Intel Cloud Builder Guide: Cloud Design and Deployment on Intel Platforms

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Intel® Cloud Builder Guide: Cloud Design and Deployment on Intel® Platforms

Red Hat* Cloud Foundations

AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE

For cloud service providers, hosts, and enterprise IT organizations who are looking to build their own cloud infrastructure, the decision to use a cloud for the delivery of IT services is best done by starting with the knowledge and experience gained from previous work. The reference architecture outlines a private Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud setup using Red Hat* Cloud Foundations on Intel® Xeon® series processor-based servers. Using the contents of the paper, which include detailed scripts and screen shots, should significantly reduce the learning curve for building and operating your first cloud computing infrastructure.

Because the creation and operation of a cloud requires integration and customization to existing IT infrastructure and business requirements, we do not expect that the paper can be used “as-is.” For example, adaptation to an existing network and identification of management requirements are out of scope for the paper. Therefore, we expect that the user of the paper will make significant adjustments to the design to meet specific customer requirements.

The paper is assumed to be a starting point for that journey.

Intel® Xeon® Processor 5500 Series Intel® Xeon® Processor 5600 Series

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Figure 2 shows the servers in our environment:

Software Components

The following software was used to construct our private IaaS cloud:

Software Version Red Hat* Enterprise

Linux 5.5

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

2.2

Red Hat Network

Satellite 5.3

Executive Summary

Cloud computing is a model that enables convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Red Hat and Intel collaborated to build a simple private cloud focused on providing IaaS using Red Hat software and Intel® hardware. Figure 1 depicts our test bed configuration.

A single server¹ was selected to act as the storage server providing network file system/Internet small computer system interface (NFS/iSCSI) to the rest of the environment, while eight servers ran Red Hat* Enterprise Virtualization hypervisors.² Red Hat* Network Satellite³ ran on a server to provide fully automated bare-metal and virtual deployments, while the last server ran Red Hat* Enterprise Virtualization Manager. This environment is a highly simplified deployment based on the Red Hat Cloud Foundations Reference Architecture Edition One: Private IaaS Clouds document that can be accessed at http://www.redhat.com/rhel/resource_

center/reference_architecture.html. In the paper, we begin with the basic building blocks for an IaaS private cloud, and discuss areas for potential improvement in a more robust environment.

Introduction

Our goal was to create a simple private cloud using Red Hat software and an Intel®-based platform. The result is an easy to deploy cloud that is manageable, scalable, and fault tolerant. With this cloud, we aimed to accomplish management through rich user interfaces and to use APIs for scripting purposes.

We opted not to use any clustering technologies for the management systems in our simple test bed, however,

in a production environment this is highly recommended. For full details on a complete robust deployment, refer to the Red Hat Cloud Foundations Reference Architecture Edition One: Private IaaS Clouds document.⁴

Hardware Components Intel configured 11 systems:

• One storage server

• Two management servers

• Eight hypervisor servers

Hardware System Count Specifications

Specifications 1 Intel® Xeon® processor 5500

series-based server

Deployment server 1 Intel® Xeon® processor 5500

series-based server Virtualization Management

Server 1 Intel® Xeon® processor 5500

series-based server

Hypervisors 8 Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 and

5600 series-based servers RHN Satellite

RHEV-M

Provision

Manage

VM

Red Hat* Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisors

1Gb Switch 10Gb Switch

NFS Storage 1Gb Management Network

10Gb Data Network

Figure 1: IaaS Private Cloud

Table 1: Hardware Components

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These components are described in the following sections.

Red Hat* Enterprise Linux*

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the world’s leading open source application platform.

On one certified platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers a choice of:

• Applications – thousands of certified ISV applications

• Deployment – including standalone or virtual servers, cloud computing, or software appliances

• Hardware – a wide range of certified platforms from the world’s leading hardware vendors

We used Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the operating system for the storage server and Red Hat Network Satellite server. We also created several virtual machines and templates based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5.⁵

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is an end-to-end virtualization solution that is designed to enable pervasive datacenter virtualization and significantly enhance capital and operational efficiency. It includes a hypervisor based on kernel- based virtual machine (KVM) technology as well as management tools for both server and desktop deployments.

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is the ideal platform on which to build an internal or private cloud on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Windows* virtual machines.

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization consists of the following components:

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager: A feature-rich virtualization management system that provides advanced capabilities for hosts and guests, including high availability, live migration, storage management, a system scheduler, and more.

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor: A modern hypervisor based on KVM⁶ virtualization technology that can be deployed either as a standalone bare-metal hypervisor (included), or as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and later (purchased separately) installed as a hypervisor host and managed through Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager.

In our IaaS cloud, we used Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor on eight servers and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager on one server.

Red Hat Network Satellite

Red Hat Network Satellite is an easy-to- use systems management platform for your growing Linux infrastructure. Built on open standards, Red Hat Network Satellite provides powerful systems administration capabilities that can manage, provision, and monitor large deployments. Red Hat Network Satellite allows you to manage many servers as easily as you would one.

RHN Satellite

RHEV-M

Red Hat* Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisors

NFS Storage

Figure 2: Hardware Components

Red Hat Network Satellite makes Linux deployable, scalable, manageable, and consistent. It provides administrators with the tools to efficiently manage their systems, which lowers per-system deployment and management costs.

It also offers superior security as it has a single centralized tool, secure connection policies for remote administration, and secure content. Use Red Hat Network Satellite to ensure that security fixes and configuration files are applied across your environment consistently.

Red Hat Network Satellite uses the provisioning configuration tool Cobbler⁷ extensively. Cobbler is a Linux installation server that allows for rapid setup of network installation environments. It binds and automates many associated Linux tasks, which eliminates the need for various commands and applications when one introduces new systems or changes existing ones. With a simple series of commands, network installs can

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virtual machines. However, they must reside on a virtual infrastructure outside of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization.

To accomplish this, a Red Hat cluster must be configured using two or more instances of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform. The management servers are installed as KVM virtual machines, and are implemented as active/

passive services. Figure 3 shows a deployment using two clustered systems running Red Hat Network Satellite and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager as highly available virtual machines. For full details on this deployment scenario, refer to the Red Hat Cloud Foundations Reference Architecture Edition One:

Private IaaS Clouds.⁸ be configured for pre-boot execution

environments (PXE), re-installations, media-based net-installs, and virtualized installs (supporting Xen*

and KVM).

Red Hat Network Satellite is used to provision all bare-metal hypervisors for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization as well as for virtual machines.

High Availability for Management Systems

We implemented a basic IaaS private cloud with the software components listed above. This scenario may contain points of failure that can be addressed with additional configuration.

As shown in Figure 1, the management servers are deployed onto physical hardware. This means that if these systems were to fail, the management capabilities would cease until these systems are restored. However, the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization environment would continue to run any virtual machines and workloads.

Only new management actions would not be possible. It should be noted that the hypervisors themselves are in a cluster, and when configured with power management, as we have done here, virtual machines are automatically highly available.

To remedy this gap in the management servers, the servers can be installed as

Figure 3: High Availability for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and Red Hat Network Satellite RHN Satellite

RHEV-M

Provision

Manage

Red Hat* Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisors

1Gb Switch 10Gb Switch

NFS Storage 1Gb Management Network

10Gb Data Network VM VM

RHEL KVM

RHEL HA

VM

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Hyper-Threading Technology requires a computer system with an Intel processor supporting Hyper-Threading Technology and an HT Technology enabled chipset, BIOS and operating system. Performance will vary depending on the specific hardware and software you use. See http://www.intel.com/info/hyperthreading/ for more information including details on which processors support HT Technology.

◊ Intel^® Virtualization Technology requires a computer system with an enabled Intel^® processor, BIOS, virtual machine monitor (VMM) and, for some uses, certain platform software enabled for it. Functionality, performance or other benefits will vary depending on hardware and software configurations and may require a BIOS update. Software applications may not be compatible with all operating systems. Please check with your application vendor.

INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH INTEL^® PRODUCTS. NO LICENSE, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, BY ESTOPPEL OR OTHERWISE, TO ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IS GRANTED BY THIS DOCUMENT. EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN INTEL’S TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SALE FOR SUCH PRODUCTS, INTEL ASSUMES NO LIABILITY WHATSOEVER, AND INTEL DISCLAIMS ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY, RELATING TO SALE AND/OR USE OF INTEL PRODUCTS INCLUDING LIABILITY OR WARRANTIES RELATING TO FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, MERCHANTABILITY, OR INFRINGEMENT OF ANY PAT- ENT, COPYRIGHT OR OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHT. UNLESS OTHERWISE AGREED IN WRITING BY INTEL, THE INTEL PRODUCTS ARE NOT DESIGNED NOR INTENDED FOR ANY APPLICATION IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE INTEL PRODUCT COULD CREATE A SITUATION WHERE PERSONAL INJURY OR DEATH MAY OCCUR.

Intel may make changes to specifications and product descriptions at any time, without notice. Designers must not rely on the absence or characteristics of any features or instructions marked “reserved” or “undefined.” Intel reserves these for future definition and shall have no responsibility whatsoever for conflicts or incompatibilities arising from future changes to them. The information here is subject to change without notice. Do not finalize a design with this information.

The products described in this document may contain design defects or errors known as errata which may cause the product to deviate from published specifications. Current characterized errata are available on request. Contact your local Intel sales office or your distributor to obtain the latest specifications and before placing your product order. Copies of documents which have an order number and are referenced in this document, or other Intel literature, may be obtained by calling 1-800-548-4725, or by visiting Intel’s Web site at www.intel.com.

Copyright © 2010 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Xeon, Intel Xeon inside, Intel Data Center Manager, Intel Cloud Builder Test Bed, Intel Trusted Execution Technology, Intel Advanced Encryption Standard-New Instructions, and Intel Intelligent Power Node Manager are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

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Endnotes

1. See Hardware Components 2. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization:

http://www.redhat.com/rhev 3. Red Hat Network Satellite:

http://www.redhat.com/red_hat_network

4. Red Hat Cloud Foundations Reference Architecture Edition One: Private IaaS Clouds http://www.redhat.com/rhel/

resource_center/reference_architecture.html.

5. Red Hat Enterprise Linux http://www.redhat.com/rhel/server/

6. Kernel Virtual Machine

http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/rhev/DOC-KVM.pdf

7. Cobbler

http://cobbler.et.redhat.com 8. See number 4.

To learn more about designing cloud solutions, visit our Intel® Cloud Builder Website.

Reference Architecture Library for Intel® Cloud Builder

Intel is working with leading cloud ISVs to deliver documented reference architectures and best known methods that provide starting points for building cloud infrastructure. These reference architectures consist of ISV software stacks running on a test bed of Intel® Xeon® processor-based servers.

Intel Cloud Builder Guide: Cloud Design and Deployment on Intel Platforms