Datacenter Tiering According to Uptime Institute

Uptime Institute’s Tier Classification System for data centers is approaching the two decade mark. Since its creation in the mid-1990s, the system has evolved from a shared industry terminology into the global standard for third-party validation of data center critical infrastructure.

Uptime Institute created the standard Tier Classification System to consistently evaluate various data center facilities in terms of potential site infrastructure performance, or uptime. The below is a summary and please see Tier Standard: Topology and accompanying Accredited Tier Designer Technical Papers.

The Tiers (I-IV) are progressive; each Tier incorporates the requirements of all the lower Tiers.

Tier I: Basic Capacity A Tier I data center provides dedicated site infrastructure to support information technology beyond an office setting. Tier I infrastructure includes a dedicated space for IT systems; an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to filter power spikes, sags, and momentary outages; dedicated cooling equipment that won’t get shut down at the end of normal office hours; and an engine generator to protect IT functions from extended power outages.

Tier II: Redundant Capacity Components Tier II facilities include redundant critical power and cooling components to provide select maintenance opportunities and an increased margin of safety against IT process disruptions that would result from site infrastructure equipment failures. The redundant components include power and cooling equipment such as UPS modules, chillers or pumps, and engine generators.

Tier III: Concurrently Maintainable A Tier III data center requires no shutdowns for equipment replacement and maintenance. A redundant delivery path for power and cooling is added to the redundant critical components of Tier II so that each and every component needed to support the IT processing environment can be shut down and maintained without impact on the IT operation.

Tier IV: Fault Tolerance Tier IV site infrastructure builds on Tier III, adding the concept of Fault Tolerance to the site infrastructure topology. Fault Tolerance means that when individual equipment failures or distribution path interruptions occur, the effects of the events are stopped short of the IT operations.

Microsoft announces Windows 10

Microsoft today unveiled Windows 10, the long-awaited followup to Windows 8.

The latest version of Windows includes some of the more demanded changes since Windows 8 launch, including the return of the Start menu and improvements to how apps are displayed, while also adding multitasking enhancements that will appeal to those who use touchscreen devices as well as PCs.

According to Microsoft, Windows 10 represents the first step of a whole new generation of Windows.

Windows 10 will run across a broad set of devices – from the Internet of Things, to servers in enterprise datacenters worldwide, one product family, with a tailored experience for each device.

Developers were also taken under consideration: “across this breadth of devices, we are delivering one application platform for our developers. Whether you’re building a game or a line of business application, there will be one way to write a universal app that targets the entire family. There will be one store, one way for applications to be discovered, purchased and updated across all of these devices.”

Windows 10 will be available in late 2015.

DataON Cluster-in-a-Box adds 12Gb/s SAS to new Intel Xeon platform

This first of its kind, all-in-one appliance from DataON Storage delivers dual-node highly-available (HA) services featuring the Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 v3 product family, along with shared 12Gb/s SAS storage in an energy and space saving condensed 2U footprint. The CiB-9224 includes end-to-end 12Gb/s SAS performance, tuned for hybrid HDD/SSD auto-tiering with Windows Server 2012 R2 failover clustering starring Storage Spaces. Continuing the innovations, the DataON CiB-9224 employs top of the line energy efficient DDR4 memory, integrated dual 10Gb Ethernet ports per node and can swiftly scale by adding external DataON JBODs through the Avago® DataBolt™ SAS expander technology.

The cluster-in-a-box converged architecture is positioned to consolidate disparate file and compute servers into one easy-to-manage comprehensive scale-out virtual machine and file storage appliance. The industry first 12Gb/s SAS CiB-9224 clustered storage appliance is based on a modular chassis supporting dual clustered nodes located side-by-side fused with the highly scalable 24-bay JBOD. This slim 2U chassis design provides a much denser, more efficient storage and processing architecture to dramatically reduce complex cabling and lengthy deployment times.dataon_device.png

The CiB-9224 design is tuned for remote branch (ROBO) and mid-sized office (SMB) environments to dynamically run up to 50+ VMs and up to 48TB of 12Gb/s SAS shared storage from a single easy to manage appliance—eliminating the complexity and sprawl of disparate IT devices. The next generation Intel Xeon architecture allows the CiB-9224 to break through the performance barrier and deliver well over 1 million IOPS (4k 100% random read) to meet the needs of the most performance hungry VMs with eight modular SAS expansion ports to scale beyond a petabyte.

Environments running dozens of VMs can benefit from the use of up to twenty-four SSDs which can offer high performance and extremely low latency. As a tiered storage ready appliance the CiB-9224 can support a mix of SSDs and HDDs to deliver the right level of performance and capacity for applications. While the DataON CiB-9224 is tuned for Windows Server 2102 R2, it does remain an OS-agnostic platform where ZFS and Linux users can also take advantage of the clustered solution with high performance all-SSD pure storage endurance.

The CiB family of storage appliances from DataON offers a series of storage building block innovations able to consolidate both server and storage into a single appliance—resulting in cost savings and efficient performance by utilizing the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family. The ability to deliver dozens of VMs and over a million IOPS throughput from a tiered storage 2U clustered converged storage form factor positions the CiB-9224 to have storage professionals seriously rethink the validity of certain overvalued all-flash pure storage designs. DataON believes every company should enjoy the reliability of high-availability and high performance with lower capital expenses. The CiB-9224 helps make this possible.

Learn more about DataON Storage products. Contact Inline T.C. today  at +302107708005

New SSD-based instances for Azure VMs and Cloud Services

Microsoft announced today the general availability of a new series of Standard tier instances called the D-series for Virtual Machines and Cloud Services.

These instances have solid-state disk (SSD)-based local drives and faster processors relative to many of the A-series instances. The D-series instances can be used as VMs, as well as web or worker roles in Cloud Services, and are well suited for applications that demand faster CPU performance, local disk performance, or higher memories. Please note that the SSD drives in the D-series are non-persistent.

Cisco UCS C240 M3 Rack Server

The Cisco UCS C240 M3 Rack Server is designed for both performance and expandability over a wide range of storage-intensive infrastructure workloads ranging from big data to collaboration. The Cisco UCS C240 M3 offers up to 768 GB of RAM, 24 drives, and four 1GE LAN interfaces built into the motherboard to provide outstanding levels of internal memory and storage expandability along with exceptional performance.

Feature and Capabilities

  • Suitable for nearly all storage-intensive, 2-socket applications
  • Unique Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card 1225 (VIC) : 2 x 10GE PCIe that can support up to 256 PCIe virtual interfaces
  • Exceptional building block and entry point for the Cisco Unified Computing System
  • Continual innovations from Cisco in server technology and at all levels of the Cisco Unified Computing System

Specifications at a Glance

  • Up to two Intel Xeon E5-2600 or E5-2600 v2 processors
  • Up to 768 GB of RAM with 24 DIMM slots
  • Offers 12 (LFF) or 24 (SFF) SAS/SATA/SSDs for workloads demanding large internal storage
  • 5 PCI Express Gen 3 slots and four 1GE LAN interfaces on the motherboard
  • Trusted Platform Module (TPM) for authentication and tool-less access

Cisco Business Edition 6000

Cisco® Business Edition 6000 (BE6000) is designed for organizations with up to 1000 employees. The packaged collaboration solution offers premium voice, video, mobility, messaging, instant messaging and presence, contact center, and more, including web conferencing as a service offer. The solution provides core communication capabilities that midsize businesses need for improved collaboration for employees, customers, and business partners.

Enabled by virtualization technology, BE6000 consolidates multiple collaboration applications in a highly available solution that enables midsize businesses to reduce their total cost of ownership (TCO) and increase their return on investment (ROI) through its flexible and scalable architecture that grows with business needs.

Features and Benefits

Cisco BE6000 delivers full-featured, enterprise-grade communications and collaboration services that successful midsize businesses rely on today. Built on Cisco’s world-leading unified communications architecture, the BE6000 solution boasts a variety of highly available applications that allow you to build a solution to meet your specific collaboration needs.

Foundation Applications

The following applications are typically used together to deliver the core unified communications features of the BE6000:

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager is the call-processing engine, extending voice and video features to network devices such as IP phones, telepresence endpoints, media-processing devices, gateways, and multimedia applications.
  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager IM and Presence Service provides native standards-based, enterprise instant messaging (IM) and network-based presence as part of Cisco Unified Communications.
  • Cisco Unity® Connection integrates voice-messaging and voice-recognition functions to provide continuous global access to calls and messages.
  • Cisco Prime™ Collaboration Provisioning provides automated processes for initial deployments and for moves, adds, changes, and deletions (MACDs).
  • Cisco Licensing (including Cisco Prime Licensing Manager) makes usage and reporting simple.

Additional Collaboration Options

To complement the foundation applications listed previously, the following collaboration applications and services can also be deployed with the BE6000:

  • Cisco TelePresence Server helps make video pervasive for all users from the browser to the boardroom, with multiparty high-definition (HD) videoconferencing capabilities supported as a co-resident application.
  • Cisco TelePresence® Conductor simplifies and enhances conference resource management, making conferences easy to join and administer.
  • Cisco TelePresence Management Suite offers flexible scheduling capabilities for video meetings, including the ability to integrate with Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Office 365.
  • Cisco Expressway is an advanced collaboration gateway that helps make collaboration as simple, secure, and effective outside the organization as it is inside.
  • Cisco TelePresence Video Communication Server (VCS) is available for existing Cisco VCS customers and for organizations that need third-party standards-based video endpoint interoperability (H.323 and Session Initiation Protocol [SIP]).
  • Cisco WebEx® Meetings accelerates business results by making your web meetings more productive.
  • Cisco Unified Contact Center Express supports up to 100 call center agents with agent-based service as well as fully integrated self-service applications by providing sophisticated and distributed automatic-call-distributor (ACD), interactive-voice-response (IVR), computer-telephony-integration (CTI), and agent and desktop services on a single server.
  • Cisco Unified Attendant Consoles provide the human attendant console operator with the tools to quickly accept and effectively dispatch incoming calls to individuals across the organization.
  • Cisco Emergency Responder helps assure that Cisco Unified Communications Manager sends emergency calls to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) for the caller’s location, and that the PSAP can identify the caller’s location and return the call if necessary.
  • Cisco Paging Server provides paging capabilities for all users.

IBM System x3650 M4

The versatile IBM System x3650 M4 blends outstanding uptime and performance for business-critical workloads, including cloud computing, virtual desktop and business analytics. The powerful server offers an energy-smart and easy-to-use rack solution with a pay-as-you-grow design to help manage risks. With more computing power per watt and the latest Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2 series processors, advanced memory support, and greater disk capacity for businesses requiring ample storage, the x3650 M4 offers balanced performance and density. Additionally, as the first x86 server to achieve the TPC-C benchmark, virtualized (1 M TPM),1 the x3650 M4 is optimized for cloud computing and virtualization applications.

Product features

  • Innovative design with flexibility, performance and outstanding uptime
  • Optimized for cost and performance, supports business-critical applications and cloud deployments
  • Excellent RAS and outstanding uptime for an improved business environment
  • Easy to deploy, integrate, service and manage
  • Comprehensive systems management tools help increase uptime, reduce costs and improve productivity with advanced server management capabilities
  • Support for GPUs, high-IOPS SSDs and 10 GbE for different types of workloads

Hardware summary

  • Dual-socket 2U rack server for expandability and high performance
  • Up to two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2600 v2 product family processors
  • Up to 768 GB memory and up to 1866 MHz memory speed
  • Integrated quad-port Gigabit Ethernet and optional embedded dual-port 10 GbE
  • Up to six PCIe 3.0 expansion slots; up to four optional PCI-X slots available
  • Up to 16 TB of 1.8-inch hot-swap SSDs or 25.6 TB of 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS/SATA/SSDs or 24 TB of 3.5-inch hot-swap or simple-swap SAS/SATA HDDs
  • Embedded 6 Gbps hardware RAID-0, -1, -10 and optional RAID-5, -50 or -6, -60. Optional support for new 12 Gbps RAID controller.
  • Hot-swap disk/fan/power supply, two fan zones with N+1 fans design, light path diagnostics and Predictive Failure Analysis, better thermal design, balanced efficiency, uptime and serviceability