Cisco Cisco UCS C22 M3 Rack Server White Paper

Page 1 of 22

Performance White Paper

Large Unstructured Data Storage in a Small
Datacenter Footprint: Cisco UCS C3160 and Red
Hat Gluster Storage 500-TB Solution

Executive Summary

Today, companies face scenarios that require an IT architecture that can hold hundreds of terabytes of

unstructured data. Storage-intensive enterprise workloads can encompass the following:

●

Archiving and backup, including backup images and near-online (nearline) archives

●

Rich media content storage and delivery, such as videos, images, and audio files

●

Enterprise drop-box

●

Cloud and business applications, including log files, and RFID and other machine-generated data

●

Virtual and cloud infrastructure, such as virtual machine images

●

Emerging workloads, such as co-resident applications

This document is intended to assist organizations who are seeking an ultra-dense, high-throughput solution that

can store a large amount of unstructured data in a small amount of rack space. The paper provides testing results
that showcase how Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS

) C3160 Rack Server and Red Hat

Gluster

Storage, along with Cisco Nexus

9000 Series Switches, can be optimized to serve in these scenarios. It includes

system setup information, testing methodology, and results for a 500-TB solution. Initial tests indicate that the

Cisco / Red Hat solution offers an ultra-dense, scalable, high-throughput solution that can store a large amount of

unstructured data that is easy to manage.

Solution Overview

Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS

) C3160 Rack Server and Red Hat Gluster Storage, combined

with Cisco Nexus

9000 Series Switches, provide a complete 500-TB solution for high-volume, unstructured data

storage.

Cisco UCS C3160 Rack Server

The Cisco UCS C3160 Rack Server is a modular, high-density rack server ideal for service providers, enterprises,

and industry-specific environments that require highly scalable computing with high-capacity local storage.

Designed for a new class of cloud-scale applications, it is simple to deploy and excellent for software-defined

storage environments, unstructured data repositories, Microsoft Exchange, backup and archival, media streaming,

and content distribution.

Based on the Intel

Xeon

processor E5-2600 v2 series, the server offers up to 360 TB of local storage in a

compact four-rack-unit (4RU) form factor. And, the server helps organizations achieve the highest levels of data

availability because its hard-disk drives are individually hot-swappable and include built-in enterprise-class

Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID).