Intro to Hyper-Convergence
Started out with local
storage
Couldn’t
expand
Moved to centralized storage
Server
availability issues
Moved to virt and converged
for clusters
FlexPods, VersaStacks…chassis
had limitations
Back to local storage
Scales similar to cloud
No limits
Intro to HX platform
Based on C-series
Wizard-based installer
Converged Nodes – Disk,
network, cpu, memory
Data Platform
StorFS
– Distributed File System
Springpath is underlying
backbone
Ensures
copy data is always there
High performance networking
is used by StorFS log structured FS
Communication channel for VMs
and management etc
FIs are hardware management
platform
HX Software is not supported
on C-Series
HX Installer is a VM (OVA) –
requires existing vCenter
Expansion is easy and
non-disruptive
Cloud Center
Intersight
Cisco Container Platform
HX Flavors and use cases
HX Edge
2-4
Nodes (ROBO) – No FI needed
HX
Converged
Compute-Only
Up to 32 converged nodes with
up to an additional 32 compute only nodes
SFF Drives
Either
all flash or 2.5 spinning drives
LFF Spinning – 6 or 8TB
HX240
M5
6-12
of LFF in one server
Caching and housekeeping
drives are still SFF Flash in back
HK
– 240GB Flash
Caching
– 3.2 TB SSD
HX 3.5 introduced stretch
cluster for LFF drives
HX Edge 3 node HX 220 based
connected directly to ToR switches with no FI
Managed through a centralized
vCenter
Central backup site (LFF
Cluster) with Veeam
3.0 introduced Hyper-V
support
3.5 introduced LFF Drives support but no stretch or edge for Hyper-V
Scaling and Expanding a
Deployment
Scales from 3 – 64 nodes
Node
– Additional memory and compute
Converged
Node – includes storage
3.5 added Hyper-V supprt and
stretch clusters
Node must be compatible
Storage type
Size
Generation
Chassis
size
Similar
in ram and compute
You can introduce M5 to M4
but not vice versa
Use HX Installer to expand
Use
config file
Provide
creds
UCSM/Hypervisor/vCetner
Select cluster to expand
Select unassociated server
from list
Provide IP info
Provide Name
Add VLANs
Start install
Go to HX Connect
View added node
Data is automatically
distributed to new disks on new nodes
You can leverage numerous
platforms for compute only node
Must
be connected to same domain
Must
have HX Data Platform installed via Installer
Mounts
HX storage via NFS
Disks
are not added to shared pool (for datastore creation)
CVM
on compute only require
1
vcpu
512 MB RAM
Software Components
Overview
StorFS – Distributed
Log-structured file system
Writes sequentially, uses
pointers – increases performance
Index has references to
blocks for files across the distributed log
New blocks are written, old
are deleted and housekeeping occurs.
File system index is stored
in memory of a controller VM.
Runs
on every node in HX cluster
Logs
caching compression duplication
Disks are passed through to
CVM
Space is presented as NFS
HX220
CVM
needs 48 GB RAM and 10.8 GHz
HX240
CVM
needs 72 GB RAM and 10.8 GHz
HX 240 LFF 78 GB RAM and 10.8
GHz
CVM is doing cluster
management
HX management
HX Connect management
interface
HTML 5 GUI
Monitoring
capability/Utilization monitoring
Replication
Clone
Upgrades
CVM CLI – not all commands
are supported through GUI
CVM CLI is ubuntu VM –
connect via SSH
stcli
command
IOvisor (vib) – responsible
for data distro
captures
data and sends to any available node for caching
Not dependent on CVM so if
CVM fails, fs ops will be directed to appropriate node
VAAI is used in CVM and
Hypervisor
Allows
direct FS ops on a Datastore (StorFS ops)
Allows for snaps and clones (much faster) using FS
Distributed File System
StorFS
When deploying
Select
RF2 or RF3
Caching Tier
In
all-flash systems
Not
used for read cache
In
all systems
Write
cache works the same way
All
flash
Hybrid
Caches
writes as it gets distributed
De-stages
writes
Split
between active and passive
Active
– caches fata
Passive
– moves data to capacity drives
Number
of cache level segments depends on RF factor
2
for RF 2
3
for RF 3
Hybrid
systems
Write
cache still works the same
Caching
drive is ALSO use for read caching
Frequently
used
Recently
used
VDI
mode
Only caches most frequently accessed
Not most recently accessed
Hardware component Overview
3 tier storage
Memory
Cache – volatile
Controller
VM, File system metadata
Cache
Drive
SAS
SSD, NVMe SSD or Optane
Capacity
tier
All
spinning or all flash
Hybrid
(blue bezel) or all flash (orange bezel)
2 chassis types
HX220
(1U) M5 (Dual Intel Skylake Platinum’s)
10
Drives
Min6
max 8 capacity
Cache
drive is front mounted
M.2
drive installs esx (internal)
Housekeeping
(logs, storage)
HX240
(2U) M5 (Dual Intel Skylake Platinum’s)
Cache
is on back
Capacity
and housekeeping on front
Min
6 up to 23 capacity drives
Up
to 2 graphics cards
Memory
channels
6
per proc
2
sticks per channel
Max
128 per stick
16,
32, 64, 128
6
or 12 sticks per CPU for optimal performance
If
M type procs, 1.5TB per CPU (total 3TB)
1.2TB
1.8
TB for hybrid
(cost
effective)
960
and 3.8 TB for all flash (performance/density)
Network:
VIC1227
Dual
10G
VIC
1387
Dual
40G
Fis
6248s,
6296, 6332, 6332-16UP
UCSM
Other Notes:
Can you install HX without network?
No
Can you use install
software as NTP server?
No.
2.0 and 2.1 disables it after 15 mins
Can I install
vCenter on HX?
Yes.
With 4 nodes with earlier versions.
Should storage VLAN
be layer 3?
No
Can you setup
multiple VLANs in UCSM during install?
Yes
but you have to rename them
Are jumbo frames required?
No but enable them
HX Tech Brief – An App, Any Cloud, Any Scale
ROBO – HX Edge/Nexus
Private – HX/ACI
(private cloud)
Intersite
federates management
Edge
leverages Intersite as cloud witness
Public – Cisco
Container Platform on top of HX for Kubernetes aaS with HX in Prem
Cloud center – model
apps/deploy consistently
App dynamics –
performance/application transaction visibility
CWOM – optimizes
resource utilization for underlying infra
Tetration – workload
protection – enforce versions at the host level
HX Edge 2-4 nodes
(up to 2000 sites) – Intersight can deploy in parallel to multiple sites
HX – 32nodes –> 32 more compute nodes
Installation Notes:
Deploy/Launch Data
platform installer – OVA – can be on a SE laptop
Root:Cisco123
Create new:
Customize your
workflow
Run
UCSM config (unless you have edge (no Fis)
Check
everything else
Create
cluster
Cluster expansion:
In UCSM, validate
PID and make sure its unassociated/no profile
In installer:
Supply UCSM
name/creds
vCenter creds
Hypervisor creds
Select cluster to
expand
Select server
Provide VLAN configs
Use
; for multiple VLANs
Enable iSCSI/FC if
needed
For mgt VLAN and
Data VLAN
Provide
IP for esxi host
Provide
IP for storage controller