Ethernet Infrastructure
The Ethernet infrastructure forms the foundation for resilient Layer 2 and Layer 3 communications in the datacenter. This layer provides the ability to migrate from your original server farm to a scalable architecture capable of supporting Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and 10-Gigabit Ethernet connectivity for hundreds of servers in a modular approach. The core of the data center is built on the Cisco Nexus 5500UP series switches. Cisco Nexus 5500UP series is a high-speed switch capable of Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching with the Layer 3 daughter card tested in this design. Cisco Nexus 5500UP series 48-port and 96-port models are suitable for use in this design based on data center
port density requirements. Cisco Nexus 5500UP supports Fabric Extender (FEX) technology, which provides a remote line card approach for fan out of server connectivity to top of rack for Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and 10-Gigabit Ethernet requirements. The physical interfaces on the Cisco FEX are programmed on the Cisco Nexus 5500UP switches, simplifying the task of configuration by reducing the number of devices you have to touch to deploy a server port. The Cisco Nexus 5500UP series features Virtual Port Channel (vPC) technology, which provides a loop-free approach to building out the data center in which any VLAN can appear on any port in the topology without spanning-tree loops or blocking links. The data center core switches are redundant with sub-second failover so that a device failure or maintenance does not prevent the network from operating.
Storage Infrastructure
Storage networking is key to solving the growing amount of data storage that an organization has to struggle with. Centralized storage reduces the amount of disk space trapped on individual server platforms and eases the task of providing backup to avoid data loss. The data center design uses Cisco Nexus 5500UP series switches as the core of the network. The importance of this model switch is that it has universal port (UP) capabilities. A universal port is capable of supporting Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) on any port. This allows the data center core to support multiple storage networking technologies like Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN), Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI ), and network attached storage (NAS) on a single platform type. This not only reduces costs to deploy the network but saves rack space in expensive data center hosting environments.
Cisco Nexus 5500UP Fibre Channel capabilities are based on the Cisco NX-OS operating system and
seamlessly interoperate with the Cisco MDS Series SAN switches for higher-capacity Fibre Channel
requirements. This chapter includes procedures for interconnecting between Cisco Nexus 5500UP series and Cisco MDS series for Fibre Channel SAN. Cisco MDS series can provide an array of advanced services for FibreChannel SAN environments where high-speed encryption, inter-VSAN routing, tape services, or Fibre Channel over IP extension might be required.
Compute Connectivity
There are many ways to connect a server to the data center network for Ethernet and Fibre Channel transport. This chapter provides an overview of connectivity ranging from single-homed Ethernet servers to a dual-homed Fabric Extender, and dual-homed servers that might use active/standby network interface card (NI C) teaming or EtherChannel for resiliency. Servers that use 10-Gigabit Ethernet can collapse multiple Ethernet NI Cs and Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) onto a single wire using converged network adapters (CNAs) and FCoE. Dual-homing the 10-Gigabit Ethernet servers with FCoE provides resilient Ethernet transport and FibreChannel connections to SAN-A/SAN-B topologies. This chapter also provides an overview of how the integrated connectivity of Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) blade server systems work and considerations for connecting a non–Cisco blade server system to the network.
Network Security
Within a data center design, there are many requirements and opportunities to include or improve security for customer confidential information and the organization’s critical and sensitive applications. The data center design is tested with the Cisco ASA 5585-X series firewall. Cisco ASA 5585-X provides high-speed processing for firewall rule sets and high bandwidth connectivity with multiple 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports for resilient connectivity to the data center core switches. Cisco ASA 5585-X also has a slot for services, and in this designprovides an IPS module to inspect application layer data, to detect attacks and snooping, and to block malicioustraffic based on the content of the packet or the reputation of the sender. The Cisco ASA 5585-X firewalls with IPS modules are deployed in a pair, which provides an active/standby resiliency to prevent downtime in the event of a failure or platform maintenance.
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