Private Cloud Appliance - the best virtualization and private cloud for data centers
The main IT problem of enterprises today is an increase in operating expenses. According to IDC, 70% of IT operating expenses are related to the operation of data centers, with 80% of IT staff working to maintain existing infrastructure. The other side of this problem is that the complexity of the data center does not allow to respond flexibly to changes in business requirements, as a result of which the IT system of the enterprise has begun to slow down business development. All this led to the fact that the business began to look for ways to reduce operating costs for IT, and manufacturers - to offer such systems.
We have already done a general overview of software and hardware systems, and today we will talk about the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance (Fig. 1) - a system that combines computing, network, storage and virtualization, both computational and networked. Private Cloud Appliance runs on all popular x86 OC operating systems Linux, Solaris x86, Windows. As we wrote earlier, each hardware and software system is the result of careful design, component selection, software tuning and optimization. Thanks to this, it takes exactly one hour to deploy the hardware and software complex of the Private Cloud Appliance. When expanding the complex, servers are added to it as system resources with automatic detection and installation. The complex has a single management console based on a web interface. The management of the Virtual Compute Appliance — installation, resource allocation, deployment of virtual machines, integration with external systems and storage systems — is fully automated. Any x86 applications run on the Virtual Compute Appliance without modifications.
Virtual machines from Oracle VM templates deploy very quickly. For example, in order to deploy an Oracle Real Application Cluster cluster from an Oracle VM template, you need 10 times less time than on VMware vSphere 5.
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Let's understand how the hardware and software complex of the Private Cloud Appliance is designed, on which all this works so quickly.
The software and hardware complex of the Private Cloud Appliance is based on the following components:
The server farm is made on Oracle X5-2 dual-socket nodes with Intel E5-2699 v3 processors (18 core). Internal storage with a capacity of 20 disks of 900 GB each (18 TB) is called the system disk, its main purpose is the storage of installation images and software for managing the software and hardware complex. On this storage system, 6 TB is available, which the user can use at his discretion, including virtual machines, although we recommend using an external storage system for storing a virtual farm.
For network virtualization, Oracle Virtual Networking Intranet Virtualization (OVN) technology is used. Unlike the classic complex switching structure, Oracle uses an intermediate layer - the Oracle Fabric Interconnect, all switching is conducted through a high-speed (each connection - 40 Gbit / s) Infiniband switched network (Fig. 3). This not only greatly simplifies the physical structure of the software and hardware complex, but also makes it possible to use a completely new functionality — adjust the quality of service (QoS) for predictable applications, migrate virtual adapters from server to server, and create new networks.
In addition, the Oracle Software Defined Network (SDN) functionality is included in the Private Cloud Appliance - a system for creating private networks without OVN. The servers run an agent that creates an internal network between virtual adapters without using an OVN switch. The work scheme of the Software Defined Network is shown in Fig. four.
SDN in conjunction with Infiniband (IB) switching provides very high performance in the work of clusters, applications, and migration of virtual machines and allows you to customize the quality of service using QoS policies. Since a regular Ethernet network is used, there is no need to modify the network stack.
All internal switching of network nodes and storage system is performed using two IB switches connected to Fabric Interconnect F1-15, through which communication with external data centers and external storage systems (Fig. 5) takes place. At the same time, the customer sees only 16 10 Gbit-Ethernet interfaces for connecting to the data center network and external storage systems, network management and interfaces (IB and FC) for connecting to external storage systems.
System administration is performed by two different users: one user manages the equipment, the second user manages the virtual farm, configures and maintains the virtual machines.
As can be seen from fig. 6, The Virtual Compute Appliance software structure consists of four layers:
The virtualization hypervisor used in PCA is Oracle VM for X86. It is implemented on the basis of Xen and has all the necessary functionality for working with a virtual farm.
The mechanism of balancing virtual machines in the pool provides automatic movement of virtual machines from the most loaded nodes to the least loaded ones. The inverse problem is also solved: if it is necessary to dispose of physical machines in the pool more tightly to save energy, virtual machines are “compacted” on a limited number of nodes, and the released nodes can be disabled.
Ready-made virtual machine templates are downloaded from the Oracle website, which speeds up work with the system many times over. These are pre-installed and configured virtual machines — complete installations of applications, application servers, databases.
PCA has a significant software cost advantage due to its Oracle Trusted Partitioning licensing policy. This policy allows the user to license to PCA only the number of cores on Oracle that will be used by this application on the entire virtual farm. For example, the PCA virtual farm consists of 5 nodes (5 Ă— 36 = 180 cores), Oracle DB uses 20 cores, and the rest is other applications. The customer will only need to buy licenses for these 20 cores (10 licenses) and use them across the entire virtual farm, without being tied to a specific CPU. In the case of VMware would have to buy licenses for all 180 cores (90 licenses).
It is planned to expand PCA scaling with expansion racks with computing nodes, which will increase the size of virtual farms and the range of application of this engineering system.
According to IDC 2015, global costs in hardware and software systems will grow from $ 4 billion in 2013 to $ 13.2 billion in 2018, while 15% of all systems will be acquired as software and hardware. It is important to understand that only Oracle represents a fully integrated stack for software and hardware systems, including the operating system, the hypervisor, and applications that can run on this system. So for Oracle, this means a giant leap in demand for its software and hardware systems, and for you a reason to get to know them better.
We have already done a general overview of software and hardware systems, and today we will talk about the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance (Fig. 1) - a system that combines computing, network, storage and virtualization, both computational and networked. Private Cloud Appliance runs on all popular x86 OC operating systems Linux, Solaris x86, Windows. As we wrote earlier, each hardware and software system is the result of careful design, component selection, software tuning and optimization. Thanks to this, it takes exactly one hour to deploy the hardware and software complex of the Private Cloud Appliance. When expanding the complex, servers are added to it as system resources with automatic detection and installation. The complex has a single management console based on a web interface. The management of the Virtual Compute Appliance — installation, resource allocation, deployment of virtual machines, integration with external systems and storage systems — is fully automated. Any x86 applications run on the Virtual Compute Appliance without modifications.
Virtual machines from Oracle VM templates deploy very quickly. For example, in order to deploy an Oracle Real Application Cluster cluster from an Oracle VM template, you need 10 times less time than on VMware vSphere 5.
')
Let's understand how the hardware and software complex of the Private Cloud Appliance is designed, on which all this works so quickly.
Hardware
The software and hardware complex of the Private Cloud Appliance is based on the following components:
- Control system: a pair of x86-systems, which we call controllers;
- Computing farm: from two to 25 nodes
- Storage system: ZFS ZS3-2;
- Network infrastructure: F1-15 network virtualization system, IB switching and management
The server farm is made on Oracle X5-2 dual-socket nodes with Intel E5-2699 v3 processors (18 core). Internal storage with a capacity of 20 disks of 900 GB each (18 TB) is called the system disk, its main purpose is the storage of installation images and software for managing the software and hardware complex. On this storage system, 6 TB is available, which the user can use at his discretion, including virtual machines, although we recommend using an external storage system for storing a virtual farm.
For network virtualization, Oracle Virtual Networking Intranet Virtualization (OVN) technology is used. Unlike the classic complex switching structure, Oracle uses an intermediate layer - the Oracle Fabric Interconnect, all switching is conducted through a high-speed (each connection - 40 Gbit / s) Infiniband switched network (Fig. 3). This not only greatly simplifies the physical structure of the software and hardware complex, but also makes it possible to use a completely new functionality — adjust the quality of service (QoS) for predictable applications, migrate virtual adapters from server to server, and create new networks.
In addition, the Oracle Software Defined Network (SDN) functionality is included in the Private Cloud Appliance - a system for creating private networks without OVN. The servers run an agent that creates an internal network between virtual adapters without using an OVN switch. The work scheme of the Software Defined Network is shown in Fig. four.
SDN in conjunction with Infiniband (IB) switching provides very high performance in the work of clusters, applications, and migration of virtual machines and allows you to customize the quality of service using QoS policies. Since a regular Ethernet network is used, there is no need to modify the network stack.
Switching
All internal switching of network nodes and storage system is performed using two IB switches connected to Fabric Interconnect F1-15, through which communication with external data centers and external storage systems (Fig. 5) takes place. At the same time, the customer sees only 16 10 Gbit-Ethernet interfaces for connecting to the data center network and external storage systems, network management and interfaces (IB and FC) for connecting to external storage systems.
System administration is performed by two different users: one user manages the equipment, the second user manages the virtual farm, configures and maintains the virtual machines.
Software
As can be seen from fig. 6, The Virtual Compute Appliance software structure consists of four layers:
- The automation and management layer located on the controllers: responsible for the physical operation of the system - switching on the equipment, installation, server administration, network discovery, and backing up the system configuration to external and internal storage.
- Network Virtualization Layer: Oracle Software Defined Network, Fabric Monitor and Oracle Fabric Manager.
- Server virtualization layer implemented on Oracle VM Server: responsible for creating virtual manually or through templates, centralized management of all servers and virtualization management (migration of running virtual machines, load balancing across the entire hardware and software system, automatic restart of failed virtual machines, automatic shutdown of free policy based nodes).
- Guest layer: Oracle Linux, Windows, Solaris x86.
The virtualization hypervisor used in PCA is Oracle VM for X86. It is implemented on the basis of Xen and has all the necessary functionality for working with a virtual farm.
The mechanism of balancing virtual machines in the pool provides automatic movement of virtual machines from the most loaded nodes to the least loaded ones. The inverse problem is also solved: if it is necessary to dispose of physical machines in the pool more tightly to save energy, virtual machines are “compacted” on a limited number of nodes, and the released nodes can be disabled.
Ready-made virtual machine templates are downloaded from the Oracle website, which speeds up work with the system many times over. These are pre-installed and configured virtual machines — complete installations of applications, application servers, databases.
Features licensing Trusted Partitioning
PCA has a significant software cost advantage due to its Oracle Trusted Partitioning licensing policy. This policy allows the user to license to PCA only the number of cores on Oracle that will be used by this application on the entire virtual farm. For example, the PCA virtual farm consists of 5 nodes (5 Ă— 36 = 180 cores), Oracle DB uses 20 cores, and the rest is other applications. The customer will only need to buy licenses for these 20 cores (10 licenses) and use them across the entire virtual farm, without being tied to a specific CPU. In the case of VMware would have to buy licenses for all 180 cores (90 licenses).
Future plans
It is planned to expand PCA scaling with expansion racks with computing nodes, which will increase the size of virtual farms and the range of application of this engineering system.
According to IDC 2015, global costs in hardware and software systems will grow from $ 4 billion in 2013 to $ 13.2 billion in 2018, while 15% of all systems will be acquired as software and hardware. It is important to understand that only Oracle represents a fully integrated stack for software and hardware systems, including the operating system, the hypervisor, and applications that can run on this system. So for Oracle, this means a giant leap in demand for its software and hardware systems, and for you a reason to get to know them better.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/267039/
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