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What is Next-Gen Workload Mobility for the Private Cloud?

Enterprises across the globe have been asking for simpler ways to provide multi-site Business Continuity and Workload Mobility for applications hosted in their Private Cloud. The Cloud promises a more agile operational environment and that promise has been fulfilled to a large extent within their data centers. But many Enterprises are challenged to unlock this same agility across multi-site Cloud topologies. For example, Enterprise CTOs and CIOs have asked us directly to provide simplified Workload Mobility of critical apps between sites to give their operations teams more flexibility.

Many competitive solutions offer basic VM mobility between sites and storage replication, but do not address the rest of the application environment including: security, stateful services, network containers, tenancy, and most importantly both physical and virtual resources.

What good does it do to move a VM to a new site if the rest of the application environment is left behind causing a potential security hole?

This blogs directly addresses multi-site Workload Mobility and provides some compelling test results from our new Business Continuity and Workload Mobility Solution for Private Cloud.

How to move a LIVE 3-tier app like Microsoft SharePoint to a new site (without impacting users) 

As we all know, business critical applications require a robust service environment to operate securely across the cloud. In our example below, the application environment provides firewall and load balancing services for each tier of the SharePoint application; web, app, and database tiers. These services are stitched together using a secure Network Container that carve out a slice of resources across the data center for SharePoint. Most Enterprises and SPs use a mix of physical and virtual resources including firewalls, load balancers, VPN termination, IDS, and network switching. Many of these services create stateful connections to users, so….

  • If you perform a live migration of SharePoint to a new site, stateful connections to firewalls and load balancers need to be preserved to maintain security and TCP connections to active users.

          Broken user connections = Service disruption (that’s not good)

  • You must also provide identical security and services for new SharePoint users even though the application has moved to a new site.     

           Broken Network Services = Potential Security hole (that’s even worse)

 Blog-3-Sharepoint-Container

How does Next-Gen Workload Mobility actually work?

Let’s share some test results from our new Business Continuity and Workload Mobility Solution to illustrate how we performed live SharePoint migrations to a new site (75 km away) while maintaining security, stateful services, and user connections.  Oh yes, automatically without manual intervention.

Baseline topology for Microsoft SharePoint deployed in our Private Cloud

We first deployed the SharePoint Web, App, and Database tiers in a secure network container in Data Center 1 using service orchestration, simple and easy. Refer to the figure below for a topology picture.

  • SharePoint Web Tier is in a Public Zone, and uses a virtual firewall (VSG) and Citrix load balancer
  • SharePoint App Tier and Database Tier (SQL) are in a Protected Zone and use an ASA Firewall and Citrix load balancer
  • Our validated design provides LAN extensions, extended clusters, secure network containers, virtual switching, and storage replication between Metro sites

SharePoint is up and running in Data Center 1, supporting hundreds of users with secure connections. Now let’s move SharePoint to a new site without the users knowing it.

Blog-3-App-Container-v2

Step 1:    Perform Live SharePoint Migration to Data Center 2….while maintaining secure user connections!

We performed a Live vMotion of  SharePoint (Web, App, Database) to new hosts in Data Center 2, described in the figure below.  Data Center 2 is 75 km away. Our SharePoint migration had minimal disruption (2 seconds or less) and maintained security, stateful services, and all user connections across our multi-site Cloud. Pretty sweet!   A few highlights from our validated design are provided below.

  • Our virtual switch (Nexus 1000v), virtual firewall (VSG), and UCS automatically updated Port and Security Profiles at the new site, so our virtual switching and application firewalls were preserved without lifting a finger.
  • Layer 2 Extensions permit tromboning back to Data Center 1 to maintain connections to physical appliances (stateful firewalls and  load balancers), also without manual intervention.
  • Our Network Container was automatically extended between Metro sites, maintaining security, tenancy, QoS, IP addressing, and user connections.  SharePoint was discovered on the new host in Data Center 2 within seconds, using this extended Network Container.

Now let’s move the rest of the network container to Data Center 2 in less than one second!

Blog-3-App-Move-v2

Step 2:      Redirect users to a new Network Container in Data Center 2….in less than 1 second!

With the aid of service orchestration, we simply created a new network container in Data Center 2. This new container included the same configuration, connections, and services (firewalls, load balancers) as the original container in Data Center 1.  Once created, we simply redirected external users to the SharePoint application running in Data Center 2, as described below.  The redirection of users happened in less than one second, pretty amazing. A simple routing update delivered through service orchestration performed the redirection. In this step, user connections were broken and new connections were re-established to the already running SharePoint application in less than one second!   A few highlights from our validated design are provided below.

  • Layer 2 Extensions allowed the preservation of IP Addressing for Apps and Services during migration.  There is no need to “re-IP” your applications just because they’ve moved to a different city.
  • The complete Network Container including physical and virtual resources was moved  with minimal disruption (sub-second) to users
  • Our Multi-site Cloud solution supports a typical application environment, including both physical and virtual resources, with scaling for large and small private clouds
  • We also support Cold workload moves of less critical workloads that don’t require these stringent stateful requirements.

Blog-3-Container-Move-v2

For More Info:

We encourage you to follow my blog series and check out our new business continuity and workload mobility solution (VMDC DCI), which describes key business drivers, Cisco DCI innovations, and validated designs that our customers are deploying in their private clouds.

Deploy with confidence! (and sleep better knowing your Cloud is more reliable and secure)

  • CVD Design Guide – Cisco Business Continuity and Workload Mobility solution (VMDC DCI )
  • Solution Overview – Cisco Business Continuity and Workload Mobility solution (VMDC DCI)
  • BrightTalk Session – VMDC DCI for Business Continuity and Workload Mobility in the Private Cloud (webcast)

In the same blog series:



Authors

R.Wayne Ogozaly

Technical Lead Engineer – Cloud Architect

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For many manufacturers, understanding how industry trends impact their business and learning about peer best practices are top priorities. Once current area of focus — tapping into the transformational  value  of the Internet of Things (IoT) on manufacturing — is top of mind for best-in-class companies.

A vision of IoT and its impact on manufacturing business performance are introduced in the video below.

So what is the opportunity for IoT in YOUR manufacturing environment? To help you answer this question and more, Cisco is co-hosting a series of webcasts in conjunction with Mfg.net that are designed to educate and equip executives from production operations, IT, controls and automation on implementing and optimizing IoT for manufacturing.

Don’t miss the opening webcast on June 3rd, when executives from Rockwell Automation, Steelcase and Cisco join Mfg.net editor Joel Hans in what is sure to be an insightful and lively discussion on what is the opportunity, why it’s important and where to get started.

Please register at this link now.  We look forward to your joining, and thanks for taking time to read this brief announcement!

mfg.net webcast

 

 



Authors

Chet Namboodri

Senior Director

Global Private Sector Industries Marketing

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96588998_47It’s been a very busy few weeks. The Data Storage Innovations (DSI) conference, the Ethernet Summit conference, EMCWorld, and next week at CiscoLive, I’ve been starting to talk about a new concept in Data Center storage networks called Dynamic FCoE. Understandably, there have been a lot of questions about it, and I wanted to try to get this blog out as quickly as possible.

The TL;DR version: Dynamic FCoE combines the best of Ethernet Fabrics and traditional deterministic storage environments to create massively scalable and highly resilient FC-based fabrics. If you thought you knew what you could do with storage networks, this takes everything to a whole, new level. Continue reading “What is Dynamic FCoE?”



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J Metz

Sr. Product Manager

Data Center Group

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In a constantly changing world, getting the right talent focused on the most pressing challenges is essential — not just for companies, but for service providers, cities, and countries.

Today, the key driver of that rapid change is technology, particularly the explosion in connectivity known as the Internet of Everything (IoE). Cisco predicts that IoE will have connected 50 billion “things” by 2020, compared to 10 billion today. But for all the talk of things, IoE is not just about embedding sensors in shoes, jet engines, refrigerators, and shopping carts. The true opportunity arises when people, process, data, and things are connected in startling new ways.

In such an environment, collaboration is critical. Indeed, IoE-related innovations have the potential to improve and transform our world in profound ways. But no one company can solve these challenges. They will require partnerships and the open sharing of ideas and talent.

Technology companies, in particular, will need to change the ways in which they utilize their talent. For many decades, there was one way to access talent — by hiring it. Today, workforces are flexible and may be spread across time zones and continents. Knowledge workers still contribute as employees on company payrolls, of course. But increasingly, they are just as likely to collaborate on a specific project as partners or as subject-matter experts sharing knowledge within cross-functional or cross-industry groups.

That is why I feel so strongly about a recent out-of-court settlement in Silicon Valley regarding the free flow of talent from one organization to another. Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe agreed to pay more than $300 million to 64,000 engineers who claimed that the companies’ hiring policies were hindering their career paths and access to higher salaries.

Continue reading “As Technology Changes ‘Everything,’ Don’t Forget About People”



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Anja Langer Jacquin

Managing Director

Cisco Consulting Services

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Today’s decision by the Federal Communications Commission marks an important milestone in the effort to develop appropriate rules for an open Internet.  We at Cisco strongly favor a balanced approach that at once protects end users and content providers from unwarranted blocking, as well as drives innovation inside the network by allowing new technology and business models to be deployed without onerous regulation.

We strongly oppose efforts to impose Title II telephone regulation on broadband.  The vibrant broadband market that we have today is the result of sound past decisions that have avoided placing the heavy hand of regulation on the Internet.

Cisco’s Visual Networking Index shows that the challenges of managing ever-growing amounts of Internet data traffic are just going to increase.  Our country needs policies that will drive new investment in broadband networks, not deter it.

It is important that the FCC recognizes the importance of all parts of the Internet ecosystem, helping to ensure that innovation will thrive.

Cisco stands ready to work with policymakers to achieve the right balance.



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Jeff Campbell

Senior Vice President & Chief Government Strategy Officer

Government Affairs and Public Policy

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In a few days at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, we will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Cisco Live. This year we are expecting record attendance exceeding 20,000 participants, 9 amazing keynotes, 600 sessions, live demos at world of solutions, big analyst and partner presence, and last but not least, the opportunity for you to meet and network with top minds in high-tech. If you are new to Cisco Live and feel overwhelmed by the grandness of the event, let me assure you that you are not alone.  I have been there before. I have set out in this blog to give you an easy walkabout of Cisco Datacenter highlights, particularly the Cisco ACI key activities over the duration of the event.

Much like you I will also be eagerly looking to attend John Chambers’ majestic keynote that starts the proceedings on Monday, May 19. John in his unique style will lead with the Theme “Tomorrow Starts Here” covering leading industry trends such as Internet of Everything (IOE), Fast IT, and Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) among many others. So, do not miss this opportunity. I want to shift gears and take you on a fast cruise of Cisco Data Center and Cisco ACI highlights at the event.

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In less than a year since the announcement, Cisco ACI has taken the industry by storm with a large customer base  and several of the industry’s key partners such as Microsoft, Red Hat, Citrix, F5, et al endorsing and building joint solutions. There is so much excitement around ACI at this year’s Cisco Live. I want to give a structure to how I am planning to cover the topic in this blog. Essentially, I consider them as Cisco-led and Partner led.

Cisco has a packed agenda of ACI activities and announcements. Cisco APIC, which enables ACI Fabric mode on Nexus 9000 networks, will be available this summer along with a robust Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy that includes additional eco-system partners, Cisco Validated Designs (CVD), additional platform support and leading-edge hardware innovations across the portfolio. We are also introducing two new additions to the existing portfolio of Nexus 9000 to meet scalability, flexibility and performance requirements of standalone and ACI mode deployments.

Executive ACI speaking sessions feature prominently this year with Cisco President Rob Lloyd’s session “Infrastructure for the Agile Enterprise” keynote, May 20, 10 AM, at the North Hall.  Rob’s keynote also features Soni Jiandani, who will present how ACI delivers agility. Rob Soderbery and Soni Jiandani are presenting a technology trends keynote (GENSK 1109) on May 21, 8.30 am, titled “Fast Track to Fast IT: Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure”, another choice from a catalog of exciting offers.

Continue reading “ACI Walkabout at CiscoLive 2014, San Francisco”



Authors

Ravi Balakrishnan

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Datacenter Solutions

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For the past five years we’ve witnessed a surge in demand for community colleges across the U.S. The reasons for this demand are varied. There are professionals who have been let go from work, there are adult learners who desire new skills and there are traditional students continuing their education in greater numbers.

Much of the growth in enrollment can be contributed to students going online to get degrees. According to Instructional Technology Council, online enrollment is up by over five percent between 2012 and 2013, , and with that growth come several challenges.

Both traditional and online learners demand that education be cost-effective. These students include digital natives who have learned with technology since their infancy, and they want customized education. Standardized instruction across classes is becoming a framework of the past. Continue reading “#HigherEdThursdays – Meeting the Community College Boom”



Authors

Kim Majerus

Vice President

US Public Sector: State, Local and Education West Area

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This post explains how to inspect the contents of windows DNS cache. Inspection can be used to check DNS entries, revealing if any malicious websites are being visited.

A Domain Name Server’s (DNS) cache of DNS records can be inspected to determine if your network is interacting with suspicious or malicious internet sites. To perform this task, perform the following:

For Windows 2003 and prior versions, you must install Windows Support Tools. Once installed, inspect and export the DNS cache using the command prompt (cmd.exe) window.

For Windows 2008 and later, The Windows PowerShell is a more advanced version of Windows Support Tools and is installed by default. Use the PowerShell window or run the PowerShell Script from the command prompt window to inspect and export the DNS cache.

How to Inspect the Cache from the CMD Prompt

Windows 2003 and Prior Using dnscmd

  1. From the support tools directory (\Program Files (x86)\Support Tools), run the following command to display the DNS cache output in the CMD window.
  2. To redirect the DNS cache output to a file, use the following command:
    • C:\Program Files (x86)\Support Tools>dnscmd /zoneprint ..cache > c:\cache_output.txt

Continue reading “Windows Server DNS Cache: How to Use the Command Line Inspection of Microsoft Windows DNS Cache”



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Scott Bradley

Security Intelligence Engineer

Security Intelligence Operations

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I spent a great week in Chicago at Cisco Marketing Velocity and, as promised, now I’m back to share one last quick recap of the event, including the replays of the speakers’ sessions.  Hopefully you had a chance last week to take a look at my entry on Velocity about the partner award winners and VP of Global Partner Marketing, Sherri Liebo’s wrap up interview last Thursday.

I saw some fantastic presentations last week, and of course I received some wonderful feedback from partners. We all talked about becoming a “marketer of the future” and I was able to capture some thoughts on how to make the transition to marketer of the future and just what that term means. See what your colleagues, our speakers and Cisco executives have to say about making the transition to become a “marketer of the future.

What do you think it takes to be the marketer of the future? Be sure to let me know in the comments section. Continue reading “Cisco Marketing Velocity: Replays and Final Thoughts”



Authors

David Durham

Content Strategist

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