Comments on: Cisco UCS and VMWare vSwitch design with Cisco 10GE Virtual Adapter http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adapter/ Studies in Data Center Networking, Virtualization, Computing Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:57:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Vikash Kunar Roy http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adapter/comment-page-1/#comment-651 Vikash Kunar Roy Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:50:24 +0000 http://www.internetworkexpert.org/?p=581#comment-651 We had presentation from HP and Cisco last week for our Blade requirement. After their presentation I had question which one I should go with? Yeah I am new to Blade but quite old for VMware technologies. What I have understood is “Cisco UCS definitely has an edge compare to HP . It has the edge because they are so tightly integrated with VMware in terms of delivering solution for virtualization and example is Nexus 1000 vswitch . Only drawback which I see that they are new to the field and we need to have know their success story” “Where as HP has been in the market for a while and they had been delivering solution which is used by large scale customer. But we have to look at the our requirement. Our requirement is not that huge that we need HP solution. If I see the compare sheet for blade from Cisco VS HP I guess my requirement can be addressed by Cisco” Very confused customer I am but having said above I am not trying to prove that which one is better. After reading your blog I started having feeling that UCS will meet my requirement and I really don’t have to do heavy investment on HP solution. Other funniest thing which I came to know during those presentation is “Architect leading the efforts for Cisco was a key player at HP”. Nice One Brad keep it up. We had presentation from HP and Cisco last week for our Blade requirement. After their presentation I had question which one I should go with? Yeah I am new to Blade but quite old for VMware technologies.
What I have understood is
“Cisco UCS definitely has an edge compare to HP . It has the edge because they are so tightly integrated with VMware in terms of delivering solution for virtualization and example is Nexus 1000 vswitch . Only drawback which I see that they are new to the field and we need to have know their success story”

“Where as HP has been in the market for a while and they had been delivering solution which is used by large scale customer. But we have to look at the our requirement. Our requirement is not that huge that we need HP solution. If I see the compare sheet for blade from Cisco VS HP I guess my requirement can be addressed by Cisco”

Very confused customer I am but having said above I am not trying to prove that which one is better. After reading your blog I started having feeling that UCS will meet my requirement and I really don’t have to do heavy investment on HP solution. Other funniest thing which I came to know during those presentation is “Architect leading the efforts for Cisco was a key player at HP”.

Nice One Brad keep it up.

]]> By: Brad Hedlund http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adapter/comment-page-1/#comment-633 Brad Hedlund Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:03:55 +0000 http://www.internetworkexpert.org/?p=581#comment-633 Anirban, The Palo adapter itself will be supported in vSphere 4.0 update 1. The "functions" would show up as 128 physical adapters (if you configured that many). SR-IOV runs at the PCIe system level, and as such the OS running on the system requires no knowledge or awareness of SR-IOV. Anirban,

The Palo adapter itself will be supported in vSphere 4.0 update 1. The “functions” would show up as 128 physical adapters (if you configured that many). SR-IOV runs at the PCIe system level, and as such the OS running on the system requires no knowledge or awareness of SR-IOV.

]]> By: Anirban Chakraborty http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adapter/comment-page-1/#comment-618 Anirban Chakraborty Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:44:24 +0000 http://www.internetworkexpert.org/?p=581#comment-618 Hi, Do you know if the Palo adapter's 128 functions are already supported in vSphere 4.0 or will be supported in upcoming U1 update? Also, would the functions show up as 128 physical functions or as virtual functions? I believe vSphere does not have SR-IOV support yet. Thanks, Anirban. Hi,

Do you know if the Palo adapter’s 128 functions are already supported in vSphere 4.0 or will be supported in upcoming U1 update? Also, would the functions show up as 128 physical functions or as virtual functions? I believe vSphere does not have SR-IOV support yet.

Thanks,
Anirban.

]]> By: Karan Bhagat http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adapter/comment-page-1/#comment-599 Karan Bhagat Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:58:09 +0000 http://www.internetworkexpert.org/?p=581#comment-599 Brad, Your blogs are invaluable. I'm in San Jose at the Cisco UCS Boot Camp and your blogs posts are helping me understand things much better. Thanks for all your time and effort in putting these posts together for everyone Karan Brad,

Your blogs are invaluable. I’m in San Jose at the Cisco UCS Boot Camp and your blogs posts are helping me understand things much better. Thanks for all your time and effort in putting these posts together for everyone

Karan

]]> By: Brad Hedlund http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adapter/comment-page-1/#comment-594 Brad Hedlund Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:09:29 +0000 http://www.internetworkexpert.org/?p=581#comment-594 Craig, The vNIC and vHBA capability is similar to Xsigo with the exception that this is all *Ethernet*, not (gasp!) Infinband. Some things to be aware of with Xsigo and Infiniband: <ul> <li>Infiniband is a niche technology, not a lot of expertise exists in the market. You have to dig hard to find the word "Infiniband" on Xsigo's site, why is that?</li> <li>The Infiniband market is shrinking fast. The leading IB switch maker Voltaire has recognized it needs to sell Ethernet to remain viable.</li> <li>Only one source for Infiniband adapters -- Mellanox. Compare that to the wide availability and choices in Ethernet adapters.</li> <li>Infiniband with Xsigo is a THIRD fabric in the Data Center, not a UNIFIED fabric.</li> <li>How is the FC traffic transported over the Infiniband link? Can you explain it? Can your storage vendor explain it? Compare that to the broad industry acceptance and certification of FCoE.</li> <li>FC over the Infiniband link is a specialized protocol and therefore requires the Xsigo Director be a STATEFUL gateway for FC traffic. Any software hiccup on the Xsigo Director may disrupt the state information and the server could loose all its LUNs. Compare that to the STATELESS transition from FCoE to FC.</li> </ul> ... I could go longer but you get the idea :-) Cheers, Brad Craig,
The vNIC and vHBA capability is similar to Xsigo with the exception that this is all *Ethernet*, not (gasp!) Infinband.

Some things to be aware of with Xsigo and Infiniband:

  • Infiniband is a niche technology, not a lot of expertise exists in the market. You have to dig hard to find the word “Infiniband” on Xsigo’s site, why is that?
  • The Infiniband market is shrinking fast. The leading IB switch maker Voltaire has recognized it needs to sell Ethernet to remain viable.
  • Only one source for Infiniband adapters — Mellanox. Compare that to the wide availability and choices in Ethernet adapters.
  • Infiniband with Xsigo is a THIRD fabric in the Data Center, not a UNIFIED fabric.
  • How is the FC traffic transported over the Infiniband link? Can you explain it? Can your storage vendor explain it? Compare that to the broad industry acceptance and certification of FCoE.
  • FC over the Infiniband link is a specialized protocol and therefore requires the Xsigo Director be a STATEFUL gateway for FC traffic. Any software hiccup on the Xsigo Director may disrupt the state information and the server could loose all its LUNs. Compare that to the STATELESS transition from FCoE to FC.

… I could go longer but you get the idea :-)

Cheers,
Brad

]]> By: Craig http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adapter/comment-page-1/#comment-592 Craig Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:44:01 +0000 http://www.internetworkexpert.org/?p=581#comment-592 It looks similar to the infiniband Xsigo to run on VMware It looks similar to the infiniband Xsigo to run on VMware

]]> By: Cisco UCS for Dummies – UCS Overview | VM /ETC http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adapter/comment-page-1/#comment-591 Cisco UCS for Dummies – UCS Overview | VM /ETC Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:09:14 +0000 http://www.internetworkexpert.org/?p=581#comment-591 [...] http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adap... [...] [...] http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adap... [...]

]]> By: Virtualization Short Take #28 - blog.scottlowe.org - The weblog of an IT pro specializing in virtualization, storage, and servers http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adapter/comment-page-1/#comment-533 Virtualization Short Take #28 - blog.scottlowe.org - The weblog of an IT pro specializing in virtualization, storage, and servers Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:48:13 +0000 http://www.internetworkexpert.org/?p=581#comment-533 [...] in early July Brad Hedlund (of InternetworkExpert.org) published this VMware vSwitch design of using Cisco UCS with the “Palo” adapter. If you’ve read any of my UCS articles [...] [...] in early July Brad Hedlund (of InternetworkExpert.org) published this VMware vSwitch design of using Cisco UCS with the “Palo” adapter. If you’ve read any of my UCS articles [...]

]]> By: Cisco UCS and Nexus 1000V design diagram with Palo adapter : INTERNETWORK EXPERT .ORG http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adapter/comment-page-1/#comment-517 Cisco UCS and Nexus 1000V design diagram with Palo adapter : INTERNETWORK EXPERT .ORG Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:21:24 +0000 http://www.internetworkexpert.org/?p=581#comment-517 [...] is a follow-up and enhancement of a previous design diagram in which I showed Cisco UCS running the standard VMware vSwitch.  In this post I am once again showing Cisco UCS utilizing the Cisco (Palo) virtualized adapter [...] [...] is a follow-up and enhancement of a previous design diagram in which I showed Cisco UCS running the standard VMware vSwitch.  In this post I am once again showing Cisco UCS utilizing the Cisco (Palo) virtualized adapter [...]

]]> By: faz1.com blog » VN-Link Evolution Chapter 4 http://www.internetworkexpert.org/2009/07/05/cisco-ucs-vmware-vswitch-design-cisco-10ge-virtual-adapter/comment-page-1/#comment-515 faz1.com blog » VN-Link Evolution Chapter 4 Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:20:06 +0000 http://www.internetworkexpert.org/?p=581#comment-515 [...] (in the case of the Cisco UCS, this would be the 6100 series device).  Brad Hedlund has done a great job of illustrating this on his blog here.   The other features and benefits are consistent between the 2 solutions, something we were [...] [...] (in the case of the Cisco UCS, this would be the 6100 series device).  Brad Hedlund has done a great job of illustrating this on his blog here.   The other features and benefits are consistent between the 2 solutions, something we were [...]

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