDesktop and XenApp.
Learn about Virtualization Performance on the IBM PureFlex System. the white paper shows that the IBM PureFlex system can deliver VM consolidation in a heterogeneous, self-contained environment capable of impressive levels of throughput performance. It can dramatically reduce time to production for virtualized data center application operations, providing multiple compute and operating system platforms, advanced storage, and integrated networking in a single manageable system.
This document discusses key infrastructure elements for cloud computing. It describes the evolution of cloud computing from earlier technologies like grid computing. The document outlines an architecture framework for a dynamic data center that leverages virtualization and infrastructure management technologies. It provides examples of how cloud infrastructures have been used for innovation, software development, and data-intensive workloads.
Modular blade server architectures address many challenges facing modern data centers by consolidating computing components into smaller, modular form factors that share resources to lower costs and complexity. Blades can satisfy computing needs for servers, desktops, networking and storage. They provide world-class solutions by delivering high performance, reliability, efficiency and scalability without disruption. Proper planning is required, but blade servers are highly efficient platforms for consolidating distributed servers into a common data center through their small size and ability to maximize resource utilization through virtualization.
The Citrix Virtual Desktop Handbook examines the project lifecycle for a desktop virtualization project.
The Handbook provides the methodology, experience and best practices needed to successfully design your own desktop virtualization solution
https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX136546
The document discusses the business case for virtualization using an HP and VMware solution. It outlines how virtualization can help reduce capital costs through server hardware consolidation and savings on storage, network hardware, and data center space. Virtualization also provides operational cost savings through reduced power and cooling costs, lower management costs from faster server provisioning, and reduced costs associated with disaster recovery and unplanned downtime. The document provides an example scenario showing how a company could realize over 60% savings over 3 years by consolidating 100 physical servers onto 13 physical servers using virtualization.
As a C-level executive, you are always on the lookout for ways to reduce IT costs while increasing systems capability in order to grow sales and/or improve service. Leveraging applications with automated business processes that enable user centric interconnected applications embracing interfaces that are inherently enabled for smart devices with efficient systems represents a proven way to improve the business.
This document discusses the challenges of building an optimal data management platform that can leverage on-demand hardware resources. It summarizes the CAP theorem, which states that a distributed system cannot simultaneously provide consistency, availability, and partition tolerance. The document introduces Pivotal's solution, called the Enterprise Data Fabric (EDF), which is designed to mine the gap between strong consistency and availability. The EDF uses service entities, membership roles, and configurable consistency levels to optimize for consistency and availability based on data and workflow requirements. It exploits parallelism and caches data to improve performance across distributed and global deployments.
Virtualized environments have become standard for organizations seeking benefits like reduced costs and flexibility. However, infrastructure elements often remain separated. Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) integrates compute, storage, and networking through software to provide these benefits. This document examines the pros and cons of HCI for small and medium-sized businesses, discussing how HCI simplifies management but may also create challenges around security, staffing needs, and scalability.
VDI-in-a-Box is a simple virtual desktop solution that reduces costs through integrated connection brokering, provisioning, load balancing and profile management. It provides virtual desktops to any user on any device for less than new PCs. The solution simplifies deployment and management of virtual desktops and scales easily by adding more standard servers. It ensures high availability without complex shared storage or load balancing components.
Sql server 2012_and_intel_e7_processor_more_capability_and_higher_value_for_m...Dr. Wilfred Lin (Ph.D.)
This document discusses how Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and Intel Xeon E7 series processors provide a powerful platform for mission-critical databases. Key capabilities include built-in support for enterprise analytics, big data integration, and hybrid cloud extensibility. When combined, SQL Server 2012 and Intel Xeon E7 processors deliver high performance, scalability, reliability and integrated analytics capabilities for transactional databases and data warehouses.
This document provides an overview of the new features in Microsoft SQL Server 2008, including enhancements that make it more trusted, productive, and intelligent. Key updates include improved security features like transparent data encryption, enhanced high availability options like automatic page repair for database mirroring, and new management capabilities like the policy-based framework to simplify administration.
Hosted desktop and evolution of hardware server technologies - 2015 editionAhmed Sallam
Three key server hardware technologies are shaping the future of Desktop Virtualization:
1. Hardware-Assisted System Virtualization.
2. Hardware-Assisted System Security
3. Hardware Servers Physicalization.
This paper covers the three of them.
VDI allows organizations to virtualize desktops by running them as virtual machines on centralized servers rather than individual physical machines. The document discusses implementing a VDI solution for the City of Hallandale Beach. It estimates that deploying an initial 50 VDIs would cost around $90,000, with additional costs to scale up to 350 VDIs. While VDI provides benefits like easier management and mobility, the costs include new storage, software licenses, thin clients, and implementation fees. ROI is not expected until year 5 due to upfront infrastructure investment.
The white paper compares the user experience of three server management platforms: Dell Management Console, HP Systems Insight Manager, and IBM Systems Director. User experience testing was conducted across 14 administrators performing common management tasks on each platform. Testers rated IBM Systems Director as providing a user experience around 4% better than HP Systems Insight Manager and around 13% better than Dell Management Console based on the graphic user interface, processes, and overall experience. The paper concludes that IBM Systems Director provided administrators with a superior management experience and a reason to select IBM servers when other criteria were equivalent.
Optimize your virtualization_efforts_with_a_blade_infrastructureMartín Ríos
The document discusses the benefits of using a converged and intelligent blade-based infrastructure to optimize virtualization efforts. Key points include:
- Blade servers allow for high-density deployments that support the high performance workloads of virtualized environments. Embedded intelligence in blades can automate management tasks and provide alerts to improve uptime.
- A tightly integrated blade solution with automated storage and network management can simplify tasks like workload migration and optimizing resource utilization across infrastructure components.
- HP offers blade server solutions that leverage built-in intelligence to maximize efficiency of virtualized environments through features like automated monitoring and updating.
The document discusses how hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) from NEC can unify a company's IT systems. HCI combines servers, storage, and networking into a single virtualized system that is managed from one interface. This simplifies IT management and reduces costs. HCI also minimizes maintenance tasks so IT staff can focus on innovation. NEC's HCI is powered by Scale Computing's HC3 software and provides a flexible, scalable solution for companies to simplify their IT infrastructure.
In this paper, the SMB Group examines different cloud computing models and the types of requirements that each can best address, and discusses what midmarket businesses should look for in a cloud solutions provider.
If you’re shopping for DaaS or cloud desktops there are a few questions you should be asking potential vendors regarding price. Below we’ve created a handy slideshare to help ensure you’re comparing apples to apples.
This document discusses the top 10 reasons for using Citrix XenApp for desktop virtualization. XenApp provides a hosted shared virtual desktop that offers lower hardware requirements and reduced storage costs compared to VDI. It allows simplified image management through centralized management. XenApp can meet the needs of the majority of users while addressing niche power users through FlexCast technology. It delivers a Windows desktop experience on a server OS and leverages existing XenApp knowledge. XenApp features HDX technology for an exceptional user experience and supports mobility through Citrix Receiver. Citrix has market leadership in desktop virtualization through XenDesktop and XenApp.
Learn about Virtualization Performance on the IBM PureFlex System. the white paper shows that the IBM PureFlex system can deliver VM consolidation in a heterogeneous, self-contained environment capable of impressive levels of throughput performance. It can dramatically reduce time to production for virtualized data center application operations, providing multiple compute and operating system platforms, advanced storage, and integrated networking in a single manageable system.
This document discusses key infrastructure elements for cloud computing. It describes the evolution of cloud computing from earlier technologies like grid computing. The document outlines an architecture framework for a dynamic data center that leverages virtualization and infrastructure management technologies. It provides examples of how cloud infrastructures have been used for innovation, software development, and data-intensive workloads.
Modular blade server architectures address many challenges facing modern data centers by consolidating computing components into smaller, modular form factors that share resources to lower costs and complexity. Blades can satisfy computing needs for servers, desktops, networking and storage. They provide world-class solutions by delivering high performance, reliability, efficiency and scalability without disruption. Proper planning is required, but blade servers are highly efficient platforms for consolidating distributed servers into a common data center through their small size and ability to maximize resource utilization through virtualization.
This reference architecture document describes deploying the VMware vCloud Enterprise Suite on the IBM PureFlex System hardware platform. Key points:
- The vCloud Suite software provides components for managing and delivering cloud services, while the IBM PureFlex System provides an integrated hardware platform in a single chassis.
- The reference architecture focuses on installing the vCloud Suite management components as virtual machines on an ESXi host to manage consumer resources.
- The IBM PureFlex System provides servers, networking, and storage in a single chassis that can then be easily scaled out. This standardized deployment accelerates provisioning of cloud infrastructure.
- Deployment considerations cover systems management using IBM Flex System Manager, server, networking, storage configurations
The document is a report on cloud computing written by Abdul-Rehman Aslam for his course instructor Mr. Safee. It discusses key topics such as what cloud computing is, the cloud service model of Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service. It also covers the different types of clouds including public, private, hybrid and community clouds. The report highlights the key characteristics of cloud computing such as cost, device and location independence, multi-tenancy, reliability, scalability and security. It concludes that cloud computing brings many possibilities and is a technology that has taken the software and business world by storm.
X-Pod for Citrix VDI on UCS with ISE 700 Hybrid Storage ArrayX-IO Technologies
Validated reference architecture for Citrix XenDesktop on Cisco UCS with X-IO's Hybrid Storage Array. This document covers performance differences between XenDesktop 7.5 MCS and PVS provisioning services.
The document discusses the increasing complexity of distributed computing infrastructures and argues that consolidation onto IBM's zEnterprise platform can help simplify infrastructure management, lower costs, and improve performance and reliability. Specifically:
1) Infrastructure complexity has increased to the point of hindering businesses, as managing many distributed servers running at low utilization becomes difficult.
2) Consolidating workloads through virtualization is needed to regain control, and zEnterprise allows consolidation of Linux, Java, and mainframe workloads on a single system.
3) Running Oracle databases on zEnterprise could improve performance and flexibility while lowering costs through improved utilization and licensing savings.
Software Defined Everything infrastructure that virtualizes compute, network, and storage resources and delivers it as a service. Rather than by the hardware components of the infrastructure, the management and control of the compute, network, and storage infrastructure are automated by intelligent software that is running on the Lenovo x86 platform.
A virtual datacenter provider’s facilities are powered by a robust cloud infrastructure. Its resources (like compute, memory, storage and
bandwidth) are customized to cater to enterprise business needs.
IDC: Selecting the Optimal Path to Private CloudEMC
The document discusses three approaches to building a private cloud infrastructure: integrated infrastructure systems, reference architectures, and building your own systems. It finds that integrated infrastructure systems reduce overall costs by 55% and time to deployment by 65% compared to traditional approaches. Reference architectures also provide advantages in reducing costs by 25% and deployment time by 25%. Both approaches deliver significant benefits in efficiency and agility over building systems independently.
GAI recently acquired another company and needs help integrating their Active Directory forests, which are running different Windows Server versions. As an IT consultant, you have been hired to find a solution to integrate the Active Directory domains across the two locations and address updates to the Active Directory configuration. The solution should address connecting their Houston domain, running Windows Server 2012, to the Richmond domain, running Windows Server 2008 in order to manage users and resources across both locations as the company grows.
Adding Recurring Revenue with Cloud Computing ProfitBricksProfitBricks
Learn how MSPs and VARs are building there recurring revenue streams with cloud computing infrastructure.
The slides from the webinar will show you how your MSP or VAR business can build cloud revenue from the second-generation cloud and migrate your clients to cloud infrastructure without pain.
In these slides, you’ll:
Discover why Cloud 2.0 transformed the cloud and how it now operates just like physical hardware (servers, storage and networks) - and why this is important for MSPs and VARs
Learn how to "sell" the cloud - to even your most reluctant clients
Learn how to assess cloud vendors
Understand how to scale for success with the public cloud
Don’t let the multiple cloud provider options overwhelm you - join our webinar and benefit from our years of experience as MSP and VAR partner vendor to learn key tips and tricks.
Presentation on Cloud Computing by Vivek Atalkar.pptxVivek Atalkar
Cloud computing refers to the delivery of on-demand computing services over the internet. It allows users to access computing resources such as servers, storage, databases, and software applications on a pay-as-you-go basis, without having to own and maintain their own infrastructure.
The key benefit of cloud computing is flexibility. By leveraging cloud services, businesses can quickly scale up or down their computing resources to meet changing demands. This allows them to avoid the high upfront costs and ongoing maintenance expenses associated with owning and operating their own infrastructure.
Another significant benefit of cloud computing is reliability. Cloud providers typically offer high levels of availability and uptime, with service level agreements (SLAs) guaranteeing a certain level of performance. This can help businesses to avoid costly downtime and data loss.
Cloud computing also offers improved security. Cloud providers invest heavily in security measures and technologies to protect their infrastructure and data. This can provide businesses with a level of security that may be difficult or expensive to achieve on their own.
There are several types of cloud computing services, including:
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This involves the provision of virtualized computing resources such as servers, storage, and networking over the internet.
Platform as a Service (PaaS): This provides a platform for building and deploying applications without having to manage the underlying infrastructure.
Software as a Service (SaaS): This provides software applications over the internet, without the need for users to install and maintain their own software.
There are also several deployment models for cloud computing, including public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud. Public cloud involves using computing resources provided by third-party cloud providers, while private cloud involves using dedicated infrastructure that is managed by the organization. Hybrid cloud involves using a combination of both public and private cloud services.
While cloud computing offers many benefits, there are also potential drawbacks to consider. One concern is the risk of vendor lock-in, where businesses become dependent on a single cloud provider and may have difficulty switching to another provider or bringing their services in-house. Additionally, there are concerns about data privacy and security, particularly when sensitive or regulated data is stored in the cloud.
In conclusion, cloud computing offers businesses significant benefits in terms of flexibility, reliability, and security. By leveraging cloud services, businesses can avoid the high upfront costs and ongoing maintenance expenses associated with owning and operating their own infrastructure. However, it is important to carefully consider the potential drawbacks and risks associated with cloud computing, and to choose a cloud provider and deployment model that best meets the organization
This document provides guidelines for using cloud computing. It defines cloud computing as delivering software, infrastructure and storage over the internet. Key benefits include reduced costs, flexibility, automatic updates, increased collaboration and security. The main types of cloud services are Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Best practices include assessing readiness, setting goals, learning from others' experiences, and establishing performance guarantees with providers. The document also outlines Qatar's legal protections for data privacy and security in the cloud.
This white paper discusses the need for differentiated architectures in today's data centers. It outlines Juniper's vision of evolving data centers to a simplified, cloud-ready state. This involves consolidating resources, simplifying networks through a 3-2-1 architecture, and making networks more scalable and efficient for modern applications through techniques like Virtual Chassis technology and a unified fabric. The paper contrasts needs for cost-effective IT data centers versus high-performance production data centers.
This document discusses how to build a private cloud on IBM Power Systems using Tivoli Service Management software. A private cloud can provide cloud-like attributes like self-service provisioning, monitoring, and chargeback within a company's internal IT environment. Tivoli Service Automation Manager is a key tool that allows non-IT users to easily provision new virtual servers from standardized software stacks without IT assistance. IBM Power Systems provide the virtualization, stability, support, and scalability required to support a private cloud environment. When combined with automation and standardization, a private cloud can reduce IT costs through more efficient use of resources and reduced labor.
Juniper Networks' QFabric is an innovative data center fabric that provides a flattened, single-tier network architecture with any-to-any connectivity between devices. This allows for rapid deployment of services by eliminating bottlenecks and simplifying network management. QFabric also improves cost efficiency by reducing complexity, scaling more easily, and lowering power consumption and space needs compared to traditional hierarchical network designs. The document examines the business benefits of QFabric, such as rapid service provisioning, lower costs, increased efficiency, and improved resiliency and security for data center networks.
Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data are powered by the BlueData EPIC software platform - for on-demand provisioning and automation. These integrated solutions enable a cloud-like experience for Big-Data-as-a-Service (BDaaS) while ensuring the enterprise-grade security and performance of on-premises infrastructure.
With Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Big Data, customers can rapidly deploy their analytics and machine learning workloads in a secure multi-tenant architecture, for multiple different user groups running on shared infrastructure. Their users can quickly and easily provision distributed environments for Cloudera, Hortonworks, Kafka, MapR, Spark, TensorFlow, as well as other tools.
The new Ready Solutions include everything that customers need to enable BDaaS on-premises – including BlueData EPIC software as well as Dell EMC hardware, consulting, deployment, and support services.
To learn more, visit www.dellemc.com/bdaas
The document provides a reference architecture for deploying 3000 virtual desktops using Nutanix Complete Clusters with VMware vSphere 5 and View 5. It details the setup of a 50 node Nutanix cluster, including compute, storage, and networking configurations. Performance tests were run using the VMware RAWC tool to simulate a morning login boot storm and daily user workload across the 3000 virtual desktops. Test results showed the infrastructure could handle the workload with predictable performance even at scale.
This document describes best practices for building a hybrid business intelligence environment using a combination of Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Azure, and on-premises data sources. It discusses different hybrid architecture models including using Power BI and Office 365 with data sources in Azure Virtual Machines, SQL Database, HDInsight, and on-premises assets. It also covers security, networking, and configuring Power BI to refresh data from cloud and on-premises sources.
Similar to IBM BCFC White Paper - Why Choose IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud (20)
This IBM Redpaper provides a brief overview of OpenStack and a basic familiarity of its usage with the IBM XIV Storage System Gen3. The illustration scenario that is presented uses the OpenStack Folsom release implementation IaaS with Ubuntu Linux servers and the IBM Storage Driver for OpenStack. For more information on IBM Storage Systems, visit http://ibm.co/LIg7gk.
Visit http://bit.ly/KWh5Dx to 'Follow' the official Twitter handle of IBM India Smarter Computing.
Learn how all flash needs end to end Storage efficiency. For more information on IBM FlashSystem, visit http://ibm.co/10KodHl.
Visit http://bit.ly/KWh5Dx to 'Follow' the official Twitter handle of IBM India Smarter Computing.
Learn about vSphere Storage API for Array Integration on the IBM Storwize family. IBM Storwize V7000 Unified combines the block storage capabilities of Storwize V7000 with file storage capabilities into a single system for greater ease of management and efficiency. For more information on IBM Storage Systems, visit http://ibm.co/LIg7gk.
Visit http://bit.ly/KWh5Dx to 'Follow' the official Twitter handle of IBM India Smarter Computing.
Learn about IBM FlashSystem 840 and its complete product specification in this Redbook. FlashSystem 840 provides scalable performance for the most demanding enterprise class applications. IBM FlashSystem 840 accelerates response times with IBM MicroLatency to enable faster decision making. For more information on IBM FlashSystem, visit http://ibm.co/10KodHl.
Visit http://on.fb.me/LT4gdu to 'Like' the official Facebook page of IBM India Smarter Computing.
Learn about the IBM System x3250 M5,.The x3250 M5 offers the following energy-efficiency features to save energy, reduce operational costs, increase energy availability, and contribute to a green environment, energy-efficient planar components help lower operational costs. For more information on System x, visit http://ibm.co/Q7m3iQ.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/210746104/IBM-System-x3250-M5
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http://www.scribd.com/doc/210745680/IBM-NeXtScale-nx360-M4
The IBM System x3650 M4 HD is a (1) 2-socket 2U rack-optimized server that supports up to 32 internal drives and features an innovative design for optimal performance, uptime, and dense storage. It offers (2) excellent reliability, availability, and serviceability for improved business environments. The server is (3) designed for easy deployment, integration, service, and management.
Here are the product specification for IBM System x3300 M4. This product can be managed remotely.The x3300 M4 server contains IBM IMM2, which provides advanced service-processor control, monitoring, and an alerting function. The IMM2 lights LEDs to help you diagnose the problem, records the error in the event log, and alerts you to the problem. For more information on System x, visit http://ibm.co/Q7m3iQ.
Visit http://on.fb.me/LT4gdu to 'Like' the official Facebook page of IBM India Smarter Computing.
Learn about IBM System x iDataPlex dx360 M4. IBM System x iDataPlex is an innovative data center solution that maximizes performance and optimizes energy and space efficiency. The iDataPlex solution provides customers with outstanding energy and cooling efficiency, multi-rack level manageability, complete flexibility in configuration, and minimal deployment effort. For more information on System x, visit http://ibm.co/Q7m3iQ.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/210744055/IBM-System-x-iDataPlex-dx360-M4
The IBM System x3500 M4 server provides powerful and scalable performance for business applications in an energy efficient tower or rack design. It features the latest Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2 or E5-2600 processors with up to 24 cores, 768GB RAM, 32 hard drives, and 8 PCIe slots. Comprehensive systems management tools and redundant components help ensure high availability, while its small footprint and 80 Plus Platinum power supplies reduce data center costs.
Learn about system specification for IBM System x3550 M4. The x3550 M4 offers numerous features to boost performance, improve scalability, and reduce costs. Improves productivity by offering superior system performance with up to 12-core processors, up to 30 MB of L3 cache, and up to two 8 GT/s QPI interconnect links. For more information on System x, visit http://ibm.co/Q7m3iQ.
Learn about IBM System x3650 M4. The x3650 M4 is an outstanding 2U two-socket business-critical server, offering improved performance and pay-as-you grow flexibility along with new features that improve server management capability. For more information on System x, visit http://ibm.co/Q7m3iQ.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/210741926/IBM-System-x3650-M4
Learn about the product specification of IBM System x3500 M3. System x3500 M3 has an energy-efficient design which works in conjunction with the IMM to govern fan rotation based on the readings that it delivers. This saves money under normal conditions because the fans do not have to spin at high speed. For more information on System x, visit http://ibm.co/Q7m3iQ.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/210741626/IBM-System-x3500-M3
Learn about IBM System x3400 M3. The x3400 M3 offers numerous features to boost performance and reduce costs, x3400 M3 has the ability to grow with your application requirements with these features. Powerful systems management features simplify local and remote management of the x3400 M3. For more information on System x, visit http://ibm.co/Q7m3iQ.
Visit http://on.fb.me/LT4gdu to 'Like' the official Facebook page of IBM India Smarter Computing.
Learn about IBM System 3250 M3 which is a single-socket server that offers new levels of performance and flexibility
to help you respond quickly to changing business demands. Cost-effective and compact, it is well suited to small to mid-sized businesses, as well as large enterprises. For more information on System x, visit http://ibm.co/Q7m3iQ.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/210740347/IBM-System-x3250-M3
Learn about IBM System x3200 M3 and its specifications. The System x3200 M3 features easy installation and management with a rich set of options for hard disk drives and memory. The efficient design helps to save energy and provide a better work environment with less heat and noise. For more information on System x, visit http://ibm.co/Q7m3iQ.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/210739508/IBM-System-x3200-M3
Learn about the configuration of IBM PowerVC. IBM PowerVC is built on OpenStack that controls large pools of server, storage, and networking resources throughout a data center. IBM Power Virtualization Center provides security services that support a secure environment. Installation requires just 20 minutes to get a virtual machine up and running. For more information on Power Systems, visit http://ibm.co/Lx6hfc.
Visit http://on.fb.me/LT4gdu to 'Like' the official Facebook page of IBM India Smarter Computing.
Learn about Ibm POWER7 Virtualization Performance. PowerVM Lx86 is a cross-platform virtualization solution that enables the running of a wide range of x86 Linux applications on Power Systems platforms within a Linux on Power partition without modifications or recompilation of the workloads. For more information on Power Systems, visit http://ibm.co/Lx6hfc.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/210734237/A-Comparison-of-PowerVM-and-Vmware-Virtualization-Performance
Learn how x6: The sixth generation of EXA Technology is fast, agile and Resilient for Emerging Workloads from Alex Yost. Vice President, IBM PureSystems and System x
IBM Systems and Technology Group. x6 drives cloud and big data for enterprises by achieving insight faster thereby outperforming competitors. For more information on System x, visit http://ibm.co/Q7m3iQ.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/210715795/X6-The-sixth-generation-of-EXA-Technology
Lean how Matters Stephen Leonard General Manager Global Markets IBM Systems elucidates the impact of IBM Flex system in businesses which can be instrumental in helping firms to cut their operational down cost. In simple terms “IBM Flex System represents an entirely new generation of technology, with more performance and bandwidth, true integrated enterprise SAN storage.
For more information on Pure Systems, visit http://ibm.co/J7Zb1v.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/210711973/stephen-leonard-ibm-big-data-and-cloud
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Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
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IBM BCFC White Paper - Why Choose IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud
1. 89 Fifth Avenue, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10003
www.TheEdison.com
212.367.7400
White Paper
IBM BCFC White Paper
Why Choose IBM BladeCenter
Foundation for Cloud
2. Printed in the United States of America
Copyright 2011 Edison Group, Inc. New York. Edison Group offers no warranty either
expressed or implied on the information contained herein and shall be held harmless for errors
resulting from its use.
All products are trademarks of their respective owners.
First Publication: November 2011
Produced by: Craig Norris, Sr Analyst; Manish Bhardwaj, Consulting Analyst; Barry Cohen,
Editor-in-Chief; Manny Frishberg, Editor
3. Table of Contents
Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 3
Objective .................................................................................................................................. 3
Audience .................................................................................................................................. 3
Contents of this White Paper ................................................................................................ 3
Characteristics of an Enterprise Data Center Foundation Suitable to
Support Cloud Computing ........................................................................................................ 4
IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud ................................................................................. 6
The Advantages of Using a Single, Trusted Systems Provider........................................ 6
Outstanding Performance ..................................................................................................... 8
Converged Networking .................................................................................................. 9
Bringing it All Together ................................................................................................ 10
Scalability, Agility, and Cost Efficiency ............................................................................ 10
Built-In Server Virtualization with VMware and Open Fabric Manager .............. 11
Scalability Through Architecture................................................................................. 12
Reliability ............................................................................................................................... 12
Redundancy .................................................................................................................... 13
System Attributes Supporting Reliability................................................................... 13
IBM-Backed Quality and Support ............................................................................... 13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................... 14
4. Executive Summary
Enterprise data centers today must be capable of effectively supporting new workloads
such as server virtualization and cloud services. A key challenge in building a platform
for such workloads lies in understanding how the necessary attributes map to the
technology employed in the data center, and how to implement them optimally.
With BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud, IBM has applied decades of experience and
expertise in designing and building data centers for the enterprise. The result is an ideal
“data center in a box” platform, comprised of the latest IBM BladeCenter technologies,
including servers, software, storage, network, and startup services, as well as the next
generation of intelligent processors, the Intel Xeon Processor 5600 Series. It brings
together the industrial-strength performance, scalability, and reliability demanded by
the rapidly expanding workloads in use today.
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud gives organizations a fast, low-risk, reliable path to a
completely virtualized, unified architecture platform. It can be up and running in days
rather than weeks, and comes with the assurance of one-call technical support, provided
by a world-class 24x7x365 support organization.
The major hardware components are manufactured by IBM and exemplify the quality
that has made the IBM brand trusted by the world’s foremost corporations. The
components are interconnected with converged 10 Gbps networking technology with
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCOE) protocol processing. BladeCenter Foundation for
Cloud delivers 3.5 to 7 times greater network bandwidth throughput performance than
that demonstrated by the nearest competitors’ platforms offering virtualized cloud
support.
By building virtualized data centers on BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud,
organizations can drive down total cost of ownership (TCO) in multiple ways. These
include more effective data center management and the ability to leverage the
organization’s capital investments in IT assets. Offering the capacity to enable greater
virtual machine (VM) density, the platform can support much more efficient utilization
of physical server resources.
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud also delivers considerable flexibility and scalability,
enabling organizations to easily add, move, or remove VMs as needed. Blade servers can
also be replaced without requiring reconfiguration, and can be added to scale up the
data center on an as-needed basis. The solution can also extend to a cloud environment
with no need for infrastructure rip and replace.
Edison: IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud White Paper Page 1
5. The solution takes full advantage of the simpler, centralized management enabled by
virtualization, allowing organizations to manage a heterogeneous data center from a
single console. In contrast, some comparable virtualization platforms on the market only
allow management of proprietary components.
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud reduces risk by providing a highly resilient and
reliable platform with no single point of failure. It features redundancy in many critical
components, as well as automated network and storage address virtualization for faster
failover recovery and greater availability. IBM’s unique Predictive Failure Analysis also
ensures availability by system component monitoring: it can notify administrators or
trigger automated preemptive action itself, to avert potential system failure.
Edison: IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud White Paper Page 2
6. Introduction
Objective
This paper describes the value IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud can bring to the
enterprise. As a “data center in a box,” it combines software, server, storage,
networking, and startup services, all pre-tested to operate together as an integrated
whole, and it is supported by one of the world’s premier systems vendors.
Audience
This paper presents information that will be useful to business organizations seeking to
quickly establish a virtualized data center infrastructure in support of new workloads
such as cloud services, and will also be useful to consultants serving such customers.
Contents of this White Paper
This white paper contains the following major sections:
Characteristics of an Enterprise Data Center Foundation Suitable to Support
Cloud Computing — Discusses the attributes required for a data center solution
built to support new workloads such as cloud computing.
IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud — Covers the value the IBM BladeCenter
Foundation for Cloud delivers, including the advantages of using a single, trusted
systems provider: outstanding performance and reliability along with scalability,
agility, and cost efficiency.
Conclusion — Wraps up the white paper with Edison Group’s conclusions based on
the contents of the paper.
Edison: IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud White Paper Page 3
7. Characteristics of an Enterprise Data Center
Foundation Suitable to Support Cloud Computing
The exciting and promising trends emerging in information technology today — such as
utility, service-oriented, virtualized, and cloud computing — involve new workloads
that demand robust, advanced IT platforms. Such platforms can be difficult to
implement and tricky to configure, since they consist of multiple hardware and software
elements that all must operate together as an integrated whole.
One of the challenges in building a data center system capable of effectively supporting
these new workloads lies in grasping how its required attributes map to the technology.
It is not a simple matter, such as, “Throw more processing power, storage and
bandwidth at the problem,” or “We need to use a lot of data, so we’ll deploy a lot of
storage capacity.” The attributes required for a data center solution built to support new
workloads are more abstract and rely on a synthesis of technological capabilities. Those
attributes include:
Unified Architecture — The data center solution must tie together servers,
networking, storage, virtualization, and software into an optimized, cohesive whole
that delivers functionality beyond the sum of its parts.
Performance — The performance of the combined elements working together as a
unified architecture must meet the demanding expectations of today’s businesses.
The challenge here lies in the existence of multiple potential bottlenecks. Addressing
this requires solid expertise and thorough testing.
Scalability — Architectures that limit scalability can result in considerable expense in
the future if, for instance, the data center solution needs to be ripped and replaced to
extend to a cloud environment. The data center solution must offer the ability to
expand flexibly and to easily accommodate growing and evolving workloads over
time. It should also offer manageability within an existing infrastructure, while
remaining flexible enough to adapt to changes.
Reliability — A data center solution on which many operations rely cannot afford
downtime or sporadic availability. This is particularly true in a cloud solution that is
serving other cost centers or business customers, and which must comply with
service level agreements.
Simplicity – IT administrators must support ever increasing numbers of applications
and amounts of data. The advent of infrastructures that can support cloud
computing presents new challenges involving selection, deployment, and
Edison: IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud White Paper Page 4
8. management of the solution, increasing potential complexity. Offerings that are easy
to order and easy to deploy will deliver more value to organizations.
Additionally, with businesses even more cost-conscious than ever, a data center solution
must yield an acceptable return on investment and, ideally, minimize total cost of
ownership over time.
Edison: IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud White Paper Page 5
9. IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud
Clearly, building a data center solution demands considerable thought and planning as
well as deep technical expertise. Having provided solutions for the data center since
data centers were first conceived, IBM can be expected to design and deliver highly
reliable and efficient end-to-end solutions for the data center of today.
This is certainly the case with the IBM’s BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud virtualized
server platform. A comprehensive, converged platform that incorporates elements
providing network, servers, storage, and management functionality, BladeCenter
Foundation for Cloud enables rapid deployment of a complete virtualized data center
solution. The entire solution can be deployed and in production in a matter of days,
rather than weeks.
The Advantages of Using a Single, Trusted Systems
Provider
A virtualized cloud foundation needs to fully integrate the several
disparate components that comprise it. Given the complexity
involved, it makes sense to rely on a single provider that
manufactures and/or offers expertise in all the key components and
architecture involved.
IBM has been building and servicing data centers for decades, with a
proven reputation for high quality and innovative technology. Its
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud is built on technologies deployed
at thousands of customer sites the world over. The BladeCenter
Foundation for Cloud embodies virtualization implementation and
best practices gained from IBM’s extensive experience in helping
businesses to plan, develop, test, and optimize virtualized
computing deployments.
Organizations deploying IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud benefit from:
Reduced risk because BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud is factory-tested to provide
integrated operation of a “data center in a box,” ensuring interoperability of its
components. All BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud configurations have been
through rigorous performance analysis, design, and support for architectures based
on leading technology strategies. Among these are server virtualization, converged
Edison: IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud White Paper Page 6
10. Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) networking, and fiber channel storage. The
configurations all have centralized management, with proactive monitoring and
alerting installed.
Reduced complexity, with incorporation of only a few separate components into a
fully integrated, ready-to-run solution.
Reduced time to productivity, as well as reduced downtime attributable to
deployment and configuration. Installation can be accomplished in a matter of days.
Unified management architecture with ability to manage the entire infrastructure.
Enhanced reliability due to single-point-of-contact technical support for the entire
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud solution, backed by IBM’s premier worldwide
24x7x365 support organization.
Table 1 below provides an overview of the components comprised in IBM BladeCenter
Foundation for Cloud configurations.
Table 1: IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud Standard Configuration Details
Component Description
IBM BladeCenter H Chassis and HS22V blades with
Virtualization Management
Intel Xeon 5659 2.53 GHz 6-core processors and 96 GB
and Compute Nodes
memory
IBM System x 3550 M3 1U server with dual-socket
Server Management Node
Intel Xeon 5620 2.4 GHz 4-core processors
IBM BNT 10 Gb Ethernet Virtual Fabric Switch
Ethernet Switches module for normal operations and 1 Gb Ethernet
switches for out-of-band management
Dual-channel 10 GbE Virtual Fabric Adapter with
Ethernet Adapter
FcoE capability on each blade
IBM BNT switch module with QLogic Virtual Fabric
Fibre Channel SAN switch
Extension Module for SAN connectivity
Storage Servers IBM System Storage DS3524
Storage Expansion IBM EXP3000 storage expansion units
Blade Operating System VMware vSphere 4.1 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition 64-bit; IBM
Server Management Node
Systems Director including Active Energy Manager;
Software
BladeCenter Open Fabric Manager
Edison: IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud White Paper Page 7
11. Component Description
Virtualization Management VMware vCenter Server 4.1
Node Software
Rack Cabinet IBM e1350 42U Rack Cabinet
Examples of Predefined Configurations
Four compute blades, redundant 10G FCoE
Small networking, direct connections to LAN/SAN, 7.2 TB
storage, VMware Enterprise and vCenter Licensing
Fourteen HS22V compute blades, redundant 10 G
Medium FCoE networking, direct connections to LAN/SAN, 29
TB storage, VMware Enterprise and vCenter Licensing
Twenty-eight compute blades, redundant 10G FCoE
Large networking, direct connections to LAN/SAN, 58 TB
storage VMware Enterprise and vCenter Licensing
Additional compute nodes can be added after
Expansion nodes
installation
Outstanding Performance
Products built with IBM’s innovative technology have consistently outperformed
comparable products from competitors. The products incorporated as components of the
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud are no exception.
One example is the IBM BladeCenter HS22V blade servers that form the heart of the
virtualized data center environment. These servers provide superior performance, with
support for the latest Intel Xeon processors, maximum memory capacity, fast memory
throughput, and high-speed I/O. The same holds true for the IBM System x3550 M3
server, which is used to manage the entire system.
Used in both the BladeCenter HS22V blade servers and the System x3550 M3 server, the
Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series delivers up to 15x1 performance per server over 2-
socket single-core servers. 1 Representing the next generation of intelligent processors,
1Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on
Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific
computer systems, components, software, operations, and functions. Any change to any of those factors
may cause the results to vary.
Edison: IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud White Paper Page 8
12. they increase efficiency by intelligently adjusting server performance according to the
data center’s workload needs.
IBM’s BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud offers higher performance and more scalable
networking than competing solutions. The result is 3.5- to 7-times greater network
bandwidth, with 200 Gbps aggregate uplink bandwidth per chassis and 14.3 Gbps
bandwidth per blade.
The higher performance of the IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud translates into
highly efficient and better performing applications. For example, due to the above-
mentioned bandwidth, migration of virtual machines is 10-18 times faster than with
other solutions.
Intelligent VMready® VM-aware network switches provide visibility into the
virtualized environment. This enables management of both physical and virtual
switches from a single console, and centralized management of VM groups across data
centers. Virtual Fabric breaks the I/O bottleneck and simplifies deployment by boosting
switching performance.
Converged Networking
In a unified architecture, best-of-breed excellence in individual components is only part
of the story. The networking technology tying those components together also must
deliver top-notch performance. The converged networking technology used in
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud boosts system performance with 10 Gbps speed, and
full hardware offload with Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) protocol processing.
Advanced 10 Gbps bandwidth can eliminate performance bottlenecks in the I/O path
with a tenfold data rate improvement over older 1 Gbps Ethernet solutions.
Additionally, full hardware offload for FCoE processing reduces system CPU utilization
for I/O operations, delivering faster application performance and higher levels of
consolidation in virtualized systems.
The IBM approach to a converged network environment is unique, because all the
converged I/O traffic is contained within the chassis. The solution is pre-wired to
provide seamless integration, without any management overhead of converged
technologies. Therefore, there is no need to rip and replace existing investments in the
fiber channel infrastructure.
The converged I/O traffic is segregated into pure IP and SAN traffic at the IBM
BladeCenter chassis boundary. This approach ensures that data centers can readily
integrate FCoE into existing environments, lowering TCO immediately without having
Edison: IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud White Paper Page 9
13. to actively manage individual FCoE components within the chassis. It also reduces costs
and management complexity, by requiring fewer components than traditional Local
Area and Storage Area Network (LAN/SAN) setups.
Bringing it All Together
Perhaps most important to performance, however, is the expertise applied to selecting
the components and infrastructure elements, assessing their compatibility, testing their
interoperation as a unified system, and diagnosing and addressing any performance
bottlenecks. This is the unseen ingredient that helps ensure rapid, low-risk, and trouble-
free deployment of BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud.
Scalability, Agility, Simplicity, and Cost Efficiency
An increasingly popular approach to improving data center efficiencies is consolidation
through server virtualization – specialized software allowing multiple servers running
as virtual machines (VMs) to operate on a single physical server. By virtualizing and
consolidating servers, data centers can increase the utilization of hardware and decrease
the number of physical assets requiring deployment, maintenance, and management.
Virtualization allows applications to be consolidated into a more efficient
implementation, such as IBM has designed with BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud.
Virtualization simplifies IT while cutting costs for equipment, energy, physical space,
and management. Organizations that build virtualized data centers upon BladeCenter
Foundation for Cloud can drive down their total cost of ownership in multiple ways,
including enabling more effective management and leveraging the organization’s capital
investments in IT assets.
The Intel Xeon 5600 Series processors used in the solution automatically regulate power
consumption and intelligently adjust server performance according to the data center’s
application needs, maximizing both energy efficiency and performance. This powerful
combination results from the new Intel 32nm microarchitecture. Featuring Intel
Intelligent Power Technology, it reduces energy costs over single-core servers by
automatically shifting the CPU and memory into the lowest available power state that
can still deliver the needed performance. These processors can help reduce energy costs
by up to 95 percent.2
2Performance and power comparisons are based on estimated server-side Java benchmark results (Intel
Corporation Jan 2010). Platform power was estimated during the steady state window of the benchmark run
and at idle. Performance gain compared to baseline was 15x.
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14. IBM System Networking’s unique VMready software runs on the IBM BNT switch that
is part of the BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud solution, eliminating use of CPU cycles
for its operation. It makes the entire network VM-aware, automatically discovering and
identifying virtual machines in the data center. The network can be configured and
managed for thousands of virtual ports without manual intervention. VMready
automatically tracks migrating VMs, enabling organizations to manage VMs as they are
added, moved, or removed while retaining the same ACLs, QoS, and VLAN attributes.
It can simplify management by grouping similar VMs together. VMready works with all
major virtualization offerings, including VMware, Microsoft’s Hyper-V, Xen, and KVM,
and provides “single pane of glass” management for both VMready switches and ESX
vSwitches. It also delivers a rich repository of VM information, such as IP addresses, VM
name, and ESX server location via both visual displays and reporting.
Built-In Server Virtualization with VMware and Open Fabric Manager
IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud uses industry-leading server virtualization
technology from VMware, as well as BladeCenter Open Fabric Manager (BOFM), as the
heart of its virtualization platform. The VMware software provides the server
virtualization capability, while BOFM virtualizes LAN/SAN configurations, providing a
single point of I/O address management that can be deployed across as many as 256
chassis. It allows for replacement of blades with no reconfiguration required.
In addition to scalability and flexible agility, the virtualization capabilities of
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud reduce TCO due to factors that include:
Efficient utilization of CPU resources – Non-virtualized hardware servers typically
operate at as little as 10 percent utilization levels. Virtualized servers can typically
utilize as much as 80 percent of physical server resources, depending upon VM
density. Combined with the advantages provided by the Intel Intelligent Power
Technology in the Intel Xeon Processor 5600 Series, this strategy delivers the highest
cost efficiency in processor usage.
Ease of centralized management – Virtualized servers enable more efficient,
centralized management, and IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud fully leverages
this capability. With a high-performance IBM x3550 M3 as the engine driving
enterprise management software, including IBM Director, organizations can manage
a heterogeneous data center from a single console.
Efficient utilization of power – An energy-smart design as well as integrated power
management capabilities help drive optimal utilization of valuable power and
cooling resources. The single console provided by IBM Director on the x3550 M3 can
be used to monitor and manage key energy metrics, such as power, cooling,
temperature, and airflow, to ensure optimal efficiency and minimize energy costs.
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15. Consolidated networking – 10Gb Converged Network Adapters (CNA) combined
with the top-of-rack FCoE switches mentioned earlier, can improve TCO. By
consolidating Fibre Channel and Ethernet traffic, this technology helps organizations
significantly reduce power, cooling, and cabling costs by using a single adapter for
TCP/IP and Fibre Channel traffic.
Less maintenance – Consolidation of servers through virtualization means that there
are fewer physical assets to maintain and service, driving down both capital
expenses and time spent by technical support staff.
Efficient utilization of data center floor space – Consolidating many hardware
servers into few considerably reduces a data center’s requirements for expensive
commercial real estate space.
Scalability Through Architecture
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud brings a high degree of flexibility to the data center,
allowing organizations to deploy immediately, then scale as their business requirements
evolve. Standard configurations are available that support approximately 150 VMs, up
to 500 VMs, and up to over 1,000 VMs. However, BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud
enables additional granular scalability using a number of approaches:
More memory can be added per blade.
Additional physical servers can be added as required, up to the maximum number
of available blade slots per system.
The IBM System Storage DS3500 fibre channel storage unit used in BladeCenter
Foundation for Cloud scales from 7.2 TB to 58 TB.
The platform can extend to a cloud environment simply through additional software
functionality (IBM Service Delivery Manager). No infrastructure rip-and-replace,
with its attendant disruption to business continuity, is required.
Reliability
In a virtualized data center capable of consolidating considerable IT resources, reliability
and resilience become even more critical than on a traditional platform. Organizations
need assurance that placing more resources on fewer physical servers will not risk major
resource unavailability. BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud provides that assurance by
delivering a highly resilient and reliable environment with no single point of failure.
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16. Redundancy
Redundancy in the BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud is built-in at the component level.
The IBM BladeCenter HS22V blade servers are equipped with redundant 2980W power
supplies, redundant Advanced Management Modules, two 10 Gbps virtual fabric
switches, and two virtual fabric extension modules. The BladeCenter H chassis also
offers redundant connectors from the blade to the mid-place for power and I/O, two
N+N power domains, and two AC and DC chassis power buses. The high-performance
DS3500 fibre channel storage unit, too, has dual controllers built in.
System Attributes Supporting Reliability
IBM designs systems with reliability uppermost in mind, and much of the functionality
of features within the BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud environment – even where
those features have other primary goals – is intended to enhance overall reliability. Some
of the more notable factors supporting reliability include:
BladeCenter Open Fabric Manager enhances resiliency by automating network and
storage address virtualization; this facilitates faster failover recovery and less
disruptive expansion.
The ability of IBM VMready to track migrating VMs assists in rapidly moving VMs
to other blades, minimizing downtime for maintenance or replacement of hardware.
Predictive Failure Analysis, a management tool only available on IBM systems,
monitors vital system components for maximum availability. It can notify
administrators in advance of possibly impending hardware failures, and can be used
in BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud to trigger preemptive action, automatically
averting problems that might impact availability before they occur.
IBM-Backed Quality and Support
Backing up the quality of products and technology for which it is known, IBM puts an
extensive and highly available support organization behind its installations. The vendor
helps organizations optimize their investments in technology by offering a single point
of serviceability, backed by experience, education, support, and training. This coverage
also extends to third-party components incorporated into BladeCenter Foundation for
Cloud, enabling compatibility among a variety of IBM and partner products. For
example, Emulex 10 GbE Virtual Fabric Adapters and QLogic Virtual Fabric Extension
Modules are part of the IBM ServerProven program. This is important to avoid the
vendor finger pointing that, in unified architectures consisting of multiple products, can
so often result in costly, drawn-out downtime.
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17. Conclusion
The IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud sets the standard for highly efficient and
reliable virtualized server platforms that provide a unified architecture in a matter of
days, with minimal risk. Aside from impressive quality and intelligent design
throughout, the platform offers features and/or functionality that set it apart from any
comparable virtualization platforms available.
Noteworthy factors to be aware of include:
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud simplifies management by enabling single-
console management of a heterogeneous data center, including non-IBM network
devices and network storage from other vendors.
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud reduces operating expenses and maximizes
reliability by enabling organizations to set up automated event action plans,
allowing for the definition of tasks based on hardware alerts, and to automate
custom scheduled tasks.
Aside from built-in server virtualization using VMware technology, BladeCenter
Foundation for Cloud can use any major virtualization solutions, including Xen,
KVM, or Hyper-V.
BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud offers Virtual Machine Image Management,
which greatly expedites VM management.
IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud provides rapid return on investment and drives
down total cost of ownership in a multitude of ways. It has no single point of failure,
and IBM’s excellent and highly responsive technical support organization ensures
reliability even further. All of which makes BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud a
solution that no organization currently providing or planning to implement cloud-based
services can afford to overlook.
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