As an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution, Dell Active Infrastructure is a family of converged infrastructure solutions that combine servers, storage, networking, and infrastructure management into an integrated and optimized system that provides general purpose virtualized resource pools. Active Infrastructure helps organizations quickly develop and implement the pre-integrated private cloud infrastructure while reducing complexity and risk. Dell Active Infrastructure family is offered in configurations with either VMware® vSphere™ or Microsoft® Windows Server® 2012 with Hyper-V® role enabled Hypervisors. Below is the list of the Hyper-V based Private Cloud on the family of Dell Active Infrastructure:
- Active System 1000 for Microsoft Private Cloud
- Active System 800 for Microsoft Private Cloud
- Active System 200 for Microsoft Private Cloud
- Active System 50 for Microsoft Private Cloud
To implement a private cloud, resource optimization is one of the key design principles, which drives efficiency and cost reduction, and it is achieved primarily through resource pooling. Resource pooling abstracts the platform from the physical infrastructure. It enables the optimization of resources through shared use. Multiple consumers sharing resources results in higher resource utilization, and this leads to the more efficient and effective use of the infrastructure. This optimization can ultimately help drive down costs and improve agility.
In the Dell Active Infrastructure family, different Dell Storage solutions can be used upon the organization needs to drive their business agility. Active System 1000 is powered by Dell Compellent SC8000 Storage Center for Fiber Channel and iSCSI (with an additional SC8100 Storage Center for Fiber Channel). Active System 200/800 is powered by Dell EqualLogic PS6100/PS6110/PS6510 iSCSI storage. In the Hyper-V based private cloud solutions, Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is used to discover, classify, and provision the supported Compellent and EqualLogic storage arrays. VMM automates storage assignment to a Hyper-V host or host cluster and tracks the storage.
In order to activate this storage feature, VMM uses Windows Storage Management API (SMAPI) to manage the external storage using either Storage Managemetnt Provider (SMP), or uses SMAPI together with the Microsoft standards-based storage management service to communicate with Storage Management Initiative – Specification (SMI-S) compliant storage. To be the storage subsystem as pooled resources in a private cloud, Compellent SC8000 uses SMS-S provider while EqualLogic PS storage arrays use SMP.
In Active System 1000, Compellent SMI-S Provider version 1.5 is bundled with the Enterprise Manager Data Collector version 6.3. SMI-S can be configured during initial Data Collector installation or post-installation by modifying the Data Collector Manager properties. For more information about the Dell Compellent SMI-S 1.5 provider, please refer to the Dell Compellent Enterprise Manager 6.3 User Guide found on the Dell Storage Knowledge Center.
Figure 1 Compellent Integration with VMM in Active System 1000
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In Active System 200/800, Dell EqualLogic HIT v 4.6 is implemented to integrate the storage management on EqualLogic PS storage arrays in VMM via SMP. With integration to VMM, you can manage Dell EqualLogic storage directly through native Windows storage interfaces such as storage PowerShell cmdlets (Storage Module), the File Services UI in the Windows 2012 Server Manager console, or the standard Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). Figure 2 shown above depicts the overview of storage management integration of EqualLogic in VMM. For more information on HIT/Microsoft 4.6, refer to the EqualLogic Software page.
Figure 2 EqualLogic Integration with VMM in Active System 200/800
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For more details on Dell Active Infrastructures offerings and the comparison, visit the Dell Converged Infrastructure web site.
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