 |
 |
|
Cisco Solution Shop Links - PBM IT Solutions - Call (888) 233-6471Featured Solution: Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS)Q. What is a data center? A. A data center is a place where business operate the part of their IT infrastructure that requires the highest grade of power, bandwidth, air conditioning, monitoring, and technical support. Approximately half of the power consumed by a data center is required for cooling. As heat load increases, more floor space must be reserved for cooling equipment. Without high ceilings (20 feet or more), the hot exhaust air of servers is likely to become in-take air for servers mounted in the upper portion of a cabinet. Removing a single x86 server from a data center will result in savings of more than $400 a year in energy costs alone. Operating system virtualization is the use of software to allow a piece of hardware to run multiple operating system images at the same time. The idea is that virtualization disguises the true complexity of the network by separating it into manageable parts, much like your partitioned hard drive makes it easier to manage your files. Companies often run just one application per server because they don’t want to risk the possibility that one application will crash and bring down another on the same machine. Estimates indicate that most x86 servers are running at an average of only 10 to 15 percent of total capacity. With virtualization, you can turn a single purpose server into a multi-tasking one, and turn multiple servers into a computing pool that can adapt more flexibly to changing workloads. A storage management solution should address the protection of recoverable as well as unrecoverable information. The need to protect unrecoverable data is obvious — unless this data is protected, it must be manually recreated if it is lost. As for recoverable data, although it may be recoverable through reinstallation, the process can be extremely time-consuming and costly. To reinstall an updated application, users must install the application plus all the updates. In addition, all preferences and options need to be reset to their exact state prior to the loss. The Cisco UCS uses three adapter types, with four specific models: the Cisco UCS 82598KR-CI 10 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, UCS M71KR-Q QLogic Converged Network Adapter, UCS M71KR-E Emulex Converged Network Adapter, and UCS M81KR Virtual Interface Card. Each of these cards has a pair of 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections to the Cisco Unified Computing System backplane that support the IEEE 802.1 Data Center Bridging function (formerly called Cisco Data Center Ethernet) to facilitate I/O unification within these adapters. On each adapter type, one of these backplane ports is connected through 10GBASE-KR to the A-side I/O module; then that connection goes to the A-side fabric interconnect. 10GBASE-KR is a copper midplane technology for interfacing adapters and switching elements through these midplanes. The other connection is 10GBASE-KR to the B-side I/O module; that connection then goes to the B-side fabric interconnect. Figure 3 later in this document shows this connectivity. Green IT starts with manufacturers producing environmentally friendly products and encouraging IT departments to consider more friendly options like virtualization, power management and proper recycling habits. An High Availability Data solution must be practical to implement - minimizing acquisition cost and operational complexity while being able to efficiently scale-out to meet any performance requirement as business needs evolve. A broad group of industry-leading partners supports the open, standards-based unified fabric architecture of the Cisco Nexus 5010 Switch. This switch also delivers more than 500 Gbps of switching capacity with 20 fixed wirespeed 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports that support Data Center Ethernet and FCoE. In addition, one expansion port supports 8-port 1/2/4 Gigabit Fibre Channel, 4-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (Data Center Ethernet and FCoE) and 4-port 1/2/4 Gigabit Fibre Channel, and 6-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (Data Center Ethernet and FCoE). |
