Author Bhumik Patel – Technical Alliances, VMware @bhumikp
Introduction:
As customers leverage VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) to provide integrated Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) & cloud management services for running enterprise applications, it becomes critical to rely on an underlying platform that has matching characteristics –automated, software-driven & flexible to meet changing workload demands. A platform that allows quick deployment of IT resources at scale and one that provides fluid pools of compute, storage and fabric resources to build a virtualized data center.
HPE Synergy based on a next generation software-defined composable infrastructure provides this hybrid IT platform. HPE & VMware have partnered to enable customers to build their SDDC on HPE Synergy.
Last year, we announced support for VMware vSAN on HPE Synergy enabling HCI deployments that are unique with ability to provide disaggregated compute and storage resources on the same platform. This allows support of varying workload requirements on the same infrastructure. This also sets foundation to enable deploying SDDC with VMware Cloud Foundation.
At VMworld 2017, HPE made an announcement to enable industry’s first composable platform for VMware Cloud Foundation, based on HPE Synergy.
Today, we are glad to announce availability of HPE Synergy as a VCF Ready Node as part of VCF 2.3.1 release.
What is Certified?
You can find the HPE Synergy certification listing on VMware Cloud Foundation VCG here and here. Below table lists HPE Synergy components certified for VMware Cloud Foundation 2.3.1
HPE Synergy 12000 Frame provides flexible access to compute, storage and fabric resources and linking multiple frames which efficiently scales the infrastructure with a dedicated single view of the entire management stack. It includes embedded management and is designed to support a wide range of compute modules and storage options. The back of the frame includes fabric interconnects, enabling flexibility with regard to storage and other interconnectivity needs.
HPE Synergy 480 Gen 10 and 660 Gen 10 provides composable compute resources that are auto-discovered, provisioned and managed seamlessly
HPE Synergy Storage Module provides a 40 SFF drive bay which is ideal for vSAN configuration. More details on vSAN configurations with HPE Synergy can be found here
HPE Virtual Connect Fabric Modules uses a master-satellite architecture to consolidate data center network connections providing scalable network bandwidth across multiple HPE Synergy Frames with reduced hardware requirements
HPE Synergy Composer powered by HPE OneView is the management heart of Synergy. HPE Synergy Composer, powered by HPE OneView, enables you to deploy, monitor, update, and manage infrastructure through its lifecycle from one interface. It consolidates management of single or multiple frames with their compute, storage, and fabric resources. This provides a simplified lifecycle management experience
Why VMware Cloud Foundation on HPE Synergy?
For enterprise customers looking to accelerate their journey to Hybrid IT, HPE Synergy combined with VMware Cloud Foundation, delivers a simplified and secure private cloud – based on the VMware Software-Defined Data Center stack on Composable Infrastructure that is flexible, easy to deploy and simple to operate. It provides:
Modular Infrastructure to run VMware Cloud Foundation deployments reducing hardware complexity and increasing flexibility. This accelerates private cloud deployments and provides a foundation for supporting hybrid configurations. It also makes onboarding new workloads faster – in days vs. weeks and overall allows you to leverage the power of SDDC to its fullest.
Simplified Infrastructure Management with HPE OneView & VMware SDDC Manager to provision and manage physical and virtual infrastructure respectively. The workflow is to leverage OneView to create server profile templates with all physical compute, storage and networking attributes configured. This template is used to instantiate individual server profiles, assembling ratios of compute, storage and fabric. After this, VMware Imaging Appliance (VIA) is used to install and configure the initial ESXi hosts and SDDC manager. Following which SDDC Manager brings up the management domain with 4 nodes fully configured with vSphere, vSAN, NSX and vRealize Suite, and the subsequent workload domains.
In addition, HPE OneView provides integrations with VMware vSphere, vRealize Operations and vRealize Log Insight to provide a bridge between managing physical and virtual resources.
Reduced Complexity and Cost through the use of HPE Virtual Connect and eliminate the need for a top-of-rack (ToR) switch. This allows deployment of large scale SDDC environments possible without any networking limitations. HPE Synergy Fabric also ensures there is no oversubscription between VMs which results in maximum data throughput and minimum latency.
Use Cases
Although there are many use cases enabled by leveraging HPE Synergy as a platform for VMware Cloud Foundation, here are the top use cases that our customers have been excited about:
Data Center Modernization
With VMware Cloud Foundation and HPE Synergy, you can expand and contract both physical and virtual infrastructure to meet the changing business needs. This allows you to transform your data center by delivering quick results to line of businesses deploying a wide range of applications providing future proofing for any application – traditional or cloud-native.
Platform Consolidation
Consolidate traditional data center applications and private clouds onto a single composable and automated infrastructure.
VMware Cloud Foundation provides built-in workload domains that automates deployment of workloads such as Virtualized Infrastructure (VI) and VDI. With HPE Synergy’s composable infrastructure, provisioning of physical resources can be mapped to run different workloads. For example, you can now dynamically provision (and re-provision) varying resource requirements of different VDI user types (task workers, power users, Graphics heavy developers) by leveraging OneView Server profiles and then consuming the physical hosts within VCF workload domain. Another use case is to host a VDI environment for a call center and leverage the same infrastructure for developers at varying times – all with well-defined IT workflows.
IT Automation
By integrating cloud management services, customers can automate the infrastructure and application delivery with self-service capabilities and day 2 operational capabilities across private and public cloud. VMware SDDC Manager can automate the deployment, configuration and ongoing lifecycle management of a complete software defined data center – to include compute, storage and network virtualization and cloud management.
Conclusion
As organizations continue onto their journey of building private clouds and enabling hybrid IT, HPE Synergy and VMware Cloud Foundation provides an ideal platform. If you are using HPE Synergy for your workload, feel free to share your configuration and deployment experience in the blog comments below.
Refer the VMware Cloud Foundation listing for HPE Synergy here and here.
To learn more about VMware Cloud Foundation, visit VMware Cloud Foundation
To learn more about HPE Synergy, visit HPE Synergy
