Virtualisation Hardware

[ecksmen]

We're going to be deploying a big virtualisation private cloud deployment and as current (I can't stress how infant this project is) the initial feeling is towards blade enclosures with inifiband back end connectivity into the likes of a combination of netapp and tintri storage, or even going to someone like cisco and getting vblocks.

Currently, no ideas are off the list and budget is very big - does anyone have any experience of the more non-conventional servers such as seamicro offer?

We don't need local storage - it's all going to be SAN / appliance based, We're largely looking for dense CPU / RAM with reliable support team behind it (ie decent 24/7 4 hour sla style support).

Does anyone have any success or recommendations on server side?

 

[morfmedia]

HP Servers, HDS / EMC SAN. I don't think infiniband will make sense, generally FC or 10gig E

Cisco / IBM / DELL servers if you don't like HDS. VBlock takes a lot of the hassle out but they have a decent price tag. Not used them personally.

 

[Deleted User 298457]

UCS?

 

[G.O.A.T]

It’s hard to make specific recommendations without looking at the current infrastructure and expected growth plans but it’s worth looking at a number of the usual vendors:

Servers: HP, Dell, Cisco, IBM; Blade chassis are worthwhile if you’re looking to populate them above 80%

Storage: EMC, HDS, Netapp; Mid Teir or Enterprise depending on connectivity/IOPS requirements

Networking: Probably 10GbE or 8/16Gb Fibre rather than infiniband but again it depends on the scale. I do like Cisco kit but HP/Dell offer cost effective 10GbE switches.

You could go down the vBlock route but it would force you down a particular vendor path where it might be best to pick the best kit from a variety of sources.

If you want more help drop me a line, I design enterprise virtualisation solutions as a living. [email protected]