Cloud computing first hurdle system integration and IT architecture optimization

In recent years, cloud computing has been a roaring and lively activity. However, the development of cloud computing has not been accomplished overnight, but it has undergone a gradual process, in which the 2007-2010 is the market introduction phase of cloud computing. At this stage, the concept of cloud computing is not clear enough, the user's understanding of cloud computing is still very low, cloud computing technology and business model is not mature, in addition to key manufacturers fragmented, the lack of a more uniform standard.

2011-2015 for the cloud computing market growth stage, this stage, the application case is rich, the user to cloud computing has been more understanding, recognition, cloud computing business application concept began to form, in addition, the user began to take the initiative to consider the relationship between cloud computing and its own IT applications.

After 2015, the market will enter the mature stage, the cloud computing industry competition pattern is basically formed, cloud computing solution will be more mature. On the software side, the SaaS application model has become mainstream, and the market size remains at a relatively solid level.

Combined with current market conditions, the present should be in the late stage of market introduction, or the early stage of market growth. At this point, major companies are no longer staring at the definition of cloud computing, and more began to consider how the cloud landed.

As a new computing model, cloud computing can provide IT resources, data, applications as a service through the network to users, users can achieve in as long as there is an Internet connection anywhere to access, applications and even the business at any time online; The computing environment can be expanded automatically on demand, and users can even perform self service.

Beautiful cloud computing needs a good foundation platform

Clearly, the promising cloud computing requires a higher demand for the data center infrastructure and better support for the infrastructure cloud. On the other hand, the edge of cloud computing for front-end users is usually focused on the application level, background complexity is often transparent, but for the enterprise IT builders, choose what kind of server architecture, choose which server platform, it is in the construction of cloud computing needs serious consideration.

Instead of directly patting your head to choose an architecture and platform, let's start with a list of cloud computing requirements for the platform: first, we need a computing platform with advanced virtualization technology: You can't lose system performance because of virtualization, support a good operating system environment, have the most complete and perfect virtualization features, Virtual resources can be effectively controlled and managed.

Second, we need a reliable, uninterrupted platform that eliminates the impact of planned outages, reduces the impact of unplanned outages, protects single or multiple data center business resiliency, business resiliency with powerful concurrency extensions, and continuity policies associated with workloads.

What's more, we need a powerful management platform that can manage the broadest range of physical and virtual resources, tailor data center platform level management, integrate control servers, storage and networking, implement system pooling management, and tightly integrate with enterprise-level service management.

In addition to this, this platform should be a green energy-saving platform: With higher performance per watt, intelligent optimization of energy use, support efficient system integration, effective control of system energy consumption management, dynamic adjustment of workload according to power supply and cooling.

Technology leader, excellent management, reliable uninterrupted, green energy-saving can be said to be an excellent cloud computing platform of the four essential conditions. Looking at the current cloud computing platform: x86, small machines, mainframes, can be said to be different, which x86 the biggest advantage is standardized, open, and minicomputer reflects the security, reliability, and the mainframe is more emphasis on its heterogeneous platform strong integration capabilities.

Zenterprise powerful heterogeneous platform integration capabilities

Obviously, in the face of cloud computing the first hurdle, the mainframe has shown more advantages, software, the next generation of mainframe z196 can support a variety of operating systems. These include not only z/OS, VM, Z/VSE, Z/TPF traditional mainframe operating systems, but also Linux versions for System z, such as Novell SUSE, Red hat Rhel, and of course IBM's own AIX system, And with the support of Windows operating systems at the end of 2011, users can integrate their original business applications without making special changes at the application level.

▲zenterprise supports multiple operating systems

In addition, Zenterprise allows workloads on large hosts, POWER7, and system x servers to share resources and manage them as a single, virtual system. In the new system design, IBM will be the latest Zenterprise mainframe server and IBM zenterprise bladecenter Extension and IBM Zenterprise Unified Resource Manager ( Unified Resource Manager, which combines the two technologies to manage workloads across system Z, POWER7, and System x servers.

Users can integrate Zenterprise resource management into a single system and extend the quality of the mainframe in the areas of management and manageability to the workload on the POWER7 and system x Blade servers. With this technology, zenterprise system can reduce the maximum cost of ownership by 55%.

IBM zbx Blade Extension

The mainframe's powerful heterogeneous integration capabilities, in fact, are inseparable from IBM zenterprise BladeCenter Extension and IBM Zenterprise Unified Resource Manager (Unified Resource Manager) technology, With IBM zenterprise BladeCenter Extension Technology, a new generation of mainframes became the first system to manage workloads running on IBM x86 and UNIX systems, enabling centralized control and simplified management of data centers.

ZBX Blade expansion technology supports up to four cabinets, as shown in the illustration above, Cabinet B is the host cabinet, which has 1-2 BladeCenter chassis and 4 top rack (TOR) switches, and three cabinets C, D, and e are expansion cabinets, each with 1-2 BladeCenter chassis. Since up to 14 POWER7 or system x blades can be accommodated in each BladeCenter box, if 4 cabinets are fitted with two knife boxes, that is, each zenterprise system node can have 112 blades in total, or if it extends to 8 nodes, The largest zenterprise, that is, a total of 896 blades can be installed.

"Integration of mainframe and blade servers" is one of the biggest changes in Zenterprise, and its value is mainly in the following three aspects:

First, reduce data center management complexity, improve system performance and efficiency. According to the survey of 1541 CEOs and general managers, "complexity" has become the number one problem faced by current management. By consolidating mainframe and blade servers, Zenterprise simplifies the management of data centers by providing a single management interface, a single virtualization and load management platform, and a unified security governance strategy, which reduces the need for people to "touch" the system by 52%. The use of specialized load optimizer can also greatly improve the performance of data processing. It is said that a system that blends the Z-series mainframe and blade servers can support up to 100,000 virtual machines.

Secondly, the convergence of two modes of centralized computing and distributed computing is realized. If the mainframe represents a "centralized computing model" (scale-up), and the blade represents a "distributed computing Model" (Scale-out), zenterprise this time to integrate the two computing models to work on the same target, Workloads are assigned to the most appropriate systems as needed, and with advanced virtualization, load management, and security risk management technologies, IT administrators are able to shift the focus-no longer maintaining physical and virtual systems every day, but more involved in business innovation.

Third, to achieve it and business integration, zenterprise for business innovation released some resources, while more emphasis on service management, more emphasis on improving the efficiency of business processes.

Unified Resource Management-zmanager

ZBX Blade Expansion Technology realizes the fusion of centralized computing mode and distributed computing mode, and after merging, management problem becomes very important, how to ensure the unified and coordinated management of resources? Here we have to talk about another key technology for a new generation of mainframes unified Resource Manager ( Uniform Resource Manager, Zmanager).

Zmanager can be used to achieve end-to-end virtualization and management, while optimizing multi-platform deployments based on specific workload requirements. Through the Zmanager Management suite, the Zenterprise system can be viewed from a management perspective as a complete platform, a single resource pool that spans multiple systems, multi-tier, and multiple architectural environments to manage systems and workloads.

Quantity, the Zmanager can control up to 8 zenterprise system nodes, each of which, as mentioned above, includes a z196 cabinet plus an additional ZBX blade expansion cabinet, each ZBX supports up to 4 blade center cabinets, Each cabinet accommodates up to 2 bladecenter knives, and supports up to 14 blades in each box.

▲zmanager Unified management of the system from six perspectives

Functions, Zmanager can be implemented: Operation control, Virtual server configuration and management, virtual network management, hypervisor management, storage virtualization management, energy control, system operating status monitoring, load performance monitoring and reporting.

Summary：

On the road to cloud computing, system consolidation and IT infrastructure optimization are the first steps that all enterprises must face, and the choice of what to do in the face of x86, minicomputer and mainframe platforms will directly affect later it architectures, costs, and so on. The purpose of this article is to provide a way to help users with cloud computing.

(Responsible editor: Liu Fen)