Increase Virtual Desktop Performance and

Increase Virtual Desktop Performance and
Reduce Complexity with Cisco UCS Invicta
Series Solid-State Systems
Highlights
Change the Way You Do Business
• We change the way you do business.
Integrating Cisco UCS Invicta™
Series Solid-State Systems with the
Cisco Unified Computing System™
(Cisco UCS®) makes virtual desktops
perform better and delivers a better
user experience.
Simplified and Scalable Solutions
• Cisco’s simplified and scalable
solutions provide broad architectural
support for virtual desktops.
High Performance
• Achieve fast performance for virtual
desktops and applications with lower
costs.
Outstanding Capacity
• Get outstanding capacity and
economy with up to 10x deduplication
efficiency.
Integrated into Cisco UCS
• Gain all the value of Cisco UCS with
accelerated virtual desktop access.
Comprehensive Infrastructure
Management
• Simplify and manage the entire
solution with Cisco UCS Director.
Solution Brief
January 2014
Users get a better experience—and you get
to deploy simpler, faster, and more costeffective infrastructure for virtual desktops.
Users are more and more demanding. They expect technology to respond
immediately and flawlessly to their every action and encounter. Using traditional
architecture to provide a high level of user access and efficiency, virtual desktop
infrastructure (VDI) deployments have been slowed by several major obstacles. High
acquisition costs, management complexity, improper planning and sizing: all of these
challenges get in the way.
We deliver better performance at affordable costs. We integrate Cisco UCS Invicta™
Series Solid-State Systems with Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS®)
for greater user satisfaction and business efficiency. Your users are no longer
frustrated—and you exceed business expectations while operating within budget.
In virtual desktop deployments, storage is the most challenging element. Small and
random write requests push traditional hard-disk-based storage to the limit—even
during normal operations. This phenomenon is exacerbated during startup or login
storms, which occur at the beginning of the workday. With traditional storage, virtual
desktop users often start their day frustrated with the lack of responsiveness.
While solid-state memory performance is commonly acknowledged to be
measurably superior to that of spinning disks, the importance of properly integrating
solid-state memory into the overall virtual desktop solution is less well known.
Cisco UCS with the Cisco UCS Invicta Series accelerates VDI to efficiently handle
high-demand virtual desktops and applications with reduced capital and operating
expenses.
© 2014 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Increase Virtual Desktop Performance and Reduce Complexity
with Cisco UCS Invicta Series Solid-State Systems
A Better Balance of
Performance and Capacity
All desktop virtualization deployments
require two things from the I/O
infrastructure: performance and
capacity. The performance requirements
for virtual desktops include support for
a high rate of read I/O operations per
second (IOPS) at the start of the day
when users boot their virtual desktops.
During the day, virtual desktops need
a high rate of write IOPS, for fast user
response times. The Cisco UCS Invicta
Series addresses the performance
demands of virtual desktops by
extending solid-state memory, in a costeffective way, to meet these challenging
IOPS requirements.
Hypervisor of
Choice
Virtual Machine Cluster
Requirements for large-scale capacity
continue to be met by industry-leading
EMC and NetApp storage solutions.
The capability to accelerate desktop
and application performance with a
solid-state solution that more closely
matches the CPU performance, in
combination with scalable capacity
from EMC or NetApp, increases the
efficiency and value of the Cisco UCS
virtual desktop solution even further.
Accelerating VDI with the
Cisco UCS Invicta Series
The Cisco UCS Invicta Series provides
a high-performance solid-state solution
to support thousands of virtual desktops
Hypervisor of
Choice
2
3
• The Cisco Scalable Architecture
grows to accommodate up to
25,000 virtual desktops in a single
Cisco UCS management domain.
This architecture grows in blocks of
2500 users, with capacity increased
incrementally in a Cisco UCS Invicta
Scaling System (Figure 2).
Cost-Effective Performance,
Scalability, and Resiliency in
VDI Environments
Cisco UCS 5108
Blade Server Chassis
1
• The Cisco Simplified Architecture
can use the Cisco UCS Invicta
C3124SA Appliance to accelerate
performance in environments with up
to 2500 users (Figure 1).
Regardless of the architectural choice,
our solutions interoperate with virtual
desktop software from both Citrix and
VMware.
Cisco UCS B200 M3
Blade Server
Cisco UCS 6248UP
Fabric Interconnect
within a single appliance or a scalable
system. Cisco UCS Invicta Series
solutions can be used to accelerate VDI
performance while reducing capacity
requirements in current Cisco® VDI
solutions:
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Cisco UCS Manager Domain
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Infrastructure
Network
Virtual Machine
Management
Gigabit Ethernet Infrastructure Network
Cisco UCS Invicta C3124SA
Appliance
10 Gigabit Ethernet (Trunk)
10-Gbps Unified Fabric (FCoE)
Fibre Channel or Ethernet
Figure 1. Cisco Simplified Architecture Can Be Accelerated Through the Cisco UCS Invicta
C3124SA Appliance.
© 2014 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Whether you use an appliance to
support a VDI environment for up to
2500 users, or choose a scalable array
to support up to 25,000 users in a
single system, the Cisco UCS Invicta
Series brings performance, scalability,
and reliability to Cisco solutions.
Proven Performance
The Cisco UCS Invicta C2134SA
Appliance supports 200,000 write IOPS
and 1.9 Gbps of bandwidth to deliver
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Increase Virtual Desktop Performance and Reduce Complexity
with Cisco UCS Invicta Series Solid-State Systems
Management
LAN
Single Infrastructure
Management Domain
(About 25,000 Desktops)
Cisco UCS Invicta
C710SR Routers
Scale to 25,000 Virtual Desktops
in 10 Increments of 2500
All in a Single Management Domain
Cisco UCS 5108
Blade Server Chassis
Figure 2.
Cisco UCS Invicta
Scaling System
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Cisco UCS Invicta
C3123SN Nodes
Up to 25,000 Users Can Be Supported with the Cisco UCS Invicta Scaling
System
day-to-day performance and greatly
reduce the likelihood that boot storms
will affect end users. The extremely low
latency of 100 microseconds helps your
Citrix or VMware environment function
with high levels of performance.
You can connect Cisco UCS to the
Cisco UCS Invicta Series using Fibre
Channel or Small Computer System
Interface over IP (iSCSI). The Cisco
UCS Invicta C3124SA Appliance can
scale from 3 terabytes (TB) to 24 TB
per two-rack-unit (2RU) appliance.
Multiple Cisco UCS Invicta C3124SN
Nodes can be combined in a Cisco
UCS Invicta Scaling System: up to 720
TB for extremely large virtual desktop
deployments. This feature allows you
to buy what your business needs today
and scale as you need more capacity.
Cost-Effective Scalability
The Cisco UCS Invicta Series provides
a cost-effective and scalable solution
that delivers performance speeds that
closely match DRAM. The solution is
optimized for high I/O rates without
high power or cooling requirements.
Deduplication provided by the Cisco
UCS Invicta OS is highly effective
in VDI environments, in which many
virtual desktops share similar virtual
machine images. Some customers
have experienced a 10x reduction
in data because of the large amount
of duplicated storage in these
environments.
© 2014 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Achieving high performance in a
spinning-disk environment requires
a high number of drives to parallelize
I/O. Increasing the number of drives
to increase performance results in the
purchase of capacity that substantially
exceeds the amount of data being
stored. The solid-state Cisco UCS
Invicta Series delivers high performance
with far fewer drives. So you can buy
less capacity for your VDI solution and
achieve greater performance: a better
balance.
Cisco solutions support all major
hypervisors and virtual desktop
software. They can be used to support
any combination of virtual desktop
configurations: for example, hosted
shared desktops and applications,
hosted desktops, persistent desktops,
and nonpersistent desktops.
Excellent Resiliency
Data resiliency can be accomplished
through a variety of supported
capabilities, including:
• Snapshots for periodic point-in-time
copies
• Replication for business continuity
within the data center, campus, or
region
• Automatic data-path failover
Cisco UCS for Desktop
Virtualization
A self-integrating, self-aware system,
Cisco UCS consists of a single
management domain interconnected
by a unified I/O infrastructure that now
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Increase Virtual Desktop Performance and Reduce Complexity
with Cisco UCS Invicta Series Solid-State Systems
incorporates the Cisco UCS Invicta
Series. Cisco UCS is designed as
a single logical blade chassis that
incorporates and scales across multiple
blade chassis, rack servers, and racks.
Tight integration with hypervisor and
virtual desktop management creates
a highly cohesive virtualization cluster
that is an excellent foundation for virtual
desktop environments.
Radically Simplified Architecture
Cisco UCS is a radically simplified
architecture that eliminates the multiple
redundant devices that populate
traditional blade server chassis and
result in increased costs and layers
of complexity: Ethernet switches,
Fibre Channel switches, and chassismanagement modules. Cisco UCS
incorporates a redundant pair of Cisco
fabric interconnects that provide a
single point of management and I/O
connectivity.
Lower Cost of Scalability
Cisco UCS scales with less complexity
and at lower cost. Instead of requiring
the addition of layers of switching in
racks, blade servers, and hypervisors
to expand the system, Cisco UCS uses
low-cost, low-energy-consuming, and
high-performance fabric extenders
to connect the data and management
planes directly to blade and rack
servers. Cisco fabric extenders bring
up to 160 Gbps of network, storage,
and management bandwidth to each
blade server chassis and multiple 10Gbps connections to each rack server.
This significant reduction in the number
of components enables a lower-cost,
more graceful scaling model in which
the per-server infrastructure cost,
including the cost of blade chassis
and switching, is as little as half that of
typical blade servers.
Simplified Management
With Cisco UCS, we simplify and
automate infrastructure management
more than any other vendor. You may
already have purchased Cisco UCS as
part of an integrated infrastructure that
includes storage: for example, FlexPod,
Virtual Computing Environment (VCE)
coalition Vblock™ Systems, or EMC
VSPEX. No matter how you incorporate
storage into your infrastructure, the
next step is to automate the entire
integrated stack. Cisco UCS does this.
We can help you spend less time on
administration and more time helping
your business adapt to changing
demands.
© 2014 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
• Complete physical infrastructure
provisioning: Automated
infrastructure management lets you
configure your entire infrastructure—
including networking, computing,
storage, and virtualization—through a
single pane.
• Virtual desktop provisioning: Virtual
infrastructure and virtual desktop
and application managers simplify
virtual desktop setup. Cisco UCS
Director enables the set up and
provisioning of virtual desktops—
including Cisco UCS Invicta Series,
storage allocation, and operating
system provisioning—from a Cisco
UCS Director service catalog through
a self-service interface that your
administrators can use.
• Secure multitenancy: Cisco UCS
Director provides automated tools to
securely separate one application,
client, or line of business from
another, and it monitors resource
consumption for easy accounting.
We can help you run your IT
department as a service provider
would: keeping your users efficient and
their data safe at a cost-effective price.
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Increase Virtual Desktop Performance and Reduce Complexity
with Cisco UCS Invicta Series Solid-State Systems
A Balanced Approach
Learn More
Cisco UCS with the Cisco UCS Invicta
Series provides the right balance of
memory, solid-state extended memory,
I/O bandwidth, and processing power
to support greater desktop density on
each physical server with excellent
performance. This simplified, scalable
approach delivers very fast virtual
desktops and applications at a lower
price than alternative solutions. The
high-level management of the entire
virtual desktop environment with Cisco
UCS Director improves operating
efficiency. Cisco UCS and the Cisco
UCS Invicta Series help you help your
organization succeed: reducing costs
and providing excellent service to
users.
• For more information about Cisco
desktop virtualization solutions,
please visit http://www.cisco.com/
go/vdi.
Americas Headquarters
Cisco Systems, Inc.
San Jose, CA
Asia Pacific Headquarters
Cisco Systems (USA) Pte. Ltd.
Singapore
• For more information about the
Cisco UCS Invicta Series, please visit
http://www.cisco.com/go/ucsinvicta.
• For more information about Cisco
UCS, please visit http://www.cisco.
com/go/ucs.
• For more information about Cisco
UCS Director, please visit http://
www.cisco.com/go/ucsdirector.
Europe Headquarters
Cisco Systems International BV Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
Cisco has more than 200 offices worldwide. Addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers are listed on the Cisco Website at www.cisco.com/go/offices.
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relationship between Cisco and any other company. (1110R) LE-43101-00 01/14