1. Software Defined Datacenter – from Vision to Solution
Gorazd Šemrov
Datacenter Solution Architect
Microsoft WW Modern Datacenter Center of Excellence

3. Session Takeaways
Understanding what is Software defined Datacenter and what are the benefits that can bring to the business. Vision of Software Defined Datacenter and how Datacenter future looks like. How Software Defined Datacenter will change your jobs. Understanding technical details and concepts of solution by example.

4. Agenda Introduction – WHAT? Vision – WHY? Solution – HOW?
Definition of Software Defined Datacenter (SDD)
What are the components of the SDD
What are the goals of SDD
Vision – WHY?
What is Infrastructure Vision and why you should care about
What are the benefits of SDD
Solution – HOW?
Software Defined Storage
Software Defined Networking
Q/A and Open Discussion

5. What is Software Defined Datacenter?

6. What defines SDD? Abstraction Instrumentation Automation Orchestration
Decoupling of a resource from the consumer of the resource (also commonly referred to as virtualization when talking about compute resources). This is a powerful foundation as the virtualization of these resources should enable us to define ‘models’ of infrastructure elements that can be managed without requiring management of every element individually.
Instrumentation
Opening up of the decoupled infrastructure elements with programmatic interfaces (typically XML-based RESTful APIs).
Automation
Using these APIs, wiring up the exposed elements using scripts and other automation tools to remove “human middleware” from the equation. This is an area where traditional information security tools are woefully inadequate.
Orchestration
Beyond script-based automation, automating the provisioning of data center infrastructure through linkages to policy-driven orchestration systems where the provisioning of compute, networking, storage, security and so on is driven by business policies such as SLAs, compliance, cost and availability. This is where infrastructure meets the business.

7. What are the goals of SDD?
Agility
Speed to respond human middleware, speeding the ability of infrastructure to be provisioned.
Adaptability
Ability to change infrastructure usage to dynamic meet dynamically changing requirements and changing context – such as location, sensitivity of the data being handled and so on. Also ability to adapt to changes in the infrastructure elements underneath without changing the models being managed (new hardware, new vendors, etc.)
Accuracy
By removing the human middleware component, reducing the chance for misconfiguration and mistakes by making infrastructure “programmable” and tying this into automation systems.
Assurance
Confidence that what is deployed accurately meets your policy and compliance requirements

8. Why should you care about Software Defined Datacenter?

9. Infrastructure-as-a-Service Vision
Dramatically lowering the costs and effort of delivering Infrastructure services
Turn key solutions.
Disaggregated compute, storage and network
Independent manage and scale at each layer
Industry standard servers, networking and storage
Inexpensive networks
Inexpensive shared JBOD storage
Commodity hardware
Compute Clusters
SMB
Scale-Out File Server Clusters
Storage Spaces Virtualization and Resiliency
Shared JBOD Storage

10. Impact to the business

11. How should I implement Software Defined Datacenter?

12. Steps to building cloud solution
Tools are not capabilities or skills
Prioritize stack integration over high end features… whatever you don't buy, you'll end up building, and supporting
You will need more skills not less… Prioritize PEOPLE
A lot more Statistics, Quality Assurance, Service Definition and Business Architecture is a good thing
Extreme Standardization
Step 1
Base lining / Health Management
Step 2
SLA
Service Management
Step 3
Process Engineering & Pre-Production
Step 4
Automation & Orchestration
Step 5
Change Control
Step 6
Self Service
Step 7
Quality
Configuration Units
Design
for catastrophe
Agree on service
delivered
Quality Assurance
Pre production
Automate best
practices
Build a consistent
quality delivery cycle
Provisioning &
service level portal

13. Product Line Architectures
Deployment models
Unsupported Design
Custom Design
Recommended
Practices
Product Line Architectures
Office 365 / Azure
(Public Cloud)
Supported
Complexity
Recommended
Cost
Structured
Standardized

14. Software Defined Compute – Hyper-V
Virtualized compute, memory, devices
Isolation of tenants
Containerized storage (VHDX)
QOS limits on networking, storage
Live migration
Transparent servicing of hardware
Dynamically load balance compute
Host based backup and replication
Comprehensive automation – pervasive powershell support

15. Software Defined Networking - NVGRE
Network resources are carved out from a common pool
Seamless migration to the cloud
Move n-tier topology to the cloud
Preserve policies, VM settings, IP addresses
Automated resource deployment with flexibility to place VMs across any cloud
Private Cloud datacenter consolidation and efficiencies
Extension of datacenter into hybrid cloud
Incremental integration of acquired company network infrastructure
Technology Investments
Hyper-V Switch as the policy edge
Hyper-V Network Virtualization for tenant network overlays
Multi-tenant gateways for hybrid connectivity
Automated physical switch management with OMI and Powershell
SCVMM and Windows Azure Pack for automation

16. Software Defined Storage – Scale Out File Server
Build upon “dumb storage”
Mix of HDD and SSD housed in JBOD
Multiple JBODs
Multi-path IO to JBODs/disks
Software virtualizes, makes reliable, continuously available
Storage Pools
Storage Spaces (mirrored, parity)
Write Back Cache
Tiered storage (SSD/HDD)
Volume Snapshots
Clustered Storage (CSVFS)
Continuously Available Storage (SMB3)
Storage Migration

17. SDS design