Cisco Cisco UCS C210 M2 General-Purpose Rack Server 白書
Page
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Data Center Management: The Key Ingredient for Reducing Server Power while Increasing Data Center Capacity
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Unfortunately, the grand vision outlined above never progressed beyond the vaporware stage due to a
lack of control at the element level. Passive, unintelligent hardware controlled by an elegant orchestra-
tor is akin to a grade school band led by a great director—except that dumb hardware never learns
or improves! The primary gap between vision and reality has been hardware that lacked the ability to
perform autonomous management actions based on business policies set by a centralized management
engine. It is no longer acceptable to have a centralized orchestrator that
attempts to manage dumb ele-
ments directly—the elements must themselves be intelligent and self-managing, dynamically adapting
to changes without requiring the overhead of an orchestrator.
The advances of virtualization technologies is a key technical enabler toward these goals, allowing
The advances of virtualization technologies is a key technical enabler toward these goals, allowing
intelligent network, storage and compute resources to be pooled together and managed as a group.
Provisioning technologies provide a level of automation, quickly assigning virtual resources to business
applications when needed.
The biggest virtualization development to date is the Virtual Machine, or VM. VMs encapsulate an
The biggest virtualization development to date is the Virtual Machine, or VM. VMs encapsulate an
entire business application environment inside of a virtual, portable “bubble” that can be easily moved
from server to server (or even into the Cloud) as needed. Combine a VM with virtual compute, net-
work, and storage capabilities and an automated provisioning system, and truly portable business ser-
vices started to become real (though still with strategic gaps). The VM is becoming the “atomic unit”
of the data center, around which virtual resources are deployed as needed. It is important to realize,
however, that VMs are not suitable for all purposes, and monolithic deployments like Oracle, with large
memory footprints, will continue to exist for many years to come. Technology vendors need to be able
to support fully virtualized, partially virtualized, and non-virtualized environments.
Until recently, flaws in virtualization management technologies prevented the fully automated data
Until recently, flaws in virtualization management technologies prevented the fully automated data
center vision from becoming a reality. First, many so-called virtualized resources still require a large
amount of manual tweaking during the provisioning process in order to function correctly. For
example, many “virtual” networks still require specific configuration settings be applied for certain
applications or VMs, for certain types of “virtual” hardware. This is because some vendors have not
delivered a hardware manager that fully completed the work required to package all of an application’s
configuration items, policies and dependencies into a fully portable, policy-based package. Without this
fully portable package, there is still a manual intervention requirement to make all of the elements work
together every time an application is moved or additional resources are provisioned. This capability is
required across all server/network/storage environments, whether virtualized or not.
Once a stable hardware management base is attained (which includes deployment of intelligent, self-
Once a stable hardware management base is attained (which includes deployment of intelligent, self-
managing, policy-aware elements), an overarching, policy-based manager (the genie, or director) can be
implemented. The bi-directional integration of the manager with the director is a critical component,
and maximum flexibility/scalability by the hardware manager is key.
The director’s job is to serve as a centralized repository for business and IT policies, ensuring that busi-
The director’s job is to serve as a centralized repository for business and IT policies, ensuring that busi-
ness-critical applications receive the resources they require in order to enable the business. IT and the
business work together to define policies that govern all aspects of a business services, ranging from
the type and quantity of resources required, to rules controlling the provisioning of extra capacity to
satisfy bursts in business demand, to policies ensuring security.
The director, thanks to an automated, policy based hardware manager, can even mandate movement
The director, thanks to an automated, policy based hardware manager, can even mandate movement
of VMs and their associated applications from server to server
in situ (via the hardware manager)—without