Cisco and Unified Computing

The buzz about Cisco and their new approach of Unified Computing is building. As far as I’m concerned, it can’t arrive soon enough. The exact details are still pretty closely held, but from looking at Cisco Blog Post (Introducing Unified Computing to the Data Center) it is clear that Cisco is looking to make a big step in virtualizing the data center network.

This could be huge, in that it could fill in the last piece of the virtualization trinity. Server virtualization is now mainstream in the data center. The consolidation benefits are unquestioned and the ability to dynamically move workloads between compute resources is compelling if still a bit complicated. Storage is virtualized at some level on a wide scale, especially in the more modern architectures like Data ONTAP.

But the network has been a barrier to true dynamic mobility of applications and data since the VM typically has to make some assumption about a physical network address. On the storage side, volumes on iSCSI or file systems on NFS or CIFS are more dynamically addressed but they generally tend to stay in one place. This could change with a unified computing approach and systems like NetApp Data ONTAP 8 where volumes will move dynamically between nodes in a storage cluster but still be accessible at the same address.

Virtualizing the network with a unified computing approach frees up the last bond that had to be managed that tied applications and data together. In some ways, it is like the transition from a home phone number (tied to your house) to a cell phone number (always with you). Most people now are more easily accessible by cell since their “address” (phone number) moves with them. This kind of freedom of motion with continuity of access has transformed our day-day lives.

In future network-based unified computing environments, VMware’s VMotion and NetApp’s Data ONTAP will bring a level of dynamic agility to the modern data center. When apps and data are not tied to physical systems, yet the network still finds them, is a situation that simplifies maintenance and change management dramatically. This approach could be a great partner to NetApp Unified Storage. Both focus on lowering the cost of operation of the data center and increasing the ability of the infrastructure to rapidly adapt to new business requirements.

It could get interesting...

Comments

[Douglas Gourlay]

Very well said! The challenges of portable workloads with static addressing are just becoming top-of-mind or realized for many network and server administrators.

The concept of the virtual machine is evolving too - from just a 'virtual server' to a container that includes the OS/Application, the data that is necessary for the VM and the associated network policy and state of network services.

dg

[shreyas shah]

Hi,

Congrates on the blog.

The mobility of VM and applications are eveolving and as you said will take some time since the targets are static and networking pieces are moving.

Unified computing will bring the motionable applications and abstract out the underneath infrastructure hardware

True mobility!

/Shreyas

[Shibin Zhang]

Quite good.

[Ken Oestreich]

I like the "virtualization trinity" analogy. I like to paint the picture of VMs (hypervisors) providing the mobility "above" the CPU, and infrastructure orchestration (unified computing) giving the mobility "below" the CPU. Storage virtualization has long been the critical piece so that data is available to any server any time.

[Ken Oestreich]

I like the "virtualization trinity" analogy. I like to paint the picture of VMs (hypervisors) providing the mobility "above" the CPU, and infrastructure orchestration (unified computing) giving the mobility "below" the CPU. Storage virtualization has long been the critical piece so that data is available to any server any time.

[John F.]

I see it as a convergence of emerging technologies. With the Cisco announcement, we have a unification of the hardware platform for virtualiztion that goes beyond blades, We see the IO paths, network and storage, integrated into the hardware platform in a hypervisor independent manner. The missing secret sauce is storage virtualization... I think NetApp will benefit from this.

[Paid Survey]

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