A holy place is never empty - Mirantis Unlocked Appliance
Just a few months after Nebula’s final departure, Mirantis unveils its Unlocked Appliance platform for deploying the OpenStack infrastructure.
Nebula for 4 years tried to sell OpenStack solutions "in hardware", but in the next round it was not able to attract new investments to support the startup. It was not possible to wait for the market readiness for mass purchases of the platform with OpenStack. The fact that many people in the Nebula were in a hurry to enter the market spoke (and even in the final press release about the closure of the project, this was also noted). However, it seems that marketing in Mirantis believes that now is the time and it is time to start winning customers.
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Mirantis is well known for its OpenStack distribution and was initially focused on software development and service, and not on the "iron" component. Having a good expertise and a pool of loyal customers, it is possible to start promoting complex solutions with much greater success than by simply putting iron on the market. In addition, if you use "your" iron, you can reduce the cost of support - with a tested configuration, fewer problems. A customer, by and large, is not so important whose equipment to use. If the entire Mirantis complex turns out to be a bit cheaper than the “self-assembled constructor,” from the point of view of operating costs, then the game is well worth the candle. The Mirantis Unlocked Appliance will be sold through partners, so no need to inflate the staff of engineers and drive them around the world.
The Mirantis Unlocked Appliance will enable customers to deploy the OpenStack infrastructure without having to pick their own equipment. If the selection of equipment is not so terrible, then the subsequent installation, testing and “finishing” to “take off” is the main source of problems. This is where the main advantage of any finished system is revealed - deployment speed. The customer should no longer be disturbed by the complexity of running OpenStack. After the system has been deployed by integrator engineers (which will not take much time), you can immediately launch virtual machines and deal with business problems, rather than administrative issues.
In the Unlocked Appliance, there is no binding to the software vendor — the customer can choose the hypervisor that meets the necessary requirements.
The announced system scales from 6 to 51 computing nodes, which allows you to simultaneously run more than 1,500 virtual machines (4vCPU, 8GB of memory and 60GB disk). The storage system provides between 12 and 48TB of usable storage space (Ceph). Of course, this solution is not aimed at small businesses, for which VMware is fighting for c EVO RAIL, Nutanix, SimpliVity and others. Even in the minimum configuration, we need to install a cabinet with 12 servers. The maximum configuration that is currently available is 2 cabinets.
The Mirantis Unlocked Appliance is based on Dell servers and Juniper network equipment. Computing nodes (Compute nodes - 6-51pcs) and control nodes (Foundation node - 3pcs) are Dell R630 servers in a configuration with two Intel Xeon E5-2640 processors, 256GB of RAM and 400GB SSD. Storage nodes (Storage node - from 3 to 12pcs) - R730xd servers in a configuration with two Intel Xeon E5-2620 processors, 256GB of RAM, 4 * 100GB SSD, 20 * 1.2TB SAS disks and 2 * 1.2TB disks for the OS.
All servers are networked through 10Gbit adapters (2 links for compute nodes and 4 links for storage nodes).
Two Juniper QFX5100-48S (cabinets are connected via 40Gbit links) are used as TOR (top of rack) switches in each cabinet, and Juniper EX3300-48T is used for the control network.
After installing Mirantis OpenStack, users get:
The Mirantis Cloud Validation Suite (MCV) is used for the final verification of the system after installation on the customer’s site. MCV is not deleted and allows the customer to further check the system and generate performance profiles throughout the life cycle - for example, after installing updates.
For many medium-sized companies, OpenStack is still a “toy” precisely because of the lack of complete solutions that do not require significant deployment and support costs. The complete solution from Mirantis will make OpenStack closer to the business. The niche in which the Mirantis Unlocked Appliance must “shoot” is very attractive - it covers the market of serious installations where there are no more “pioneers” with two or three servers, but still no hundreds of servers when a company can afford serious internal expertise (for example, Wallmart ).
And if Mirantis certifies several more variants of hardware platforms, it will only strengthen its position in the market.
Now, when interest in OpenStack is growing, many hardware manufacturers will try to take their share, but success will largely depend on how well the software component is refined. And it is here that Mirantis has very strong positions. I have no doubt that HP with its Helion will try in every way to capture the maximum market, but will it work out?
Nebula for 4 years tried to sell OpenStack solutions "in hardware", but in the next round it was not able to attract new investments to support the startup. It was not possible to wait for the market readiness for mass purchases of the platform with OpenStack. The fact that many people in the Nebula were in a hurry to enter the market spoke (and even in the final press release about the closure of the project, this was also noted). However, it seems that marketing in Mirantis believes that now is the time and it is time to start winning customers.
')
Mirantis is well known for its OpenStack distribution and was initially focused on software development and service, and not on the "iron" component. Having a good expertise and a pool of loyal customers, it is possible to start promoting complex solutions with much greater success than by simply putting iron on the market. In addition, if you use "your" iron, you can reduce the cost of support - with a tested configuration, fewer problems. A customer, by and large, is not so important whose equipment to use. If the entire Mirantis complex turns out to be a bit cheaper than the “self-assembled constructor,” from the point of view of operating costs, then the game is well worth the candle. The Mirantis Unlocked Appliance will be sold through partners, so no need to inflate the staff of engineers and drive them around the world.
The Mirantis Unlocked Appliance will enable customers to deploy the OpenStack infrastructure without having to pick their own equipment. If the selection of equipment is not so terrible, then the subsequent installation, testing and “finishing” to “take off” is the main source of problems. This is where the main advantage of any finished system is revealed - deployment speed. The customer should no longer be disturbed by the complexity of running OpenStack. After the system has been deployed by integrator engineers (which will not take much time), you can immediately launch virtual machines and deal with business problems, rather than administrative issues.
In the Unlocked Appliance, there is no binding to the software vendor — the customer can choose the hypervisor that meets the necessary requirements.
The announced system scales from 6 to 51 computing nodes, which allows you to simultaneously run more than 1,500 virtual machines (4vCPU, 8GB of memory and 60GB disk). The storage system provides between 12 and 48TB of usable storage space (Ceph). Of course, this solution is not aimed at small businesses, for which VMware is fighting for c EVO RAIL, Nutanix, SimpliVity and others. Even in the minimum configuration, we need to install a cabinet with 12 servers. The maximum configuration that is currently available is 2 cabinets.
The Mirantis Unlocked Appliance is based on Dell servers and Juniper network equipment. Computing nodes (Compute nodes - 6-51pcs) and control nodes (Foundation node - 3pcs) are Dell R630 servers in a configuration with two Intel Xeon E5-2640 processors, 256GB of RAM and 400GB SSD. Storage nodes (Storage node - from 3 to 12pcs) - R730xd servers in a configuration with two Intel Xeon E5-2620 processors, 256GB of RAM, 4 * 100GB SSD, 20 * 1.2TB SAS disks and 2 * 1.2TB disks for the OS.
All servers are networked through 10Gbit adapters (2 links for compute nodes and 4 links for storage nodes).
Two Juniper QFX5100-48S (cabinets are connected via 40Gbit links) are used as TOR (top of rack) switches in each cabinet, and Juniper EX3300-48T is used for the control network.
After installing Mirantis OpenStack, users get:
- three OpenStack controllers in a fail-safe configuration (the OpenStack database is located on MySQL / Galera);
- Neutron OVS + VLAN network environment;
- Ceph-based storage system - Glance, Cinder and Swift-API:
- Ephemeral volumes configured to support live migration through Ceph;
- Triple replication to protect data; - Ceilometer and Zabbix monitoring services. MongoDB is deployed for storage of Ceilometer data on management servers.
The Mirantis Cloud Validation Suite (MCV) is used for the final verification of the system after installation on the customer’s site. MCV is not deleted and allows the customer to further check the system and generate performance profiles throughout the life cycle - for example, after installing updates.
For many medium-sized companies, OpenStack is still a “toy” precisely because of the lack of complete solutions that do not require significant deployment and support costs. The complete solution from Mirantis will make OpenStack closer to the business. The niche in which the Mirantis Unlocked Appliance must “shoot” is very attractive - it covers the market of serious installations where there are no more “pioneers” with two or three servers, but still no hundreds of servers when a company can afford serious internal expertise (for example, Wallmart ).
And if Mirantis certifies several more variants of hardware platforms, it will only strengthen its position in the market.
Now, when interest in OpenStack is growing, many hardware manufacturers will try to take their share, but success will largely depend on how well the software component is refined. And it is here that Mirantis has very strong positions. I have no doubt that HP with its Helion will try in every way to capture the maximum market, but will it work out?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/263275/
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