 |
 |
|
Storage Systems - Call PBM IT Solutions at (888) 233-6471Q. What systems in a data center should be maintained on an ongoing basis? A. All the supporting systems in a data center face heavy loads and must be properly maintained to continue operating satisfactorily. These systems include cooling, humidification, air handling, power distribution, backup power generation and much more. Per-rack power requirements constrain the number of racks a data center can support. A typical 10,000 - 20,000 sq. ft. facility designed for 50 - 100 watts/sq. ft requires 1/2 megawatt to 2 megawatts of power. Availability and cost of utility power in the megawatt range is expensive and difficult to obtain. Supporting infrastructure - generators, ATS, UPS, and distribution equipment - also are costly. Careful planning and growth projections must be maintained to ensure power requirements can be met. Implement virtualization quickly, and plan to have at least 50 percent of x86 data center servers virtualized by 2011 to improve asset use and to lower energy costs. Operating a Data Center not only requires a comprehensive skill set, but also a little forethought into the overall industry landscape. Storage virtualization is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device that is managed from a central console. Storage virtualization is commonly used in storage area networks (SANs). With fewer servers, you can spend less time on the manual tasks required for server maintenance. On the flip side, pooling many storage devices into a single virtual storage device, you can perform tasks such as backup, archiving and recovery more easily and more quickly. It’s also much faster to deploy a virtual machine than it is to deploy a new physical server. There are many ways that users can corrupt or lose information, including inadvertent file deletion, inadvertent file overwrites, new software installs, lost or stolen computers, hardware failures, virus or hacker attacks and natural disasters. The Cisco UCS uses three adapter types, with four specific models: the Cisco UCS 82598KR-CI 10 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, UCS M71KR-Q QLogic Converged Network Adapter, UCS M71KR-E Emulex Converged Network Adapter, and UCS M81KR Virtual Interface Card. Each of these cards has a pair of 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections to the Cisco Unified Computing System backplane that support the IEEE 802.1 Data Center Bridging function (formerly called Cisco Data Center Ethernet) to facilitate I/O unification within these adapters. On each adapter type, one of these backplane ports is connected through 10GBASE-KR to the A-side I/O module; then that connection goes to the A-side fabric interconnect. 10GBASE-KR is a copper midplane technology for interfacing adapters and switching elements through these midplanes. The other connection is 10GBASE-KR to the B-side I/O module; that connection then goes to the B-side fabric interconnect. Figure 3 later in this document shows this connectivity. Green IT can be defined as research in and use of IT in an efficient and environmentally friendly manner. High availability data systems optimize the reliability of data storage systems by providing redundancy only of critical components to eliminate single points of failure. A single point of failure occurs when the failure of a single component of a system causes the entire system to cease operating, resulting in the potential loss of data. Therefore, one goal in designing a high availability data storage system is to provide a satisfactory level of reliability while keeping the cost of the system in check. The Cisco Nexus 5010 Switch foundation is built upon High-performance 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Data Center Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and Virtual-machine-optimized networking. |
