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SolidFire SF3010 All-SSD storage system with Citrix CloudPlatform White Paper

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SolidFire SF3010 All-SSD storage system with Citrix CloudPlatform 3.0.5 Reference Architecture

2SolidFire SF3010 All-SSD storage system with Citrix CloudPlatform White Paper

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This reference architecture is a guideline for deploying Citrix CloudPlatform, powered by Apache CloudStack, with a SolidFire all-SSD storage system. The main objective of this document is to articulate key architectural design considerations required to successfully deploy CloudPlatform version 3.0.5 on the SolidFire SF3010 SSD storage system. Using SolidFire storage as the basis of the CloudPlatform cloud, enterprises and service providers can achieve consistent application performance and quality of service (QoS) controls in a multi-tenant infrastructure.

The reference architecture is not intended to be a definitive configuration but rather to suggest best practices and provide a starting point for CloudPlatform deployments with the SolidFire storage system.

The business challenge

As they move forward into cloud computing, companies face the challenge of taking full advantage of its benefits while maintaining current business models. Service providers and enterprises require flexible cloud solutions that efficiently attract and retain customers, reduce the cost of IT ownership and increase market share. They want the ability to choose the best components for their clouds and to innovate and build value-added services through access to open interfaces.

By freeing companies from vendor lock-in, open cloud solutions allow them to make the best use of existing investments. The comprehensive cloud solutions fulfill companies’ needs for enterprise-support, satisfy customers’ desires for control over the architecture and technology components, and meet enterprises’ goals to enable more agile, elastic, on-demand IT services. In every case, the right solutions to build, scale, and manage cloud services are necessary.

This solution comprised of CloudPlatform running with a SolidFire storage system provides a dynamic and agile infrastructure. CloudPlatform is the only open and flexible software platform that pools compute, storage and networking resources to build highly scalable and reliable public, private and hybrid infrastructure as a service (IaaS) clouds. Clouds built on CloudPlatform support legacy enterprise and cloud era workloads to meet the needs of both enterprises and service providers. SolidFire is an extremely scalable, automated and programmable storage platform, optimized for multi-tenancy.


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Solution componentsSolidFire SF3010

The SolidFire cluster consists of four nodes connected to the Dell PowerConnect switches.

• SF3010 (10) 300GB 2.5” SSD/12TB/50,000 IOPS

CloudPlatform

• CloudPlatform management server 3.0.5 patch1 running on CentOS 5.7 (two nodes clustered)

• MySQL database version 5.1 on Debian Squeeze (two nodes clustered)

• CloudPortal Business Manager 1.4.3 on CentOS 5.7 (two nodes clustered)

• Citrix XenServer 6.1 hypervisor for Citrix CloudPlatform, Citrix® CloudPortal® Business Manager and MySQL instances

• XenServer 6.0.2 for zone and guest virtual machines (VMs) accessed on Dell PowerEdge R210 II servers

• NFS secondary storage (image and backup library)

• iSCSI Primary storage (SolidFire SF3010 Storage Systems)

Other networking and storage switches

• Citrix NetScaler 10 for load balancing and web content switching

• Dell PowerEdge R210 II for XenServer hosts

• Dell PowerConnect 8024F 10Gb for storage switching

• NetGear GSM 7328 for management switching

• NetGear GSM 7328SO (OpenFlow capability) for guest VM switching

Architecture designOn-demand access, a key requirement for cloud services, is provided by CloudPlatform. The challenge of meeting cloud workload demand is typically related to scaling the physical infrastructure supporting the cloud. Leveraging the SolidFire high-performance storage system and its unique quality of service (QoS) capability, workload resources can be dynamically allocated and managed seamlessly under CloudPlatform infrastructure.

CloudPlatform design fundamentals

CloudPlatform abstracts the network, storage and compute nodes that make up a datacenter and enables them to be delivered as a simple-to-manage, scalable cloud infrastructure. These nodes or components of a cloud can vary greatly from one datacenter or cloud to another because they are defined by the unique workloads or applications they support. With so many options for servers, hypervisors, storage and networking, it is imperative that cloud operators design with a specific application in mind to help ensure that the infrastructure meets the scalability and reliability requirements of that application.


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CloudPlatform infrastructure architectural components

CloudPlatform consists of two parts: the management server and the underlying cloud infrastructure. The management server manages the resources provisioned within the cloud, such as hosts, storage devices and IP addresses. The management server manages one or more zones (typically, datacenters) containing hosts servers where guest VMs run.

Table 1 summarizes the typical CloudPlatform infrastructure components.

CloudPlatform infrastructure components

Zone Typically, a zone is equivalent to a single datacenter. A zone consists of one or more pods and secondary storage.

Pod A pod is usually one rack of hardware that includes a layer-2 switch and one or more clusters.

Cluster A cluster consists of one or more hosts and primary storage. All hosts in a cluster are of the same hypervisor type.

Host A host is a single compute node within a cluster. Cloud workloads run on the host, in the form of guest virtual machines (VMs)

Primary storage Primary storage is associated with a cluster, and it stores the disk volumes for all the VMs running on hosts in that cluster.

Secondary storage Secondary storage is associated with a zone, and it stores templates, ISO images and disk volume snapshots.

Table 1. CloudPlatform infrastructure components

Figure 1 illustrates the core components of a CloudPlatform deployment.

Figure 1. CloudPlatform core concepts


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Solution validationThis section details the configuration and tuning performed on the individual components to produce a complete, validated solution.

Configuration topology

In this reference environment, the CloudPlatform management server 3.0.5 Patch1 is built as a two-node cluster deployed on CentOS 5.7. The database server is built as a two-node MySQL cluster deployed on Debian Squeeze. CloudPortal Business Manager 1.4.3 is built as a two-node cluster on CentOS 5.7. All of these components are hosted on XenServer 6.1.

The management server and CloudPortal Business Manager each have a dedicated web network and database network. The web network is connected to a Citrix NetScaler appliance that performs load balancing and content switching to enable selection of the correct web service. The management server, CloudPortal Business Manager and the MySQL instances are deployed as VMs on a Citrix XenServer 6.1 resource pool, providing core infrastructure services to the cloud.

The pod is configured as a basic network zone using XenServer 6.0.2 hosts powered by Dell PowerEdge R210 II servers. The CloudPlatform management server 3.0.5 supports XenServer 6.02 as a guest host; however, the management server itself can be hosted on XenServer 6.1. (See Reference for CloudPlatform Compatibility Matrix). Each host has four NICs, one for management traffic, two for storage traffic and one for guest VM traffic. The storage NICs are 10Gb and are connected to Dell PowerConnect 8024F 10Gb switches. The management network is connected to NetGear GSM 7328S switches, and the guest network is connected to NetGear GSM 7328SO switches, supporting OpenFlow networking in the cloud configuration. Figure 2 illustrates the network topology of the showcase cloud and connectivity between the networking components.


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CCP CPBM

MySQL

NetGear

Administrative Access

Host 1

Host 2

Host 3

Host N

…

Dell PowerConnect

User Access to Guest VMs

NetScaler

XenServer 6.1

XenServer 6.0.2

Management Network

Storage Network

Guest VM Network

NetGear

Figure 2. Constructing a CloudPlatform availability zone for a showcase cloud

CloudPlatform configuration

CloudPlatform management server

The CloudPlatform management server makes it simple to manage the cloud infrastructure with a user interface implemented on top of the CloudStack API. A real-time view of the aggregated storage, IP pools, CPU, memory and other resources in use gives administrators better visibility and control over the state of the cloud. The management server deployment is not dependent on the underlying style of workload. Management servers can be clustered, and a single management server cluster can manage multiple zones across multiple datacenters, enabling cloud operators to create different zones to handle different workload types. The management server includes a rich, customizable web-based AJAX interface, built on industry standards such a HTML/JSP, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery. Figure 3 shows an example of customization on the login screen for the management server web-based interface.


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Figure 3. CloudPlatform management server interface

Provisioning compute resources

In addition to the physical and logical infrastructure of the cloud and the CloudPlatform software and servers, administrators need a layer of user services so that people can actually make use of the cloud. This means not just a user interface but also a set of options and resources that users can select, such as templates for creating VMs, disk storage and more. Figure 4 shows how resources can be provisioned using the management server user interface.

Figure 4. Detailed infrastructure view of provisioning compute resources


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Primary and secondary storage

CloudPlatform defines two types of storage: primary and secondary. Primary storage can be accessed by either iSCSI or NFS. Additionally, direct attached storage may be used for primary storage. Secondary storage is typically accessed using NFS.

Primary storage is associated with a cluster and it stores the disk volumes for all the VMs running on hosts in that cluster. Administrators can add multiple primary storage servers to a cluster. At least one is required. It is typically located close to the hosts for increased performance. Secondary storage acts as a library or repository for:

• Templates: OS images that can be used to boot VMs and can include additional configuration information, such as installed applications

• ISO images: disk images containing data or bootable media for operating systems

• Disk volume snapshots: saved copies of VM data that can be used for data recovery or to create new templates

VMs, storage, multitier networks and run workloads may be provisioned in the cloud, all orchestrated with CloudPlatform. Figure 5 illustrates the relationship between primary storage, secondary storage, pods, and clusters.

Figure 5. Primary and Secondary storage relationship to pods and clusters


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In this reference environment, the SolidFire cluster consists of four nodes connected to the Dell PowerConnect switches and network in a multipath configuration. Due to lack of multipath support within CloudPlatform, the storage needs to be defined manually in XenServer and then configured in CloudPlatform as pre-setup. On XenServer, dynamic multipath support is available for Fiber Channel and iSCSI storage back ends. By default, it uses round-robin mode load balancing, so both routes will have active traffic on them during normal operations. Multipathing can be enabled in Citrix XenCenter or on the command line. Figure 6 shows primary storage configured using the SolidFire Storage System.

Figure 6. iSCSI primary storage configuration using the SolidFire storage system on CloudPlatform

management server

CloudPortal Business Manager configuration

CloudPortal Business Manager is a self-service portal that can onboard, merchandize, and vend any cloud-enabled service. It provides a comprehensive business and operational support system for operators to use to deliver these cloud services to their customers.

Figure 7 illustrates CloudPortal Business Manager with the connector for an IaaS cloud service built for CloudPlatform. Other cloud services may integrate with this portal through the use of a custom-built connector that conforms to specifications defined in the Cloud Portal Business Manager software development kit (SDK).


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Figure 7. CloudPortal Business Manager and its connector system architecture

Using comprehensive RESTful API connectivity, CloudPortal Business Manager connects to CloudPlatform for enhanced infrastructure resource management along with support for usage data collection and automated billing. The connector exposes a service dashboard, which displays the capacity utilization and free space of a particular CloudPlatform service instance across all zones and pods. Administrators can filter the view using dropdown lists to select specific zones and pods. Figure 8 shows the CloudPlatform dashboard experience within the CloudPortal Business Manager user interface.

Figure 8. CloudPortal Business Manager dashboard for CloudPlatform


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SolidFire storage system configuration

SolidFire storage nodes are the building blocks of a SolidFire storage system. These 1U nodes are completely self-contained storage appliances. Interfaced via iSCSI, a SolidFire cluster is built through the combination of multiple SolidFire storage nodes over a 10Gb Ethernet network. Figure 9 illustrates the logical layout of the SolidFire storage appliance relative to the network layout.

Figure 9. Logical layout of the SolidFire system

As a clustered scale-out architecture, the independent node resources are aggregated together. Capacity and performance scale linearly with the addition of each node to the system. The result is a single storage system built for scale and efficiency. Figure 10 shows the concept of primary storage pools hosted on a SolidFire cluster.

The SolidFire volumes are associated with machine instance types in CloudPlatform. When a new instance is provisioned it is automatically placed in the appropriate primary storage volume. For additional flexibility, primary storage volumes can be customized to have their own capacity and performance profile for each instance type.

Figure 10. Constructing instances/guest VMs


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SolidFire management technology is built on a REST-based API and is designed for deployment in a multi-tenant environment. The system permits complete automation of all tasks associated with storage provisioning, monitoring and reporting. The SolidFire API management layer is also the foundation for the SolidFire administration interface, providing an additional management option. Figure 11 shows the additional functionality and reporting capability exposed by the SolidFire administration interface.

Figure 11. SolidFire administration interface

About CitrixCitrix (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the cloud company that enables mobile workstyles—empowering people to work and collaborate from anywhere, easily and securely. With market-leading solutions for mobility, desktop virtualization, cloud networking, cloud platforms, collaboration and data sharing, Citrix helps organizations achieve the speed and agility necessary to succeed in a mobile and dynamic world. Citrix products are in use at more than 260,000 organizations and by over 100 million users globally. Annual revenue in 2012 was $2.59 billion. Learn more at www.citrix.com.

Copyright © 2013 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix, XenServer, XenCenter, XenDesktop, NetScaler, CloudPortal and CloudPlatform are trademarks or registered trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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EMEA HeadquartersSchaffhausen, Switzerland

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SolidFire SF3010 All-SSD storage system with Citrix CloudPlatform White Paper

ConclusionCommitted to providing comprehensive cloud services, SolidFire and Citrix are becoming well known in the industry for reliable, available and scalable cloud solutions. Many service providers and enterprises have turned to the combination of SolidFire all-SSD storage system and CloudPlatform for flexible and agile delivery and management of cloud services. The reference architecture in this document simplifies the deployment of these products by providing infrastructure guidelines and best practice configuration.

6. ResourcesCitrix XenServer Design: Designing XenServer Network Configurations

http://support.citrix.com/servlet/KbServlet/download/27046-102-666250/XS-design-network_advanced.pdf

CloudPlatform Compatibility Matrix

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX134803



http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX134803

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