Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track Reference Architecture

Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track is a reference

architecture designed to help build private clouds by

combining Microsoft software with NEC’s technology to

decrease the complexity, risk, and time involved in

deployment. The Fast Track program provides faster

deployments, reduced risk, and lower cost of ownership by

delivering validated, pre-configured solutions.

Private Cloud Benefits

Reduced Total Cost of

Ownership

Increase utilization, decrease administrative burden on IT staff, and leverage existing investments.

 Provide self-service IT, which helps IT staff focus on strategic functions

 Virtualization facilitates an increase in utilization, improving systems availability

 Integrate with existing public and private cloud resources

Performance, Security, and

Control

Deliver greater bandwidth, lower latency, and more consistent experience worldwide.

 Redundant and scalable architecture helps IT departments set up solutions with 99.999 percent uptime or greater

 More tightly control access, location, and transfer policy for data

 Utilize custom costing and cost recovery models for chargeback

NEC Advantage

Benefit from NEC’s deep technical expertise and long history of close collaboration with Microsoft.

 Built on high performance NEC Express5800 servers which also provide superior energy efficiency

 Simplified manageability with the combination of System Center and NEC’s ESMPRO management software

 Easy expansion with up to a total of 12 servers in this Private Cloud Fast Track configuration

Microsoft

Private Cloud

Fast Track

Reference

Architecture

Key Features

Faster Deployment

Reduce complexity with pre-configured, partner-led solutions

Increase flexibility

Offer choice in virtualization and private cloud offerings

Reduce Risk

Deploy out-of-the-box offerings with reduced risk and greater confidence

Fast Track’s validation guidance also includes the usage of Windows Azure Pack for Windows Server 2012 R2.

Azure Pack provides a solution that enables a single pane of glass for enterprises to deliver Windows Azure technologies into the private cloud, facilitating a rich, self-service, multi-tenant cloud with Windows Azure- consistent experiences and services.

Microsoft and NEC deliver on the promise of agile private cloud computing through an interoperable hardware and software platform based on standardized reference architectures coming in different sizes. A private cloud from NEC can greatly reduce time-to-value for virtualization infrastructure investments because it unites shared compute, network, and storage resources

NEC Paired with Microsoft Fast Track

The NEC Private Cloud Fast Track configuration provides a compact, efficient, and powerful solution for organizations that want to explore how they might benefit from a private cloud infrastructure or those whose IT requirements can be met by a small cloud configuration. With NEC’s Private Cloud Fast Track solution, you can start small with two servers and one storage unit but still have plenty of potential for future growth as required by demand. This solution combines Microsoft’s expertise in cloud infrastructure and NEC’s deep technical knowledge and experience in building products to support the Windows platform.

Compute

NEC’s Express5800 servers provide the foundation for an easily extensible and scalable cloud platform. Through the Fast Track program, installation is simple and straightforward.

 The NEC Express5800/R120e-1M, which is the building block of NEC’s Private Cloud Fast Track configuration, is a high-density mounting, dual-socket 1U rack server with the latest Intel^® Xeon^®

processors. It provides outstanding performance with limited space, reliability, and simplified management.

 NEC’s green technology enables the operation in temperatures of 40°C (104°F) to lower air conditioning costs for server rooms.

 Featuring large memory and hard drive capacity, the R120e-1M is designed for the most demanding applications and virtualization environments such as a private cloud infrastructure built on Hyper-V.

Storage

iSCSI storage is also provided through the Express5800/R120e-1M with a maximum capacity of 8 hard disk drives.

 Installed iSCSI storage software is provided by Windows Server 2012 R2 and includes functionality to provide the ISCSI controller, multipath driver for MPIO, and tiered drivers for Windows Storage Spaces.

Network

The NEC Private Cloud Fast Track configuration was designed for simplicity and reliability. Networking is key to this approach. Only four cables are required to add a server to the configuration.

 10Gb network with built-in VLAN and QoS

 Each teamed network path is connected to a dedicated network switch so that failure of one network switch does not cause loss of any connectivity.

Management

NEC’s Fast Track configuration is built on Microsoft System Center products. The addition of ESMPRO, NEC’s own management solution, assures total manageability.

 Multiple levels of redundancy are provided for physical servers, storage, network, and virtual machine clustering. This is achieved through a combination of both redundant hardware and software capabilities provided by Microsoft and NEC.

Private Cloud Fast Track Reference

Architecture

The NEC Business-Ready Configuration is pre-

engineered, tested, and optimized for virtualization. It supports the operating system, virtualization, and management capabilities offered by Windows Server 2012 R2, Hyper-V, and System Center 2012 R2.

Private Cloud Technologies

Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V

With Windows Server 2012 R2, it is now easier than ever for organizations to take advantage of the cost savings of virtualization and make the optimum use of server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server roles as separate virtual machines. This technology:

 Improves virtualization density and makes optimal use of server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server roles as separate virtual machines. These virtual machines use Hyper-V to efficiently run multiple operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, and others in parallel, on a single server.

 Extends virtualization capabilities with more features, greater scalability, and built-in reliability mechanisms.

System Center 2012 R2

A cloud and data center management solution, Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 builds on the core capability provided by Windows Server 2012 R2. It delivers a flexible, cost-effective private cloud infrastructure in a self- service model, while using existing data center hardware and software investments. This solution delivers the following capabilities:

 Infrastructure provisioning: Enable enterprises and service providers to provision an infrastructure that meets their key requirements.

 Automation and self-service: Facilitate the agility enterprise owners need while providing datacenter administrators the tools they need to drive cost-effectiveness and IT control.

 Infrastructure monitoring: Provide a single toolset to monitor infrastructure resources across on- premises, service provider, and Windows Azure environments.

 Application performance monitoring: Provide the deep insight necessary to deliver predictable application SLAs to application owners.

 IT service management: Provide the necessary service management processes to help enterprise IT deliver services in a flexible manner.

NEC Solutions

NEC’s family of Express5800 servers provide for a wide range of computing solutions. Those chosen for the Fast Track Private Cloud configuration provide just the right combination of performance, scalability, and energy efficiency. And they are well matched to the storage, network, and management components of NEC’s solution.

Express5800 Server

 NEC’s Express5800/R120e-1M supports the latest Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 v2 product family 12-core processors for maximum energy efficiency and performance. Offers up to 1.5TB of memory.

 Industry-leading intelligent fan control minimizes cooling power with individually optimized fan speeds.

 80 PLUS® Platinum certified power supply enables greater energy savings.

 The NEC Express5800/R110f-1E is optionally available as a backup server for this Fast Track configuration.

Storage

 Windows Storage Spaces functionality is provided on Express5800/r120e-1M servers configured with 256GB of memory and up to 8 disk drives.

 Supported drives include

o 2.5inch 6Gb/s SAS HDD, hot plug capable 300G/450G/600G/900G/1.2T (10K rpm), 146.5G/300G (15K rpm)

o 2.5inch 6Gb/s SAS SSD, Hot Plug capable 200G/400G

Network

 The NEC UNIVERGE QX-S5828T is a 10Gbps L3 network switch and is combined with a ProSAFE^® M7300-24XF 10Gbps L2+ network switch.

 Each network (Management/Cluster Shared Volume(CSV)/Live Migration/VM-VM) is dedicated by using Tag VLAN. These networks share a teamed physical 10Gbps Ethernet.

 iSCSI is used for storage networking. An iSCSI network consists of 2 physical 10Gbps Ethernet and is redundant by MPIO.

Management

 ESMPRO Server Manager and Agent monitor server health including power supply, fan and voltage failures along with ambient temperature.

 System Center Operations Manager monitors the health of server, storage, and network devices. It also oversees the status of the operating system and cluster.

 System Center Operations Manager provides performance monitoring for the OS, processors, disks, and network. It also monitors CPU, memory, network and disk utilization.

 Backup is available through Windows Server Backup, Windows Azure Backup, or Hyper-V Replica depending on specific user requirements.

Fast Track Solution

What Can I Expect from a

Fast Track Solution?

NEC has built Fast Track configurations based on each Fast Track program. This latest configuration benefits from our experience and close

collaboration with Microsoft.

Contact NEC for more on our Fast Track and other Windows- based solutions.

 Deployment tools automatically set up the environment on a factory default server

 The Configuration Guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to configure the Hyper-V cloud platform.

 The Configuration Guide also explains to how set up the physical server environment.

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More Information and Next Steps

 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/fast-track.aspx

 http://www.nec.com/global/solutions/servervirtualization/hypervcloud In the United States

www.necam.com/MicrosoftPrivateCloudFastTrack