emc hybrid cloud 2.5 with vmware: integration with emc vspex

Solution Guide

EMC HYBRID CLOUD 2.5 WITH VMWARE Integration with EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines

EMC Solutions

Abstract

This Solution Guide provides an introduction to integrating the EMC® Hybrid Cloud 2.5 solution with the EMC VSPEX® Private Cloud Proven Infrastructure with VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 virtual machines.

October 2014

2 EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware Integration with EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines

Copyright © 2014 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA.

Published October 2014

EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.

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EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware Integration with EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines

Part Number H13355

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Contents

3 EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware Integration with EMC VSPEX Private Cloud

VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines

Contents

Chapter 1 Executive Summary 5

Document purpose ..................................................................................................... 6

Audience .................................................................................................................... 6

Solution purpose ........................................................................................................ 6

Business challenge .................................................................................................... 7

Technology solution ................................................................................................... 8

Benefits of integration ........................................................................................... 8

Chapter 2 EMC Hybrid Cloud Overview 11

Overview .................................................................................................................. 12

EMC Hybrid Cloud features and functionality ............................................................ 13

Automation and self-service provisioning ............................................................ 13

Multitenancy and secure separation .................................................................... 14

Workload-optimized storage ................................................................................ 14

Elasticity and service assurance .......................................................................... 14

Operational monitoring and management ............................................................ 14

Metering and chargeback .................................................................................... 15

Modular add-on components ............................................................................... 16

Public cloud services ........................................................................................... 17

Chapter 3 VSPEX Private Cloud Overview 19

Overview .................................................................................................................. 20

EMC VSPEX Private Cloud features and functionality ................................................. 21

VSPEX – a proven cloud platform ......................................................................... 22

Chapter 4 Integrated Solution Architecture 23

Overview .................................................................................................................. 24

Key components of the integration solution .............................................................. 24

VMware vSphere 5.5 ............................................................................................ 25

EMC PowerPath/VE .............................................................................................. 25

EMC ViPR ............................................................................................................. 25

EMC VNX and EMC Symmetrix VMAX .................................................................... 26

Solution architecture ................................................................................................ 26

Brownfield versus greenfield deployment ............................................................ 26

EMC Hybrid Cloud architecture ............................................................................. 26

Contents


VSPEX Private Cloud architecture ......................................................................... 28

Software resources ................................................................................................... 29

Chapter 5 Integrated Solution Implementation 31

Integrating the EMC Hybrid Cloud with VSPEX Private Cloud ..................................... 32

Solution integration methods ................................................................................... 32

Chapter 6 Conclusion 33

Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 34

Chapter 7 References 35

EMC documentation ................................................................................................. 36

Figures Figure 1. Hybrid cloud solution stack ................................................................... 7

Figure 2. EMC Hybrid Cloud key components ..................................................... 12

Figure 3. EMC Hybrid Cloud self-service portal ................................................... 14

Figure 4. EMC ViPR Analytics with VMware vCenter Operations Manager ............ 15

Figure 5. IT Business Management Suite overview dashboard for hybrid cloud .. 16

Figure 6. EMC VSPEX Private Cloud key components .......................................... 21

Figure 7. Terminology interaction ....................................................................... 27

Figure 8. Cloud management platform ............................................................... 27

Figure 9. VSPEX management platform (highlighted) ......................................... 28

Tables Table 1. VSPEX features .................................................................................... 22

Table 2. Solution software ................................................................................ 29

Chapter 1: Executive Summary



Chapter 1 Executive Summary

This chapter presents the following topics:

Document purpose ..................................................................................................... 6

Audience .................................................................................................................... 6

Solution purpose........................................................................................................ 6

Business challenge .................................................................................................... 7

Technology solution ................................................................................................... 8



Document purpose

This Solution Guide describes how to integrate the EMC® Hybrid Cloud solution with the EMC VSPEX® Private Cloud solution with VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 virtual machines. The guide introduces the main integration approaches, the solution architectures and key components, and the validated software environment.

This guide is a companion to the EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines Proven Infrastructure Guide, which serves as the design and implementation guide for VMware-based VSPEX private cloud deployments.

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Foundation Infrastructure Reference Architecture and EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Foundation Infrastructure Solution Guide describe the reference architecture and the foundation solution on which all the EMC Hybrid Cloud add-on solutions are built.

The following guides provide further information about how to implement specific capabilities or enable specific use cases within the EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware:

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Data Protection Continuous Availability Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Data Protection Disaster Recovery Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Data Protection Backup Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Hadoop Applications Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Pivotal CF Platform as a Service Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Security Management Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Public Cloud Solution Guide

Audience

This guide is intended for executives, managers, architects, cloud administrators, and technical administrators of IT environments who want to implement VSPEX on a hybrid cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform. Readers should be familiar with the VMware vCloud Suite, storage technologies, general IT functions and requirements, and how they fit into a hybrid cloud architecture.

Solution purpose

The VSPEX Private Cloud Proven Infrastructure for up to 1,000 virtual machines integrated with the EMC Hybrid Cloud solution enables EMC customers to build an enterprise-class, scalable, multitenant infrastructure that enables:

Complete management of the infrastructure service lifecycle

On-demand access to and control of network bandwidth, servers, storage, and security




Provisioning, monitoring, protection, and management of the infrastructure services by the line of business users, without IT administrator involvement

Maximum asset utilization

Application services: A single platform for both business-critical and next-generation cloud applications

This Solution Guide provides a roadmap for the solution and best practice guidance for integrating the EMC Hybrid Cloud with a VMware-based VSPEX Private Cloud deployment to provide the EMC Hybrid Cloud functionality shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. EMC Hybrid Cloud solution stack

Business challenge

Business leaders typically demand that their organization addresses the following fundamental challenges:

Providing shareholder value by increasing revenues

Improving competitiveness by driving business agility

Increasing investment by lowering operational costs

Limited choice of availability and protection services

Vendor lock-in or limited hardware choices

The difficulty in overcoming these challenges has given rise to public cloud providers who have built technology and business models specifically catering to the requirements of end-user agility and control. Many organizations are under pressure to provide these same service levels within the secure and compliant confines of the on-premises data center. As a result, IT departments need to create cost-effective alternatives to public cloud services, alternatives that do not compromise enterprise features such as data protection, disaster recovery, and guaranteed service levels.



As IT organizations implement a hybrid cloud, they must consider the following factors:

The infrastructure must be quick to deploy so that business value can be recognized quickly.

The hybrid cloud infrastructure and operations must be designed to reduce costs through higher utilization and higher staff productivity.

Risk of downtime must be controlled through disaster-avoidance techniques, such as continuous availability, disciplined change control, and careful management of component compatibility.

Support agreements must be established for all elements of the solution.

Technology solution

The EMC Hybrid Cloud solution integrates the best of EMC and VMware products and services, and empowers IT organizations to accelerate implementation and adoption of the hybrid cloud while still enabling customer choice for the compute and networking infrastructure within the data center. The solution caters both to customers who want to further use their existing infrastructure and to those who want to build out new infrastructures dedicated to the hybrid cloud.

The solution takes advantage of the strong integration between EMC technologies and the VMware vCloud Suite developed by the EMC and VMware product and service teams respectively. This includes using EMC scalable storage arrays and integrated EMC and VMware monitoring and data protection suites to ensure that the EMC Hybrid Cloud solution becomes the foundation for enabling IaaS.

This integrated EMC Hybrid Cloud solution with VMware-based VSPEX Private Cloud uses EMC and VMware technologies to enable a scalable IaaS platform with self-service, orchestration, multitenancy, and chargeback capabilities. The platform is modular and extensible, so additional features such as continuous availability can be easily integrated. Vendor lock-in is avoided with VSPEX, which enables customers to deploy the networking and compute infrastructures of their choice.

The components for the EMC Hybrid Cloud solution with the VMware-based VSPEX Private Cloud deployment for up to 1,000 virtual machines are described in Key components of the integration solution.

Integrating a VSPEX Private Cloud solution with an EMC Hybrid Cloud solution includes the following benefits:

VSPEX brings a reference architecture platform into the solution with a known level of performance, availability, and resiliency.

Unallocated physical resources within VSPEX can be made available within the EMC Hybrid Cloud to tenants at a known service level for better resource utilization.

After they are brought into the EMC Hybrid Cloud, resources are enabled for the full scope of automation, monitoring, and management workflows, including:

Self-service virtual machine provisioning

Approval workflows

Benefits of integration




Chargeback

Backup and disaster-recovery policies (if configured)

End-to-end lifecycle management including lease expiry and reclamation

VSPEX configuration and guidance can be extended into the EMC Hybrid Cloud. Blueprints can easily be configured to create reference virtual machines that use all of the enhanced workflows and services.

Existing applications and virtual machines, including VMware vCenter Server instances can be managed separately from the EMC Hybrid Cloud to maintain isolation and eliminate disruption to production VSPEX environments.

Chapter 2: EMC Hybrid Cloud Overview



Chapter 2 EMC Hybrid Cloud Overview


Overview .................................................................................................................. 12

EMC Hybrid Cloud features and functionality ........................................................... 13



Overview

The EMC Hybrid Cloud solution enables a well-run hybrid cloud by bringing new functionality not only to IT organizations, but also to developers, end users, and line-of-business owners. Beyond delivering baseline IaaS, built on a software-defined data center (SDDC) architecture, the solution delivers feature-rich capabilities to expand from IaaS to business-enabling IT as a service (ITaaS). Backup as a service (BaaS) and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) are now policies that users can enable with just a few mouse clicks.

End users and developers can quickly access a marketplace of resources for Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, EMC Syncplicity, and Pivotal applications, and can add third-party packages as required. All of these resources can be deployed on private cloud or public cloud services, including VMware vCloud Air, from EMC-powered cloud service providers.

The EMC Hybrid Cloud solution uses the best of EMC and VMware products and services, and takes advantage of the strong integration between EMC and VMware technologies to provide the foundation for enabling IaaS on new and existing infrastructure for the hybrid cloud.

Figure 2 shows the key components of the EMC Hybrid Cloud solution.

Figure 2. EMC Hybrid Cloud key components

For detailed information, refer to the EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Foundation Infrastructure Solution Guide. For information on EMC Hybrid Cloud modular add-on solutions, which provide functionality such as data protection, continuous availability, and platform as a service, refer to Modular add-on components. For detailed information on the add-on solutions, refer to the individual Solution Guides for those solutions.




EMC Hybrid Cloud features and functionality

The EMC Hybrid Cloud solution incorporates the following features and functionality:

Automation and self-service provisioning

Multitenancy and secure separation

Workload-optimized storage

Elasticity and service assurance

Operational monitoring and management

Metering and chargeback

Modular add-on components

The solution provides self-service provisioning of automated cloud services to both users and infrastructure administrators. The solution uses VMware vCloud Automation Center (vCAC), integrated with EMC ViPR® software-defined storage and VMware vCloud Networking and Security (vCNS) or VMware NSX to provide the compute, storage, network, and security virtualization platforms for the SDDC.

Cloud users can request and manage their own applications and compute resources within established operational policies. This can reduce IT service delivery times from days or weeks to minutes. Automation and self-service provisioning features include:

Self-service portal—Provides a cross-cloud storefront that delivers a catalog of custom-defined services for provisioning workloads based on business and IT policies, as shown in Figure 3

Role-based entitlements—Ensure that the self-service portal presents only the virtual machines, applications, or service blueprints appropriate to a user’s role within the business

Resource reservations—Allocate resources for use by a specific group and ensure that those resources are inaccessible to other groups

Service levels—Define the amount and types of resources that a particular service can receive during initial provisioning or as part of configuration changes

Blueprints—Contain the build specifications and automation policies that define the process for building or reconfiguring compute resources




Figure 3. EMC Hybrid Cloud self-service portal

The solution provides the ability to enforce physical and virtual separation for multitenancy, as strongly as the administrator requires. This separation can encompass network, compute, and storage resources to ensure appropriate security and performance for each tenant.

The solution supports secure multitenancy through vCAC role-based access control (RBAC), which enables vCAC roles to be mapped to Microsoft Active Directory groups. The self-service portal shows only the appropriate views, functions, and operations to cloud users, based on their role within the business.

The solution enables customers to take advantage of the proven benefits of EMC storage in a hybrid cloud environment. Using ViPR storage services, which leverage the capabilities of EMC VNX® and EMC Symmetrix® VMAX® storage systems, the solution provides software-defined, policy-based management of block- and file-based virtual storage. ViPR abstracts the storage configuration and presents it as a single storage control point, enabling cloud administrators to access all heterogeneous storage resources within a data center as if the resources were a single large array.

The solution leverages the capabilities of vCAC and various EMC tools to provide the intelligence and visibility required to proactively ensure service levels in virtual and cloud environments. Infrastructure administrators can add storage, compute, and network resources to their resource pools as needed. Cloud users can select from a range of service levels for compute, storage, and data protection for their applications and can expand the resources of their virtual machines on demand to achieve the service levels they expect for their application workloads.

The solution features automated monitoring and management capabilities that provide IT administrators with a comprehensive view of the cloud environment to enable smart decision-making for resource provisioning and allocation. These automated capabilities are based on a combination of EMC ViPR Storage Resource Management (ViPR SRM), VMware vCenter Log Insight, and VMware




Operational monitoring and management




vCenter Operations Manager (vC Ops), and use EMC plug-ins for ViPR, VNX, VMAX, and EMC Avamar® systems to provide extensive additional storage detail.

Cloud administrators can use ViPR SRM to understand and manage the impact that storage has on their applications and to view their storage topologies from application to disk, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. EMC ViPR Analytics with VMware vCenter Operations Manager

Capacity analytics and what-if scenarios in vC Ops identify over-provisioned resources so they can be right-sized for the most efficient use of virtualized resources. In addition, for centralized logging, infrastructure components can be configured to forward their logs to vCenter Log Insight, which then aggregates the logs from all the disparate sources for analytics and reporting.

The solution uses VMware IT Business Management (ITBM) Suite to provide cloud administrators with comprehensive metering and cost information across all business groups in the enterprise. ITBM Suite is integrated into the cloud administrator’s self-service portal and presents a dashboard overview of the hybrid cloud infrastructure, as shown in Figure 5.




Figure 5. IT Business Management Suite overview dashboard for hybrid cloud

The EMC Hybrid Cloud solution provides modular add-on components for the following services:

Application services

This add-on solution uses VMware vCloud Application Director to optimize application deployment and release management through logical application blueprints in vCAC. Users can quickly and easily deploy blueprints for applications and databases such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint, Oracle, and SAP.

Data protection services

Avamar and EMC Data Domain® systems provide a backup infrastructure that offers features such as deduplication, compression, and VMware integration. By using VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) workflows customized by EMC, administrators can quickly and easily set up multitier data protection policies and enable users to select an appropriate policy when they provision their virtual machines.

Continuous availability

A combination of EMC VPLEX® virtual storage and VMware vSphere High Availability (HA) provides the ability to federate information across multiple data centers over synchronous distances. With virtual storage and virtual servers working together over distance, the infrastructure can transparently provide load balancing, realtime remote data access, and improved application protection.

Modular add-on components




Disaster recovery

This add-on solution enables cloud administrators to select disaster recovery (DR) protection for their applications and virtual machines when they provision their hybrid cloud environment. ViPR automatically places these systems on storage that is protected remotely by EMC RecoverPoint® technology. VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager automates the recovery of all virtual storage and virtual machines.

Platform as a service

The EMC Hybrid Cloud solution provides an elastic and scalable IaaS foundation for platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) services. Pivotal Cloud Foundry (CF) enterprise PaaS provides an agile runtime environment that enables development teams to rapidly deploy, update, and scale their applications. The EMC Hybrid Cloud service offerings enable PaaS administrators to easily provision compute and storage resources on demand to support scalability and growth in their Pivotal CF enterprise PaaS environments.

This EMC Hybrid Cloud solution enables IT organizations to broker public cloud services. This solution has been validated with VMware vCloud Air as a public cloud option that can be accessed directly from the solution's self-service portal by both administrators and users.

End users can provision virtual machines, while IT administrators can perform virtual machine migration (offline) from the on-premises component of their hybrid cloud to vCloud Air using VMware vCloud Connector.

Public cloud services

Chapter 3: VSPEX Private Cloud Overview



Chapter 3 VSPEX Private Cloud Overview


Overview .................................................................................................................. 20

EMC VSPEX Private Cloud features and functionality ................................................ 21



Overview

EMC VSPEX validated and modular architectures are built with proven technologies to create complete virtualization solutions that enable you to make informed decisions about the hypervisor, compute, storage, and networking layers.

VSPEX helps to reduce virtualization planning and configuration burdens. When embarking on server virtualization, virtual desktop deployment, or IT consolidation, VSPEX accelerates your IT transformation by enabling faster deployments, expanded choices, greater efficiency, and lower risk.

The VSPEX Private Cloud architecture provides customers with a modern system capable of hosting many virtual machines at a consistent performance level. The solution runs on the VMware vSphere virtualization layer backed by the highly available VNX family of storage systems.

The compute and network components, which are defined by the VSPEX partners, are designed to be redundant and sufficiently powerful to handle the processing and data needs of the virtual machine environment.

Figure 6 shows the key components of the EMC VSPEX Private Cloud solution.




Figure 6. EMC VSPEX Private Cloud key components

For more information about VSPEX, refer to the EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines Proven Infrastructure Guide.

EMC VSPEX Private Cloud features and functionality

The EMC VSPEX Private Cloud solution incorporates the following features and functionality:

Proven levels of performance and reliability at various scale points

Flexible, scalable, and open architecture, which enables customers to choose networking and compute products from multiple vendors

Single point of contact for support

Proven application deployment reference architectures for many enterprise applications



VSPEX provides a flexible, proven platform on which you can reliably deploy your cloud infrastructure. VSPEX provides:

An end-to-end virtualization solution to effectively use the capabilities of the unified infrastructure components

A VSPEX Private Cloud solution for VMware for efficiently virtualizing up to 1,000 virtual machines for varied customer use cases

A reliable, flexible, and scalable reference design

Based on the next-generation VNX, VSPEX offers the features and benefits listed in Table 1.

Table 1. VSPEX features

Feature Benefit

Next-generation unified storage, optimized for virtualized applications

Tight integration with VMware enables advanced array features and centralized management

Capacity optimization features including compression, deduplication, thin provisioning, and application-consistent copies

Reduced storage costs, more efficient use of resources, and easier recovery of applications

High availability, designed to deliver five 9s availability

Higher levels of uptime and reduced outage risk

Automated tiering with EMC Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST™ VP) and EMC FAST Cache that can be optimized for the highest system performance and lowest storage cost simultaneously

More efficient use of storage resources without complicated planning and configuration

Simplified management with EMC Unisphere®, which provides a single management interface for all network-attached storage (NAS), storage area network (SAN), and replication needs

Reduced management overhead and toolsets required to manage environment

Up to three times improvement in performance with the latest Intel Xeon multicore processor technology, optimized for flash storage

Reduced latency and increased bandwidth and IOPS, resulting in more headroom for demanding workloads

VSPEX: A proven cloud platform

Chapter 4: Integrated Solution Architecture



Chapter 4 Integrated Solution Architecture


Overview .................................................................................................................. 24

Key components of the integration solution............................................................. 24

Solution architecture ............................................................................................... 26

Software resources .................................................................................................. 29



Overview

Integration of the EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 solution with the VMware-based VSPEX Private Cloud solution for up to 1,000 virtual machines brings IaaS features and functionality to a VSPEX platform, with proven performance and scalability.

Building on the proven design of the VSPEX, EMC customers can now deploy a fully functional IaaS platform using EMC and VMware products and best practices.

This integrated solution offers the following benefits:

Guaranteed performance levels and scale points

Multitenancy and isolation

Chargeback

Self-service provisioning and workflows

Integrated and automated protection and recovery features

Deep operational visibility into the entire ecosystem

Process orchestration and automation

Virtual machine lifecycle management

Storage class of service

Storage automation

The implementation described in this guide represents one possible way of meeting the requirements of an integrated environment using EMC Hybrid Cloud and VSPEX Private Cloud.

Key components of the integration solution

The key components of the foundation EMC Hybrid Cloud solution are described in the EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Foundation Infrastructure Solution Guide.

The key components of the foundation EMC VSPEX Private Cloud solution are described in the EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines Proven Solution Guide.

The key components of the integrated solution include:

VMware vSphere 5.5

VMware vSphere vMotion

VMware vSphere High Availability

EMC PowerPath®/VE

EMC ViPR

EMC VNX and EMC Symmetrix VMAX




VMware vSphere delivers uncompromised control over all IT resources with the highest efficiency in the industry. vSphere is comprised of a number of features that transform industry-standard hardware into a shared, mainframe-like, resilient environment with built-in service level controls for all applications.

vSphere makes it simpler and less expensive to provide higher levels of availability for important applications. With vSphere, organizations can easily increase the baseline level of availability provided for all applications. vSphere makes it possible to reduce both planned and unplanned downtime.

VMware vSphere vMotion

VMware vSphere vMotion—a key feature of the enterprise virtual infrastructure—enables live migration of a running virtual machine from one physical host to another. Migration of a virtual machine with vMotion preserves the precise execution state of the virtual machine. The execution state consists of physical memory, storage, network connections, and the virtual device state, including the state of the CPU, network and disk adaptors, and SVGA. The virtual machine continues to run throughout the migration process with minimal impact to the user workload and no disruption to network connectivity.

VMware vSphere High Availability

VMware vSphere High Availability (HA) provides easy-to-use, cost-effective high availability for applications running in virtual machines. In the event of physical server failure, affected virtual machines are automatically restarted on other production servers with spare capacity. In the case of operating system failure, vSphere HA restarts the affected virtual machine on the same physical server. The combination of vSphere HA and the other availability features of the vSphere platform provides organizations with the ability to select and easily deliver the level of availability required for all of their important applications.

EMC PowerPath/VE for VMware vSphere is a multipathing extension module for vSphere that provides software that works in combination with SAN storage to intelligently manage Fibre Channel (FC), iSCSI, and FCoE I/O paths.

PowerPath/VE is installed on the vSphere host. The virtual machines do not have PowerPath/VE installed, so they are unaware that PowerPath/VE is managing the I/O operations to storage.

PowerPath/VE dynamically load balances I/O requests and automatically detects, and recovers from, path failures. PowerPath/VE is a powerful solution for ensuring application uptime by providing availability and optimization of the server, storage, and SAN.

EMC ViPR is a lightweight, software-only solution that transforms existing storage into a simple, extensible, and open platform. ViPR extends current storage investments to meet new cloud-scale workloads, and enables simple data and application migration out of public clouds and back under the control of IT (or vice versa). ViPR gives IT departments the ability to deliver on-premises, fully automated storage services at price points that are equivalent to or lower than public cloud providers. ViPR enables software-defined data centers by providing:

Storage automation capabilities for heterogeneous block and file storage (control path)

VMware vSphere 5.5

EMC PowerPath/VE

EMC ViPR



Object data management and analytic capabilities through data services that create a unified pool of data across file shares (data path)

Integration with VMware and Microsoft compute stacks to enable higher levels of compute and network orchestration

A comprehensive RESTful interface for integrating ViPR with management and reporting applications

A web-based user interface (UI) for configuring and monitoring ViPR, and for self-service storage provisioning by enterprise users

Comprehensive and customizable platform reporting capabilities, including capacity metering, chargeback, and performance monitoring through the ViPR SolutionPack

EMC VNX and EMC Symmetrix VMAX are powerful, trusted, and smart storage array platforms that provide the highest level of performance, availability, and intelligence in the EMC Hybrid Cloud. EMC storage systems offer organizations a broad selection of functionality and tools, such as the advanced storage tiering features and efficiencies of VNX and VMAX, to deliver multiple storage service levels that accelerate and simplify the EMC as-a-service offerings in the hybrid cloud environment.

Optimized for virtual environments and applications, EMC storage platforms provide unsurpassed simplicity and efficiency while providing storage replication for business continuity and disaster recovery solutions.

Solution architecture

This section describes the environment created for supporting integration of the EMC Hybrid Cloud and VSPEX Private Cloud.

A “brownfield” deployment involves adding VSPEX into an existing EMC Hybrid Cloud environment. A “greenfield” deployment involves overlaying the EMC Hybrid Cloud solution stack onto an existing VSPEX environment. In either scenario, the physical components remain the same, only the deployment method and location of the EMC Hybrid Cloud components change.

A cloud management platform supports the entire management infrastructure for this integrated solution. The platform includes several pods, consisting of vSphere ESXi clusters, which perform solution-specific functions, and are used to provide high availability and load balancing as appropriate.

The use of ESXi clusters with vSphere HA provides general virtual machine protection. Further levels of availability can be provided by using nested clustering between the virtual machines, such as Windows Failover Clustering, PostgreSQL clustering, load balancer clustering, or farms of machines that work together natively, to provide a resilient architecture.

Figure 7 shows how the terms platform, pod, and cluster are used in this guide.

EMC VNX and EMC Symmetrix VMAX

Brownfield versus greenfield deployment

EMC Hybrid Cloud architecture




Figure 7. Terminology interaction

The Tenant Resource Pods supporting the various organizations within the enterprise are managed by a vCenter Server instance located on the cloud management platform. This server acts as the vSphere endpoint for vCAC.

All server and virtual machine components for the EMC Hybrid Cloud Core Pod are managed by a separate, higher level vCenter Server instance that can also be located in the cloud management platform, but for highest possible availability, could be located on a separate system.

Figure 8 shows the default configuration of two vCenter Server instances, where the first instance supports the Core Pod, and the second instance supports the remaining cloud management pods and tenant resources.

Figure 8. Cloud management platform



Because EMC supports adding VSPEX into an existing EMC Hybrid Cloud deployment, the management pods reside within the EMC Hybrid Cloud infrastructure and do not consume any VSPEX resources.

VSPEX uses a subset of the EMC Hybrid Cloud components, as shown in Figure 9. VSPEX uses the same core virtualization and management components up to and including VMware vCenter Server.

Figure 9. VSPEX management platform (highlighted)

VSPEX does not require network or storage management virtualization. However, in a greenfield deployment, ViPR and NSX (or vCNS) must be added. Additionally, all components upstream of vCenter Server must be deployed, such as VMware vCloud Automation Center (vCAC), VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO), and so on.

In a brownfield deployment, VSPEX resources managed and aggregated under vCenter Server are brought into the EMC Hybrid Cloud environment by adding vCenter Server as a vCAC endpoint. ViPR support is added by bringing the VNX array and SAN fabric under ViPR control via SMI-S.

VSPEX Private Cloud architecture




Software resources

Table 2 lists the software used in this solution.

Table 2. Solution software

Software Version Notes

VMware virtualization and cloud infrastructure

VMware vCloud Automation Center 6.0.1.1 VMware cloud management and infrastructure

VMware vCenter Server 5.5.0c vSphere management server

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5.0c Server hypervisor

VMware vCenter Orchestrator 5.5.1 vCenter orchestration engine

VMware vCloud Automation Center plug-in for vCenter Orchestrator

6.0.1 vCAC plug-in for vCO

VMware vCenter Operations Manager 5.8.1 Automated operations management

VMware vCenter Log Insight 2.0 vCenter log analytics and management

VMware IT Business Management Suite 1.0.1 IT cost management

VMware NSX for vSphere 6.0.4 Software-defined networking and security

VMware vCloud Networking and Security

5.5.2 Software-defined networking and security

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP1 Database server for vCenter Server and vCAC

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Operating system for the server environment

EMC storage

EMC ViPR 2.0 P1 EMC ViPR software-defined storage supports the following EMC Enginuity™ code:

5876.229 (minimum)

5876.268 (maximum)

EMC ViPR SRM 3.5 Storage resource management

EMC Unisphere 1.6.2.4 Management software for VNX and VMAX

EMC Enginuity 5876.229.145

Operating environment for VMAX

EMC VNX Operating Environment Release 33 Operating environment for VNX block

EMC Solutions Enabler 7.6.2.8 CLI software for Symmetrix VMAX storage management

EMC SMI-S Provider 4.6.2.3 SMI-S provider for Solutions Enabler 7.6.2.8

EMC PowerPath/VE 5.9 SP1 Multipathing and load balancing for block access

EMC and VMware integration

EMC Hybrid Cloud Foundation Module 2.5 Customization package for STaaS and foundation workflows

EMC Virtual Storage Integrator 5.6.2 EMC plug-in for VMware vSphere web client



Software Version Notes

EMC ViPR plug-in for VMware vCenter Orchestrator

2.0.0.15 EMC ViPR plug-in for vCO workflows

EMC Storage Analytics 2.1 EMC Storage Analytics adapter for VMware vC Ops (validated but optional component of the solution)

EMC ViPR Analytics 2.0.0.4 EMC ViPR Analytics Pack for VMware vC Ops

Note: For up-to-date supported software revisions for the EMC Hybrid Cloud, refer to the EMC E-Lab™ Simple Support Matrix (ESSM).

Chapter 5: Integrated Solution Implementation



Chapter 5 Integrated Solution Implementation


Integrating the EMC Hybrid Cloud with VSPEX Private Cloud .................................... 32

Solution integration methods .................................................................................. 32

Chapter 5: Integrated Solution Implementation


Integrating the EMC Hybrid Cloud with VSPEX Private Cloud

VSPEX Private Cloud solutions offer customers a complete virtualization platform that includes compute, network, storage, and virtualization components. These solutions are proven to scale to various points and maintain a known level of performance.

EMC Hybrid Cloud solutions can be thought of as an extension in feature scope, capabilities, and supported hardware platforms compared to VSPEX. VSPEX functionality operates through vCenter Server and supports the VNX family of storage systems. EMC Hybrid Cloud functionality operates through VMware vCloud Suite, includes numerous code customizations and enhancements by EMC, and supports a broad range of EMC storage products including VMAX.

Integrating the EMC Hybrid Cloud with VSPEX, which is available in 200, 300, 600, and 1,000 virtual machine configurations, brings together enhanced functionality and features with a proven level of performance and availability.

Solution integration methods

Currently, EMC supports integrating VSPEX into an existing EMC Hybrid Cloud environment. The recommended approach is a greenfield VSPEX scenario, where no virtual resources have yet been deployed within the VSPEX environment.

In this scenario, the VSPEX physical resources can simply be brought into the EMC Hybrid Cloud environment for configuration, consumption, and management, and to use the full suite of automation and orchestration available within the EMC Hybrid Cloud. All the available physical resources within the VSPEX platform become available for use.

There may also be situations where customers want to integrate an existing VSPEX Private Cloud deployment that has resources allocated to virtual machines already running in a vCenter configuration. There may be unallocated physical resources available that customers want to make available to tenants within the EMC Hybrid Cloud.

For this scenario, EMC recommends maintaining separation of the two environments. Management of existing VSPEX applications is done through the vCenter Server instance that is managing the VSPEX resources. The remaining physical resources are brought into the EMC Hybrid Cloud for allocation and consumption by EMC Hybrid Cloud tenants, complete with the full range of services, such as automated backup policies, available to the tenants.

Chapter 6: Conclusion



Chapter 6 Conclusion

This chapter presents the following topic:

Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 34

Chapter 6: Conclusion


Conclusion

By integrating the EMC Hybrid Cloud solution with the EMC VSPEX Private Cloud solution, customers can build an enterprise-class, scalable, multitenant platform for complete infrastructure service lifecycle management.

The integrated solution provides on-demand access and control of infrastructure resources and security while enabling customers to maximize asset utilization. The solution integrates all of the key functionality that customers demand of a hybrid cloud while providing a framework and foundation for adding other services.

The integrated solution provides the following features and functionality:

Proven performance, capacity, and availability levels

Wide choice of network and compute vendors

Architecture tested and supported by EMC



Data protection



Monitoring


There are several methods of integrating the EMC Hybrid Cloud solution with the EMC VSPEX Private Cloud solution. Which integration path you choose depends on a number of factors including:

Initial environment state

Greenfield versus brownfield VSPEX

Required level of integration

EMC recommends integration when there is a greenfield VSPEX environment.

In a brownfield VSPEX environment, EMC recommends maintaining environment isolation from an application and management perspective. Unused or unallocated physical resources within the VSPEX environment can optionally be integrated for management within the EMC Hybrid Cloud environment.

The resulting solution uses the best of EMC and VMware products and services to empower customers to accelerate the implementation and adoption of hybrid cloud while still enabling customer choice for the compute and networking infrastructure within the data center.

Chapter 7: References



Chapter 7 References

This chapter presents the following topic:

EMC documentation ................................................................................................. 36

Page Break – DO NOT DELETE

Chapter 7: References


EMC documentation

These documents are available from www.EMC.com or EMC Online Support. Access to online support depends on your login credentials. If you do not have access to a document, contact your EMC representative.

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Foundation Infrastructure Reference Architecture

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Foundation Infrastructure Solution Guide

EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines Proven Infrastructure Guide

EMC ViPR Administrator Guide

EMC ViPR 2.0.0 Installation and Configuration Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Data Protection Continuous Availability Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Data Protection Disaster Recovery Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Data Protection Backup Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Hadoop Applications Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Pivotal CF Platform as a Service Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Security Management Solution Guide

EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Public Cloud Solution Guide

http://www.emc.com/

https://support.emc.com/

emc hybrid cloud 2.5 with vmware: integration with emc vspex

Documents