Architectural Foundations for Private Cloud Deployments

White Paper Nblock Infrastructure—Architectural Foundations for Private Cloud Deployments

By Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst

June 2012

This ESG White Paper was commissioned by NEC and is distributed under license from ESG. © 2012 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

White Paper: NEC Nblock Infrastructure—Architectural Foundations for Private Cloud Deployments 2

© 2012 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Contents

Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 3

Virtualization and Private Cloud Continue to Accelerate ............................................................................. 3 Methods of Cloud Deployment .............................................................................................................................. 4 Virtual Computing Infrastructures .......................................................................................................................... 5 Why Deploy a Private Cloud? ................................................................................................................................. 5

NEC Nblock Infrastructure ............................................................................................................................ 7 Enterprise Servers .................................................................................................................................................. 7 Enterprise Storage .................................................................................................................................................. 8 Next-generation Enterprise Networking ................................................................................................................ 9 Enterprise Software ................................................................................................................................................ 9 Examples of NEC Nblock Infrastructure Implementations .................................................................................... 10

The Bigger Truth ......................................................................................................................................... 11 All trademark names are property of their respective companies. Information contained in this publication has been obtained by sources The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are subject to change from time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of this publication, in whole or in part, whether in hard-copy format, electronically, or otherwise to persons not authorized to receive it, without the express consent of The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., is in violation of U.S. copyright law and will be subject to an action for civil damages and, if applicable, criminal prosecution. Should you have any questions, please contact ESG Client Relations at 508.482.0188.



Executive Summary

The delivery of IT services is changing dramatically as virtualization and cloud computing take hold. These once-exotic technologies are becoming more mainstream as both public and private cloud deployments proliferate. However, shifting expectations accompany these new technologies. IT organizations are expected to deliver flexible data center services that can scale up and down along with the ebb and flow of business, and end-users are expecting consistent and reliable application and data availability at all times.

This new focus on service delivery means that IT organizations are looking for faster, simpler ways to bring infrastructure components together into cohesive units that operate in harmony. NEC brings together its own servers, storage, networking, and software into the NEC Nblock infrastructure to accomplish this. NEC Nblock infrastructures are used in private cloud deployments—both on-premises and hosted—and they deliver all the benefits of a flexible, do-it-yourself infrastructure as well as the ease-of-deployment and management benefits of integrated computing platforms. With NEC’s portfolio of infrastructure products to choose from, IT can combine NEC Nblock infrastructures to deliver the features each customer most requires.

NEC was the first company to adapt to new OpenFlow standards with ProgrammableFlow controllers and switches that enable customers to design, deploy, monitor, and manage secure, multi-tenant networks from a single point of control. ProgrammableFlow manages deterministic network behavior with enhanced network analytics and provides security-intrusion protection. Server options include high-performance, highly available (GX Series) or continuously available fault tolerant (FT Series), cost-effective blade servers, or reliable, energy-saving rack and tower models. In terms of storage, the M-Series offers world-class reliability, performance, and scalability for SAN connectivity, while the HYDRAstor grid storage offers scale-out design as well as built-in deduplication. NEC enterprise software delivers monitoring and predictive diagnostics for business continuity.

The NEC Nblock infrastructure is the type of solution that decision makers are searching for these days. Instead of selecting individual components by feature and spec, CIOs are looking for services the infrastructure can deliver: Can this private cloud solution deliver on-demand application access? Can it scale? Can business operations continue? With already-proven NEC Nblock infrastructure implementations, the answer from NEC is, “Yes, it can.”

Virtualization and Private Cloud Continue to Accelerate

Virtualization and the cloud computing that it makes possible are rapidly becoming mainstream technology implementations. There is no longer any question about whether these technologies add value. A combination of capital and operational cost reduction, better data protection, higher application availability, and flexibility are too compelling to ignore. As a result, these technologies are being adopted by both large and small organizations in every industry across the globe. This point is made rather emphatically in ESG’s most recent research on IT spending intentions. As Figure 1 shows, when asked about expected IT spending for 2012, 74% of respondents plan to increase spending on “cloud computing services” and offload certain applications and infrastructure requirements to third parties, while 63% plan to spend on “virtualization/private cloud infrastructure software.”1

1 Source: ESG Research Report, 2012 IT Spending Intentions Survey, January 2012.

http://www.esg-global.com/research-reports/research-report-2012-it-spending-intentions-survey/



Figure 1. 2012 Spending Increase in Specific Technology Areas

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2012.

The reason for these increases in virtualization and cloud computing lie with the benefits they deliver. These technologies are revolutionizing the way IT services are procured and delivered to users. Instead of application-specific servers and dedicated storage that take months to purchase and configure, virtualized infrastructure resources—servers, networks, and storage—can be provisioned on demand as needs arise. As a result, data centers are beginning to morph into scalable, flexible environments that are easy to manage, are services focused, and are driven by business policy. Massive data growth demands greater scalability, while the need to be efficient—always in vogue to maximize profit as well as reduce costs—drives deployment choices. The cloud paradigm enables organizations to achieve both objectives. For example, cloud deployments let companies scale their infrastructure services up to accommodate bursts of activity (such as at quarterly reporting time or when launching a new product), then scale them back down to eliminate waste after the bursts have passed. Automation can make this simple for IT to manage and for users to acquire, keeping the focus on the business at hand instead of on the IT infrastructure underneath it.

Methods of Cloud Deployment

There are several ways to deploy cloud services, whether they offer software-, platform-, or infrastructure-as-a service (SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS). Public clouds consist of infrastructure components deployed in a hosted data center and managed by a service provider. Servers, storage, and networking, as well as virtualization and management applications, are combined and offered over the internet. They can be carved up into portions in a multi-tenant configuration with strict separation between the resources assigned to each tenant. Private clouds operate in a similar way, except that the infrastructure components are in a dedicated stack—either owned and managed on-premises by the organization, or owned and managed by a service provider but restricted to the consuming organization. On-premises private clouds can be extended to use public cloud resources in a hybrid model. For

45%

45%

49%

51%

58%

59%

60%

61%

63%

74%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Information management software (N=151)

Databases (N=253)

Server infrastructure (N=325)

Business intelligence / data analytics (N=158)

Network infrastructure (N=305)

Storage infrastructure (N=296)

Business applications (N=259)

Security (N=260)

Virtualization / private cloud infrastructure software (N=175)

Cloud computing services (N=245)

Percentage of organizations that will increase 2012 spending levels for various areas of technology. (Percent of respondents)



example, a project that consumes on-premises cloud resources may outgrow the infrastructure assigned to it. Using solutions such as VMware vCloud Director, an organization can stretch this project to include the use of resources hosted by a third party, transparently to users. This approach enables IT to maintain security and control in the data center while consolidating virtual infrastructure clusters to respond to application needs.

Virtual Computing Infrastructures

To enable cloud computing, some organizations are implementing virtual computing infrastructures. This is simply a stack of hardware components running a hypervisor either directly on the host server or within a host operating system. The hypervisor creates a layer of abstraction between the logical and physical structures, which enables the aggregation of compute, storage, and networking assets into pools of homogeneous resources to be dynamically managed and automatically provisioned on demand. These virtual computing infrastructures provide more efficient hardware usage, reduce underutilized assets, and optimize existing resources.

To achieve the promised benefits, cloud-based IT systems require virtualization-aware management tools that automate tasks using information provided by intelligent infrastructure components executing in harmony. They can provide a holistic view of the status and capabilities of the entire infrastructure stack—but they require tight integration of compute, storage, network, and virtualization components.

This is only one of the reasons that the actual infrastructure deployed to deliver these services matters so much. While good solutions are available from server, networking, and storage vendors, the abilities to integrate the parts simply and effectively and leverage the full features of each device are becoming critical to proper service delivery. The “plumbing” does matter, particularly to enable the tight integration of the parts that make up the infrastructure stack.

The two main methods of building cloud infrastructures are: 1) do it yourself (DIY), and 2) using integrated computing platforms consisting of both reference architectures (RAs) and pre-configured solutions. The conventional DIY method requires IT (often with the assistance of a consulting service) to select components, then procure, integrate, and assemble them. This approach provides the flexibility to select the components you want and configure them as you choose, including repurposing existing hardware or selecting best-of-breed components. When individual servers, storage, networks, and hypervisors are put together this way, tight stack integration with automated management tools becomes extremely important to efficient and effective operations. This method is often more complex (and time consuming), and it may require support from multiple vendors. However, IT is familiar with this way of doing things, and that can be beneficial.

The integrated computing method offers instead a design built with integration in mind. The components are designed to be assimilated rather than segregated in silos. The two types are:

Reference architecture: A reference architecture is a certified template that outlines a particular configuration and method of assembling components to serve a specific purpose—in this case, a virtual architecture. The components are not pre-integrated, but are delivered individually. It is up to the IT department, with assistance from a system integrator or vendor, to bolt it together. Reference architectures simplify and accelerate the process of building the infrastructure, but they are less flexible and customizable than DIY infrastructures.

Pre-configured: This method of delivery includes all components fully racked, stacked, and cabled according to vendor best practices. It saves time and takes the guesswork out of the process, but it eliminates much of the opportunity to tailor the solution to specific needs. These are usually the most expensive integrated platforms. In addition, they scale in large increments, making growth more costly.

Why Deploy a Private Cloud?

Private cloud infrastructures are only as valuable as the benefits they deliver to an organization. Economically, cloud-enabled solutions reduce both capital and operational costs. Capital cost benefits ensue from much better utilization of resources. For example, organizations can stop wasting storage capacity that is dedicated to one



server and application, and can instead use pooled server, storage, and networking resources wherever they are needed. This makes much more efficient use of resources, prevents over-provisioning, and reduces acquisition costs. Operationally, consolidating resources into pools and automating tasks wherever possible reduces the amount of management required. When these resources are configured in a tightly integrated stack with automated tools, the benefits are all the greater, giving IT the chance to more effectively orchestrate the environment. Imagine all the time IT staff can regain just because their end-users can self-provision—as long as IT maintains control for security and compliance purposes. In addition, resource consolidation means fewer physical devices to power and cool, saving on floor space and energy costs.

When ESG asked IT professionals in North America and Western Europe about their interest in integrated computing platforms—also referred to as “stacks” or “blocks”—more than three-quarters (76%) of the respondents expressed interest in the technology.2 To find out why, we also asked both current and potential adopters what benefits they associated with integrated computing. As Figure 2 shows, ease of management, faster deployment time, improved TCO, and less time for hardware and software integration were the top responses. Improvements in interoperability and performance were also mentioned.3

Figure 2. Benefits of Integrated Computing Platforms


When we separated out current users experienced with infrastructure blocks from those who are interested but have not yet deployed them, the results revealed that the reality is actually more impressive than the perception. Each benefit was recognized by a higher percentage of those using integrated blocks than those only interested in using them (see Table 1). This result indicates that the market may not be fully realizing the value of these infrastructures.

2 Ibid.

3 Source: ESG Research Brief, Integrated Computing Trends, March 2011.

17%

19%

28%

28%

28%

33%

35%

37%

44%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Less training required

It is more straightforward to purchase from one vendor as opposed to several

Improved service and support

Improved application performance

Reduction in interoperability issues

Less time and resources required for hardware and/or software integration

Improved total cost of ownership (TCO)

Faster deployment time

Ease of management

What benefits do you believe an integrated computing platform offers your organization? (Percent of respondents, N=471, multiple responses accepted)

http://www.esg-global.com/research-briefs/research-brief-integrated-computing-trends/



Table 1. Benefits of Integrated Computing Platforms, Current Users vs. Potential Adopters

What benefits do you believe an integrated computing platform offers your organization?

By interest in integrated computing platforms

Currently using (N=64)

Interested in using (N=407)

Faster deployment time 55% 37%

Ease of management 53% 46%

Improved total cost of ownership (TCO) 47% 36%

Less time and resources required for hardware and/or software integration 43% 34%

Improved application performance 37% 29%

It is more straightforward to purchase from one vendor as opposed to several 27% 19%


NEC Nblock Infrastructure

NEC has built an integrated, scalable infrastructure stack called the NEC Nblock infrastructure that comprises NEC servers, storage, network, and system management software, operating as a single unit supported by NEC. The NEC Nblock infrastructure can provide a virtual data center hosted in a service provider’s environment or in a corporate data center. As a private cloud infrastructure, the NEC Nblock infrastructure can be both on-premises and extended (using solutions such as VMware vCloud Director) into a third-party hosting environment.

The NEC Nblock infrastructure combines the DIY and reference architecture styles of integrated computing, providing the best of both worlds. It offers the flexibility of DIY, while using various NEC server, network, storage, and software components that can be used with the virtualization platform of the customer’s choosing. If needs change or new NEC products come to market, components can be swapped out. These features make it more agile than pre-configured platforms. At the same time, because all the components are NEC products, they offer a similar experience to pre-certified reference architectures. They are already built for integration and dramatically simplify and speed the build process—and therefore the time to value. NEC is the single point of contact for service and support as well. However, while reference architectures can be inflexible and less customizable—because they are certified only for the configuration as described—the NEC Nblock infrastructure can be tailored to customers’ requirements.

In essence, the NEC Nblock infrastructure delivers the advantages of DIY and RAs without the disadvantages. You get the flexibility of DIY without the disadvantage of a complex, time-consuming build process that is prone to trial and error. You get the RA advantages of a simpler build process (without guesswork and iterative testing), which accelerates time to value and is easy to support—without the disadvantages of rigidity and strictly defined boundaries that disallow implementations beyond what has been documented and certified.

Currently, the NEC Nblock infrastructure can be configured using a combination of various NEC components described below.

Enterprise Servers

Express5800 A1080 (GX Server)—The NEC Express5800/1000 (GX) server represents NEC’s family of highly scalable, reliable midrange and enterprise server platforms designed for consolidation and business-critical databases and applications. Current NEC Express5800/A1080a Intel Xeon Processor E7 Family (Westmere-EX) processor servers can accommodate up to 2TB of memory and 160 threads with modular in-box partitioning in an innovative single 7U chassis that supports configuration flexibility using solid-state and hard-disk drives (SSDs/HDDs). Representing the fifth-generation Enterprise Server architecture from NEC, the Express5800/1000 servers provide configuration flexibility, capacity, reliability, and availability. These features and robust performance characteristics exploit the



inherent functionality of the Intel Xeon processor series servers. NEC’s Enterprise Servers use Intel’s Machine Check Architecture (MCA) to keep the servers running even in the event of memory module failure.

Built for superior performance, GX servers leverage Intel QuickPath Interconnect technology for fast database performance. This integration enables the GX to optimize memory-intensive virtualization solutions, compute-intensive databases, and high availability for mission-critical applications. This consolidation server is designed to be less costly than running two individual servers, with advanced partitioning for space efficiency and built-in energy-reduction technology.

Express5800 Fault Tolerant (FT Series)—NEC’s 5800 FT Series is built with a fully redundant 4U chassis, multi-core Intel 5500 and 5600 Xeon processors, up to 96GB of memory, and up to 2.4TB of logical storage. FT Series servers are designed for continuous availability as well as fast performance. Processing will be uninterrupted regardless of a host-based failure, and maintenance can be performed without hypervisor, guest OS, or application downtime. NEC technology ensures that the redundant engines work in lockstep so instructions are processed simultaneously. As a result, faults can be detected and isolated on one engine while the other continues operating. When the fault is resolved, the units automatically resynchronize and resume lockstep operations. TCO is lower than clustered servers because only a single OS and application software license is required.

Intel Xeon 5600 series are incorporated in NEC Fault Tolerant servers. Over the past decade, NEC has provided customers with the highest levels of availability—required for mission-critical IT and virtualization. Leveraging the higher processing and memory capacity of the Intel Xeon CPU family, NEC is able to deliver high scalable performance for VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V environments.

Express5800 SIGMABLADE—This line of blade servers and enclosures unites server, storage, and network components in a cost-effective design that delivers high performance and virtualization. Blade server models vary in the number and type of Intel Xeon processors and offer up to 128GB of memory. Enclosures provide a 6U chassis optimized for midsized systems and a 10U high-density enterprise chassis.

Express5800/100 Rack and Tower servers—the NEC Express5800/100 series of rack and tower servers enables outstanding performance, reliability, and energy savings with green technology. The servers are featured with the latest Intel Xeon Processor E5-2600 and E3-1200 processors, combined with NEC’s own innovations for higher manageability, energy efficiency, and scalability. The features help to maximize ROI through cloud computing, especially for business-critical applications and database consolidation at corporate data centers.

Enterprise Storage

M-Series SAN—The M-Series balances performance, affordability, and functionality for SAN applications. Supporting Fibre Channel and 1Gb/10GB Ethernet, M-Series arrays offer up to 1,152TB of capacity and 48GB of cache. Both SSD and HDD drives can be configured in a single enclosure for flexible storage tiering. The M-Series is easy to set up and manage, with energy-saving MAID technology that spins down RAID groups not in use to reduce power consumption. Other advanced features include five-nines availability, WORM support, snapshots, replication, thin provisioning, and VAAI support to automate certain tasks and offload them from the server.

World-class reliability, performance, and scalability are required for data availability in the cloud. M-Series SAN storage, powered by the Intel Jasper Forest processor, supports a virtualized, scale-out cloud infrastructure and delivers compelling performance and advanced functionality to reduce procurement and operational costs. Common storage tasks such as LUN expansion and rebuild/recovery are performed faster than with non-Intel CPU architectures.

HYDRAstor—This grid-based, capacity-optimized storage provides in-line deduplication in a scale-out design. Built for high-performance backup, archiving, and disaster recovery, HYDRAstor storage optimizes both capacity and performance while retaining data integrity over the long term. It scales in a linear fashion to more than 20PB of capacity. Upgrades and capacity expansion can be performed online without data migration. Global deduplication and energy efficiency reduce storage capacity requirements and data center costs.



ESG Lab performed hands-on testing of a combined GX server/HYDRAstor storage solution offering performance scalability as well as deduplication and high availability. Together, these products provide both processing speed and capacity scalability—an unusual and very valuable combination for a data-protection infrastructure. HYDRAstor’s data deduplication and compression shrink data volumes, and as accelerator nodes are added, the performance scales in a linear fashion—enabling more data to be protected in less time.

Next-generation Enterprise Networking

The products below are NEC’s implementation of the OpenFlow standards-based, software-defined network. By standardizing functions such as QoS, firewalls, and stream analysis, OpenFlow reduces costs. It simplifies and consolidates network management, reduces power and space requirements, and improves resiliency.

The NEC ProgrammableFlow Controller establishes a new category of network management by integrating best-in-class monitoring capabilities with network configuration management. With NEC’s multi-tenant network virtualization technology, organizations can programmatically manage the way traffic flows across the network, optimizing the use of existing network resources and the appliances, servers, and storage connecting to the network, leading to service agility and higher staff productivity. IBM and NEC are now combining their unique value with a leading SDN/OpenFlow offering based upon NEC ProgrammableFlow Controller and Switches and IBM RackSwitches. The two companies are combining their efforts to offer the first high-performance, end-to-end data center fabric architecture based upon SDN/OpenFlow.

ProgrammableFlow Controller—The NEC ProgrammableFlow Controller enables implementation, monitoring, and management of multi-tenant network infrastructure from a single console, enabling rapid scaling, virtual machine migration, and workload balancing in a single management interface.

ProgrammableFlow Switch—The NEC Universal ProgrammableFlow Switches provide network virtualization, multi-pathing, and security, as well as up to 1.2TB/sec throughput. It provides high performance and availability, and it reduces TCO by virtualizing network services, eliminating distributed protocols, and reducing energy requirements.

Enterprise Software

MasterScope—The NEC MasterScope middleware is an integrated administration software suite that helps you to overcome the challenges that accompany the increasingly complicated corporate IT systems for cloud computing. The MasterScope suite manages system and operations functions. Some suite products are described below.

o MasterScope SigmaSystemCenter—The NEC SigmaSystemCenter software product is a suite of integrated virtualization platform management software that provides total support for the operation of virtualized environments. SigmaSystemCenter features a configuration control function for servers, storage, networks, and virtual machines, which enables you to integrate both servers and clients.

o MasterScope Invariant Analyzer—This patented NEC technology analyzes large amounts of data collected by monitoring tools to identify problems before they affect systems. It can automate predictive diagnostics across multiple domains and offer visualization that improves IT’s insight into system behavior. A knowledgebase can be created to assist with problem resolution. By finding and diagnosing difficult-to-detect system failures, Invariant Analyzer helps to improve service levels and reduce TCO. Invariant Analyzer is used with ProgrammableFlow network products.

o ExpressCluster—This family of high-availability/DR software protects physical and virtual servers and operating systems. It offers continuous monitoring and minimizes downtime disruption with fast data recovery, automated failover/failback, and synchronous and asynchronous data mirroring in a browser-based management console that streamlines administration and improves visibility.



ExpressCluster includes enhanced monitoring agents for databases, web servers, and network services.

Examples of NEC Nblock Infrastructure Implementations

Genesis Hosting

Genesis Hosting of Chicago, Illinois, uses NEC Nblock infrastructures to provide virtual data centers (VDCs) for its customers in a multi-tenant, public cloud deployment. After a highly successful proof of concept, Genesis selected the NEC Nblock infrastructure because it delivers manageability, flexibility, and scalability at a fraction of the cost of pre-packaged reference architectures. Genesis uses a customer-driven self-service model. Customers manage their own virtual data centers that reside in the Genesis physical data center, while Genesis handles all the configuration and management of the NEC Nblock infrastructures on the back end.

Customers access their VDCs whenever they want, and they can provision resources or run applications without any help from Genesis. Additional resources can be non-disruptively provided by Genesis as needed. Resources are shared among client VDCs, and resource utilization is monitored and dynamically allocated with full security between VDCs.

Cloud in a Vault

Another service powered by NEC is the “Cloud in a Vault” (CiaV), a private cloud solution that combines the NEC Nblock infrastructure with security, compliance (including PCI, HIPAA, ISO, and HI-TRUST), and monitoring in a hosted environment. It delivers Compliance as a Service (CaaS), and enables organizations to align business projects with infrastructure costs. Instead of incurring capital expenses for equipment, customers can consume infrastructure as needed and incur monthly operational expenses only. The CiaV offering provides accountability, real-dollar SLAs protected by Traveler’s Insurance, and retractability (promising that the customer can take possession of the entire cloud infrastructure and data on 72 hours’ notice). Genesis Hosting and its customers are examples of organizations taking advantage of the CiaV offering.

For example, HBR Consulting, a legal consulting firm, required a completely new infrastructure when it split off from its parent company. The firm chose a CiaV private cloud solution using NEC Nblock infrastructure in the Cyber Development Group International (CDGI) data center outside Chicago, Illinois. The CiaV NEC Nblock infrastructure consisted of an NEC GP Series server and ProgrammableFlow fabric at the customer site. This was extended using a VPN to the CDGI data center using NEC GX Series Enterprise Servers, ProgrammableFlow Controller/Switches, and M-Series SAN storage along with VMware vSphere 4.1 and OpenBSD. Also included were NEC Remote Monitoring Services and Managed Services, plus Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint. This CiaV provided HBR Consulting with a complete data center and DR site without capital expenses, and with operational savings and insured SLAs.



The Bigger Truth

Technology innovations are transforming the landscape of IT and the way IT services are delivered. Virtualization and cloud computing are enabling flexible, agile data centers that can scale up and scale back to meet business demands, provide infrastructure services on demand to support new applications, and consolidate equipment into virtual resource pools to maximize efficiency and reduce TCO. It’s a whole new world out there.

For IT departments, this is good news—mostly. It’s good news as long as IT is able to build the cloud deployments needed to deliver the services that are expected. That is not always a simple task. Given a taste of speedy provisioning and on-demand services, user expectations are soaring. IT needs a way to quickly and efficiently deploy a high-level virtual computing architecture to serve these needs. This requires a tightly integrated stack of server, network, and storage components glued together with virtualization and automated management—unheard of in the recent past, and yet available from many sources today.

NEC is not only a leading manufacturer of computing infrastructure components, but a cloud data center services provider. This experience has led the company to develop the NEC Nblock integrated infrastructure stack. NEC Nblock infrastructures are composed of optimal NEC server, storage, networking, and software components that are easy to deploy and operate effectively together. NEC Nblock infrastructures are a great way to deploy a private cloud in a corporate data center, and they work equally well in a third-party hosting environment. As a result, NEC Nblock infrastructures can be used as private clouds whether the IT organization needs on-premises infrastructure, a hosted private cloud, or on-premises with extensions into a hosted environment. NEC’s “empowered by innovation” efforts not only deliver the traditional components from a single vendor, but also deliver next-generation technology that delivers operational savings and adds new functionality that allows firms to work smarter and be more agile. Similarly, NEC’s innovation with its new OpenFlow-based ProgrammableFlow Controller and Switch network products allow firms to work smarter and be more agile.

ESG research indicates that fast, easy deployment, ease of management, and lower TCO are the top-rated benefits that users see in integrated computing platforms. NEC’s Nblock infrastructure delivers those values by combining the advantages of DIY and reference architectures. They are flexible and customizable like DIY, yet easily integrated and built to work together. NEC Nblock infrastructures can be built using components optimized for whatever features customers want—for example, using GX Series servers for high performance and high availability, or FT Series for continuous availability, M-Series storage for SAN applications, and HYDRAstor for deduplicated backup and archiving.

In addition, NEC includes next-generation ProgrammableFlow networking components and enterprise software designed for deterministic behavior, converged fabrics, agility, overall smarter networking, and business continuity. Together, these components deliver a full-featured virtual data center designed to reduce TCO. Proof of its success are the CiaV implementation and usage by Genesis Hosting. A single-vendor solution provides a tightly designed and integrated infrastructure that is commercially supportable in a viable environment, allowing for a more agile and smarter business. This environment enables a closer working relationship for an optimized infrastructure.

Selecting IT solutions is becoming more of a business decision than it has been in the past. Instead of choosing components with specific features, decision makers are selecting infrastructure designs that offer particular types of support. Senior management’s buying decisions are focusing on what the business needs: applications on demand, instant scalability, and continuous operations—not server processors, storage protocols, and network throughput. NEC Nblock infrastructure provides an integrated infrastructure unit to fulfill those business needs.

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Architectural Foundations for Private Cloud Deployments

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