Cisco's Unified Computing System - It's not just a blade center

Overview of Cisco’s Unified Computing System

This March, Cisco formally announced its entry into the enterprise computing market with a new product line called the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS). I say formally announced, because the existence of the Unified Computing System might just be the worst kept secret in history. In the months prior to launch Cisco has been openly talking about the system, as well as many news agencies. The only people who haven’t been talking about the system were those of us who got briefed in early and were under strict NDA (yours truly being one of them). But now, the multiple layers of NDA have been removed and I am free to talk. So, let me tell you about a new concept called Unified Computing.

The Unified Computing System answers a simple question - “what would you do if you could build a system with no preconceptions”. That same question has been asked over the years by Cisco. The results have given us the Catalyst 6500 line of switches, the Cisco MDS storage line, as well as the Nexus 7000/5000/2000/1000V family of switches.

Nuova - a history of innovation

A couple of years ago, Cisco funded a startup called Nuova (meaning “New” in Italian). The founders of this startup were the same innovators who led the Catalyst, MDS and Nexus products. Not only did they have a track record of successful products, but they also had experience in both types of Data Center networking - Ethernet, and Fibre Channel. This startup took the lessons they learned creating a non blocking, low latency, highly available fabric for the MDS line of SAN switches and created a new line of Data Center switches, the Nexus 5000 that is able to transport Fibre Channel and Ethernet traffic at the same time, through a single adapter.

In April of 2008 Cisco formally acquired Nuova (which in effect was just hiring prior innovators back). Nuova was renamed the Server and Virtualization Business Unit (SAVBU), and the Nexus 5000 was released to market, making Cisco the first vendor to deliver a solution based around the upcoming Fibre Channel over Ethernet standard (FCOE). This pattern of innovation continued, as SAVBU released a virtual switch for VMware (the nexus 1000V) and this January released a remote line card technology called Fabric Extension. Those of us on the inside got the hint that the choice of names for this new business unit (SERVER and VIRTUALIZATION Business Unit) was a foreshadow of things to come.

Key Specifications

• Single point of management for all devices in the fabric
• Virtual machine enabled networks adapters (VNtag capable)
• Up to 320 B-series compute blades in one fabric
• Up to 384 Gigabytes of memory per blade (full width blade)
• Server Profiles - virtualize server identities (UUID, WWN, MAC)
• Hardware Assisted Virtualization using Intel’s next generation Xeon (code named Nehalem-EP) processors
• Redundant 10 Gigabit connections between servers
• Fibre Channel SAN access available to every blade
• Capital costs up to 20% less
• Operational costs up to 30% less

The UCS does all of this while using 1/3 less components than the competition. What does using less components give you? Less components means less things to buy (lower capital expense). It also means less things to power and cool (lower operational expense). And finally it means less items to manage (lower management burden).

Cisco UCS 6100 Fabric Interconnect (Nexus 5000 on steroids)

The primary building block of the system is the Cisco UCS 6100 Fabric Interconnect. Cisco took the non blocking, low latency, lossless fabric from the MDS that was used on the Nexus 5000 and used it as a building block for the 6120 and 6140 Fabric Interconnects. These fabrics support 20 and 40 (6120/6140) 10gig Data Center Ethernet (combined Fibre Channel and Ethernet support).

• 6120 - 20 Fixed 10 Gig Data Center Ethernet ports along with an expansion module that supports native Fibre Channel, or additional Data Center Ethernet interfaces
• 6140 - 40 Fixed 10 Gig Data Center Ethernet ports along with two expansion modules that support native Fibre Channel, or additional Data Center Ethernet interfaces

Cisco Unified Computing System Manager (UCSM)

The UCSM runs on the fabric switches, providing a single point of management for all components in the fabric:

• I/O Fabric
• Chassis and Services
• Adapters and Virtual I/O

This interface can be accessed through either a web-based GUI or CLI. It also supports a full API for programmatic integration and management of the system. The biggest thing that the UCSM gives you is the ability to dynamically provision server attributes down to the compute blades. Attributes that can be pushed down dynamically include CPU UUID, SAN PWWN, Ethernet MAC address, and many more.

Cisco UCS B-Series Blades

The compute blades are available in either 1/2 width or full width form factors. At release, there will be two options:

Half width blade:

• 2 quad core Intel Xeon 5500 processors
• 96 Gigabytes of memory
• Two small form factor SAS drives (raid 0 and 1)
• Single Converged Network Adapter slot (connected to redundant fabrics)

Full width blade:

• 2 quad core Intel Xeon 5500 processors
• 384 Gigabytes of memory
• Two small form factor SAS drives (raid 0 and 1)
• Dual Converged Network Adapter slots

Hardware Assisted Virtualization

Intel’s Xeon 5500 brings several key technologies to address common virtualization challenges:

• Processor Virtualization: VT-X extends CPU virtualization to the physical CPU
• Memory Virtualization: Extended Page Tables, Cisco Memory Expansion and DMA remapping remove memory access overhead
• I/O Device Virtualization: VT-C enables transparent integration between physical and virtual networks

Summary

Cisco’s entry into the computing space is not a “me too” entry into a commodity x86 market. It is a well thought out strategic move unifying storage, network and compute functions in a unique way that will differentiate the Unified Computing System from other compute offerings. I expect some fierce debate in the upcoming months as competitors release products to compete. I feel that Cisco’s value proposition of a unified compute/network layer in the Data Center uniquely solves problems that most customers face. And at the end of the day, the vendor that can solve the customers’ problems is the vendor that will succeed.