In case you weren’t aware, NetApp partners with other vendors, such as Cisco, to create bundled architectures that are co-supported and simple to deploy. These converged infrastructure products are known as “FlexPods” and they go through a rigorous testing and validation process by both NetApp and Cisco to ensure the highest probability of success in deployments.

There are two new Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs) available. I’ll basically be plagiarizing the announcement emails that went out here, because I like converging communications, too. 🙂

FlexPod Datacenter (AFF A300) with Citrix XenDesktop/XenApp for 6000 Seats (credit to Chris Gebhardt – @chrisgeb)

This CVD is a new milestone in user density on the A300 platform running ONTAP 9.3 at 6000 users. In this CVD we were able to observe peak total values of 83,000 IOPS and a bandwidth of 1750 MB/s at a latency of less than 1ms. This low latency translates directly into an excellent end-user experience on mixed use case scale testing scenario.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/UCS_CVDs/cisco_ucs_xd715esxi65u1_flexpod.html

The solution provides customers with a blueprint for deploying large scale mixed use case of persistent, nonpersistent & RDS Windows 10 virtual machines on FlexPod. Cisco & NetApp have stress-tested the limits of the infrastructure during many different scenarios.

Some of the key values of this solution include:

NetApp AFF A300 array provides industry-leading storage solutions that efficiently handle the most demanding I/O bursts (for example, login storms), profile management, and user data management, deliver simple and flexible business continuance, and help reduce storage cost per desktop.

array provides industry-leading storage solutions that efficiently handle the most demanding I/O bursts (for example, login storms), profile management, and user data management, deliver simple and flexible business continuance, and help reduce storage cost per desktop. NetApp AFF A300 array provides a simple to understand storage architecture for hosting all user data components (VMs, profiles, user data) on the same storage array.

array provides a simple to understand storage architecture for hosting all user data components (VMs, profiles, user data) on the same storage array. NetApp ONTAP 9.3 software enables to seamlessly add, upgrade or remove storage from the infrastructure to meet the needs of the virtual desktops.

enables to seamlessly add, upgrade or remove storage from the infrastructure to meet the needs of the virtual desktops. NetApp Virtual Storage Console(VSC) for VMware vSphere hypervisor has deep integrations with vSphere, providing easy-button automation for key storage tasks such as storage repository provisioning, storage resize, data deduplication, directly from vCenter.

More information on this and other solutions can be found:

Cisco NetApp Website: http://www.cisconetapp.com/

All Flash FAS Datasheet: http://www.netapp.com/us/media/ds-3582.pdf

Additional FlexPod solutions with All Flash FAS, AltaVault, SAP HANA, Microsoft SharePoint, VMware vSphere, Cisco UCS Director and more, can be found: http://www.netapp.com/us/solutions/flexpod/datacenter/validated-designs.aspx

FlexPod Datacenter with VMware 6.5 Update1 and Cisco ACI 3.1 Solution (credit to Dave Derry)

I am pleased to announce the release of an updated FlexPod Solution – FlexPod Datacenter with VMware 6.5 Update1 and Cisco ACI 3.1. This validated FlexPod design (CVD) refreshes FlexPod with All Flash FAS with ONTAP 9.3, Cisco ACI 3.1, and VMware vSphere 6.5 u1.

This solution continues the momentum of the huge success of NetApp All Flash FAS along with over 5000 Cisco Nexus 9k customers and over 200 production deployments of Cisco ACI in enterprises and service providers.

FlexPod with All Flash FAS and Cisco ACI is the optimal shared infrastructure to deploy a variety of workloads. FlexPod provides a platform that is both flexible and scalable for multiple use cases and applications. From virtual desktop infrastructure to SAP®, FlexPod can efficiently and effectively support business-critical applications running simultaneously from the same shared infrastructure. The flexibility and scalability of FlexPod also enable customers to create a right-sized infrastructure that can grow with and adapt to their evolving business requirements.

FlexPod is the leading converged infrastructure with the lowest storage cost per TB of any converged infrastructure in the market, according to IDC. This coupled with All Flash FAS increases application performance by 20X and with Cisco ACI that provides up to 83% faster network provisioning times for applications compared to existing network provisioning tools.

Use Case Summary

This infrastructure solution validates this design including redundancy, failure and recovery testing:

UCS B200-M4 and M5 compute servers, 6300-series fabric interconnects, running UCS Manager 3.2

Nexus N9k running in ACI Fabric Mode, 40G end-to-end

Cisco APIC managing the Nexus 9k fabric, running ACI 3.1

AFF A300 controllers with ONTAP 9.3, with storage connected to the ACI fabric (NFS)

OnCommand System Manager, OnCommand Unified Manager, OnCommand Workflow Automation, NetApp Virtual Storage Console for vSphere

NetApp SnapDrive and SnapManager

VMware vSphere 6.5 u1

Validation of FC direct-connect and iSCSI for SAN boot and data access from the fabric interconnects to storage

FC, iSCSI, and NFS Storage access

NetApp storage QoS to limit load to keep CPU utilization at a recommended level

The FlexPod Datacenter with VMware 6.5 Update1 and Cisco ACI 3.1 design guide is located here:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/UCS_CVDs/flexpod_esxi65u1_n9k_aci_design.html

To review additional validated FlexPod solutions including validated infrastructure and workload solutions, see this link: http://www.netapp.com/us/solutions/flexpod/datacenter/validated-designs.aspx

We also will have a podcast soon that covers the CVD for OpenStack in a FlexPod. Stay tuned for that!