Flexpod

The decision was announced on October 10, 2010, two years later Cisco announced the installation of FlexPod in 1300 organizations from 35 countries, NetApp claims that an average of two FlexPods are sold daily ^[1] .

At the beginning of 2013, about 700 distribution companies of FlexPod products, 900 FlexPod distributors and 6 thousand FlexPod Express distributors were reported as of the beginning of 2014, total revenue of $ 3 billion and 4.1 thousand client organizations was announced in June 2014 using FlexPod equipment and ^[2] (at the beginning of 2014 - 3.2 thousand customers, at the beginning of 2013 - about 2.1 thousand, in November 2012 - 1.5 thousand, in July 2012, - 1.3 thousand, in November 2011 - 400 ^[3] ). About 440 new customers were added to the list of those who bought the FlexPod solution by the provider company Datalink in 2013 ^[4] .

In July 2013, FlexPod Select solution was introduced using NetApp E-Series storage systems with direct connection to the Cisco UCS C-series servers and focused on solving big data problems using the Hadoop ecosystem tools (with support for distributions from Cloudera and ).

In August 2013, the lineup was revised and the systems were divided into series according to target applications: the “classic” FlexPod, which appeared in 2010, was renamed FlexPod Datacenter and positioned for data centers, the solution for medium-sized businesses was called FlexPod Express (previously called ExpressPod ).

According to the 2013 IDC report, the Cisco - Netapp group with FlexPod solutions ranks second in the global market for pre-integrated infrastructure and platform hardware systems with a share of 15.4% with a total market volume of $ 1.3 billion per quarter, second only to Oracle , which has a share of 23 3% ^[5] .

On March 2, 2017, NetApp, together with Cisco and Docker, announced the launch of the Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) containerization platform with the Docker Datacenter on the FlexPod Datacenter architecture. On November 3, 2017, NetApp and Cisco and Red Hat announced the launch of FlexPod SF with Red Hat OpenStack Platform. On June 22, 2017, NetApp and Cisco announced the launch of the new FlexPod SF line with NetApp SolidFire storage.

FlexPod Datacenter, FlexPod Select, and FlexPod SF come as a 42- unit pre-assembled telecommunications cabinet filled with storage devices, server and network equipment (direct connection without a network can be used in FlexPod Select). There are also open specifications, according to which you can assemble one of these configurations yourself from existing components of the solution. FlexPod Express (formerly ExpressPod) is a smaller, simplified and cheaper version of FlexPod Datacenter, and is housed in a box of 24 units or assembled in a customer’s telecommunications cabinet .

FlexPod configurations consist of the following components:

• network part required for FlexPod Express, FlexPod Datacenter FlexPod SF: Cisco Nexus ,
• the network part may not be used in FlexPod Select, in this scheme storage systems are connected directly to the servers, although in FlexPod Select you can also use Nexus switches as a layer for connecting storage systems and servers,
• the network part may not be used in the FlexPod Express UCS-managed configuration, where it is performed directly by turning on the storage system in Fabric Interconnect, but in this FlexPod architecture the switches are still a mandatory part, which act as a fault-tolerant network core for connecting traffic from end users to the servers such switches must support technology similar to the Multi Chassis Etherchannel ,
• computing part: servers and management software Cisco UCS ,
• storage system: NetApp FAS , NetApp E-Series and NetApp SolidFire.

Networking

The network part consists of Cisco Nexus series switches. Each FlexPod configuration includes duplicated Nexus 3000 switches or Nexus 5000 series switches, or Nexus 7000 series switches , or Nexus 9000. Nexus 2000 devices can be used to increase the number of switch ports. Based on Nexus 5000 and Nexus 7000 converged switches it is possible to configure a storage area network ( SAN ) for iSCSI , FC and FCoE protocols , and for FAS storage systems also network storage ( NAS ) for CIFS and NFS , simultaneously on the same equipment in this series. Thus, universal converged switches allow you to save investment and provide greater flexibility in case of need to reconfigure. In solutions based on the Nexus 3000 and Nexus 9000, only the Ethernet link-layer protocol of the OSI network model is available, which makes it possible to use only iSCSI protocols, as well as CIFS and NFS . Depending on the tasks, the connection scheme may vary slightly. With FlexPod Select, storage devices can connect directly to servers without switches using SAS connections or use Cisco Catalyst, Nexus, or MDS switches. For E-Series storage systems using iSCSI , only an Ethernet connection with a bandwidth of 10 Gb / s and higher is available. FlexPod Datacenter can also use the Nexus 1000 or Nexus 1000V series network switches. The FlexPod SF solution uses the Nexus 9000b 7000 and 50,000 switch, which allows you to connect the NetApp SolidFire storage system via iSCSI. Although the storage architecture also allows FC connections, it is not used in the FlexPod SF architecture. The architecture of SolidFire storage systems does not require dedicated cluster switches if iSCSI protocol is used, since storage network switches are used for these purposes, and in the case of FC protocol, two additional dedicated gateway nodes that are designed as servers are additionally required. Storage network switches are indispensable for SolidFire storage architecture; direct storage connectivity is not supported.

Computing part

The x86 Cisco UCS servers manage software-level resources by virtualizing server hardware, network infrastructure, and access to a storage network or storage through virtual MAC and WWN addresses. If the server fails, its role will be transferred to another server without any reconfiguration of the virtual local networks or switches.

FlexPod can be used with either a Cisco chassis with blade servers , Cisco standard horizontal rackmount servers, or a combination of both. A prerequisite for the FlexPod Datacenter is the Cisco Fabric Interconnect (FI) modules - specialized equipment for switching and managing Cisco servers. To connect to FI, special FEX adapters are used - two boards that are inserted into the rear panel of each chassis, and in the case of servers with standard horizontal mounting in the C-series rack, the Cisco Nexus 2232PP acts as the FEX adapter. Up to 20 chassis can be connected to one 6200 Series FI module. Each chassis accommodates 8 half or 4 full blade servers. Starting with UCS Manager 2.1, Single-Wire Integration technology ^{[6] is} supported, which allows for both data exchange and control for servers with horizontal installation via a single cable. Fabric Interconnect firmware version 2.2 adds support for direct connection of Cisco servers without the need for Cisco FEX (including the Nexus 2232PP). In the UCS-Mini solution, instead of FEX adapters for the chassis with blade servers, smaller Fabric Interconnect 6300 versions are installed with a maximum number of supported servers of 15 pieces (8 blade servers and 7 directly connected servers with horizontal mounting), which makes such a solution cheaper for medium and small business. The equipment of the Nexus 2000 series is often also called FEX adapters, as they functionally perform the same tasks.

Storage System

In the case of using NetApp E-Series or NetApp FAS, the data storage system must be in dual-controller design - for fault tolerance. For the NetApp FAS storage system, both types of Netapp operating systems can be used: DataOntap 7-Mode and DataOntap Cluster-Mode (in cluster mode). For NetApp FAS storage systems using the DataOntap Cluster-Mode operating system, they support direct inclusion of cluster interconnect starting from version 8.2. In the case where the FAS storage system cluster consists of more than two nodes, two dedicated cluster switches are required that are used exclusively for the needs of storage systems, which cannot be used for other needs. There are various options for connecting to storage systems using protocols: CIFS , NFS , iSCSI , FC or FCoE . The FlexPod Select configuration with NetApp E-Series uses direct connectivity using FC , iSCSI (10GB Ethernet), or SAS connectivity.

In the NetApp SolidFire storage system architecture, data switches simultaneously provide both cluster and iSCSI connectivity. FC connectivity requires two dedicated gateway nodes and is not used in the FlexPod SF architecture. The minimum required number of nodes for the functioning of the SolidFire storage system is 4. In the FlexPod SF solution, the SolidFire storage system is based on the Cisco UCS C220 servers.

The first solution on the market was FlexPod for the VMware vSphere virtualization platform. Along with this solution, solutions are also available for Microsoft Hyper-V , for the Citrix XenDesktop virtualization platform (based on the Xen hypervisor ), for SharePoint and Exchange Server , for cloud-based deployment of SAP applications, for the Oracle Database cluster configuration - Oracle RAC and Red Hat OpenStack Platform. For FlexPod Express, two versions of the hypervisor operating systems installed on the servers are available - Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi . The FlexPod Datacenter also has a reference design for the Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) containerization platform. FlexPod Select was developed to use Hadoop tools with distributions from Cloudera and .

Cisco UCS Director

Formerly known as the Cloupia Unified Infrastructure Controller, it was renamed the Cisco UCS Director (UCSD), after purchasing this startup in 2012, Cisco Systems Acquisition List . UCSD is supplied as a virtual machine and consists of several parts, acts as an orchestra and provides FlexPod resources as a service in the form of a private PaaS or IaaS cloud and supports Multitenancy. UCSD has API integration with storage systems NetApp, Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus and various hypervisors, including Vmware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Xen. UCSD allows you to record and play back recurring actions by API means in the form of so-called Workflows using previously prepared resource pools such as available VLAN numbers, UCS server profiles, storage system resources, and so on. Once created, ready-made workflows can be provided as services through a self-service web portal through which they can be ordered by resource consumers. UCSD also includes billing for calculating consumed resources and a bare-metal agent for installation on new operating system servers. An optional component of FlexPod architecture and is available separately.

Each FlexPod unit ( unit ) may vary depending on the initial configuration. When the FlexPod unit is built, it can be resized depending on the needs. The architecture can be expanded (by adding resources) or reduced (by removing resources, for example, to add another unit).

FlexPod can scale both vertically - to increase performance and disk space, and horizontally - to provide multiple consistent deployments.

Scale up

FlexPod configuration is not fixed. The reference configuration is used as a starting point for the subsequent scaling of resources (computing, network, storage) with increasing complexity. The main components of FlexPod are designed to scale by adding shelves with disks, servers and network components.

Computing Systems

Server infrastructure can be scaled by adding UCS-B blade servers, horizontally rack mounted UCS-C servers, or both. Additional servers become part of a single UCS management domain.

Zooming in

With horizontal scaling, multiple storage systems can be combined into one NetApp FAS or NetApp SolidFire cluster.

Storage System

FlexPod SF solution uses NetApp SolidFire storage system, which must have at least 4 nodes for operation with built-in flash drives of equal capacity (the use of hard drives is not supported - only SSDs are used; dedicated shelves for drives are not provided). Scaling is carried out by adding nodes with pre-installed drives, piecewise addition of devices is not provided. There are several models of nodes that differ in capacity and speed, different models can coexist within the same cluster.

Several options are available for expanding the originally installed storage system in FlexPod Select, FlexPod Express, or FlexPod Datacenter by capacity or I / O.

• Connecting additional shelves to the storage system, while the capacity can be expanded without shutting down the system.
• On-site upgrade with the initial use of the FAS2240 or FAS255x, whose chassis is converted to a standard disk shelf. After adding the NetApp FAS controller, all services will work as before. There is no need to completely replace the system or transfer or convert data, which eliminates the need for serious effort and significant time costs.
• You can add another NetApp storage system to your configuration.

FlexPod Datacenter

Designed for medium and large businesses, it uses Nexus 5000, Nexus Nexus 7000 or Nexus 9000 network switches, and can be used as an addition to the FEX Nexus 2000 series extenders for vertical scaling of the network. All NetApp FAS family of storage systems are used, except NextApp FAS 2220 and FAS 2520. In the computational part, Cisco UCS B-series blade servers are usually used, but Cisco UCS C-series servers can also be used, a required component in this solution is Cisco Fabric Interconnect For solutions using Micrososft Hyper-V or VMware vSphere virtualization, the Nexus 1000 series switches or the Nexus 1000v virtual switches can be used. Both Nexus 1000 and Nexus 1000V switch series are typically used in VDI solutions. For server virtualization, a Virtual Distributed Switch is used using VM-FEX technology and is located on FabricInterconnect, which allows you to use the physical capabilities of the equipment and faster frame switching, compared to the Nexus 1000v. Instead of hypervisors, the FlexPod Datacenter architecture also supports the Docker Enterprise Edition (EE) application containerization platform. The FlexPod Datacenter architecture includes direct-attached storage configurations in the Cisco Fabric Interconnect, and the Cisco Nexus series switches are a required and integral part of the FlexPod Datacenter architecture : instead of switching the storage system to the servers, the switches are used to connect servers with the network core to provide high-availability network connectivity of users.

FlexPod Express

A separate architecture was created for medium and small businesses (originally called ExpressPod ), focused primarily on the tasks of server virtualization and virtual workplace infrastructure . There are several FlexPod Express configurations : Small , Medium , Large, and UCS-managed, each of which can use one of the Hyper-V or VMWare ESXi hypervisors and the NetApp FAS2220 or FAS2240 storage system.

Small, Medium, Large

FlexPod Express Small , Medium, and Large configurations include Cisco UCS C-Series servers and require Cisco Nexus 3048, 3594, or 9396 switches. Small, Medium, and Large configurations do not have a Cisco Fabric Interconnect.

UCS-managed

FlexPod Express UCS-managed configuration includes Cisco UCS-mini with B-Series and Fabric Interconnect blade servers, and it can also include up to 4 C-Series UCS servers using a 40Gb Fan-Out cable. This configuration requires Cisco Nexus 3048, 3524, or 9396 switches. The UCS-managed configuration supports direct connectivity to the storage network in the Cisco Fabric Interconnect, in which case you can use any switch that supports fault tolerance, like the Multi Chassis Etherchannel.

FlexPod Select

FlexPod Select is used for the distributed computing system of the " big data " class using Hadoop tools; distributions from Cloudera and . It includes UCS-C series servers (using Fabric Interconnect, FEX adapters) and NetApp FAS, E-Series storage systems using one of the connection types: direct connection, Cisco Catalist, Nexus or MDS switches. Provides only “ block ” SAN or DAS connectivity for E-Series systems.

FlexPod SF

FlexPod SF along with FlexPod Datacenter are designed for greater scalability and performance. This design uses the Nexus 9000, 7000, and 5000 network switches. The Cisco UCS B-Series Server Blades are used in the computing part, and Cisco Fabric Interconnect is a required component in this solution. Only the VMware hypervisor is currently supported.

Cisco and NetApp have created a unified support center for FlexPod solutions, where specialists can reproduce a particular environment and diagnose problems. FlexPod Support Center with VMware was created first. Cooperative support centers have also been created in conjunction with SAP , Microsoft , Oracle and Citrix through the TSANet technical alliance. Each of these areas has a dedicated cooperative team of specialists involved in supporting FlexPod solutions. To get “joint support” as a single solution, you must purchase the appropriate services from both Cisco and NetApp. Without the acquisition of such services, support will be provided for individual components of the infrastructure.

Customers can use a confirmed ("validated", English. Validated ) solution or change the configuration (and get an unconfirmed, "unvalidated" solution). Support is provided in both cases, but for confirmed solutions it is possible to reproduce the situation in the joint support laboratory, while for unconfirmed solutions such reproduction is not always possible.

• netapp.com/solutions/cloud/flexpod/ - the official FlexPod site on the NetApp site
• cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns1137/index.html - official FlexPod website on Cisco