Composable Infrastructure Talk at Interop ITX 2018
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Composable infrastructure allows physical server resources like CPUs, memory, storage and networking to be pooled and allocated dynamically to workloads. This contrasts with traditional static physical servers or virtual servers. Composable infrastructure aims to provide benefits like reduced overprovisioning and improved time to deploy services, but it adds complexity and its use cases are currently limited. While an emerging technology, it does not provide clear advantages over traditional virtual or physical infrastructure for many customers.
Composable Infrastructure Talk at Interop ITX 2018
- 1. @zehicle Composable Infrastructure What It Means for Your Data Center
- 2. @zehicle “Composable Infrastructure (CI) is an important emerging class of products for data center efficiency. This session will cover the evolution of CI, place CI in the context of other data center technologies, discuss application areas which are most appropriate for CI, survey the existing CI vendors and their approaches to the market, and discuss future directions for CI. We'll also discuss how the use of CI can affect the decision to move in or out of the cloud, with real world examples.” What is Composable Infrastructure? Um… let’s rewind and start over. @zehicle
- 3. @zehicle The Skeptics Guide to Composable Infrastructure What happens when you can change your hardware’s form factor?
- 4. @zehicle I write composable software not hardware, so why Me? RackN specializes in automating bare metal servers making them as easy to use and manage as virtual machines. And that has a lot in common with Composable Hardware Speaker: Rob Hirschfeld CEO of RackN Follow me: @zehicle @zehicle
- 5. @zehicle Let’s get this out there... I’m not a fan of this concept. I’ll still give you a balanced view point, AND I won’t be selling you any hardware. IMHO, the primary buying criteria for infrastructure are: 1) Commodity / Interchangeable 2) Manageable At Scale 3) Reduces Implementation Complexity
- 6. @zehicle What is Composable Infrastructure So… it’s exactly like a virtual machine, but with actual bare metal. It’s a server chassis that allows you to dynamically re-allocate resources like RAM, Storage, Networking, and GPUs between CPUs to software define a physical server. @zehicle
- 7. @zehicle “Composable” is Overloaded (“CI” is worse!) And it’s confusing, but we’re stuck with it. Dictionary.com: “to make or form by combining things, parts, or elements” • Compose.io (IBM) – managed database services • Composable Software – research / software engineering topic • Composable Analytics, Inc. – full stack analytics platform • Composable Systems, Inc. – software outsourcing • HTBASE – “Composable Operating System” – composing higher level services, not bare metal @zehicle
- 8. @zehicle And then there’s “Converged” Infrastructure Not the same thing, but confusingly similar name! Converged Infrastructure is about creating infrastructure using common building blocks instead of having specialized compute / storage units. Typically, Converged Infrastructure is used to simplify implementation of virtualized infrastructure. In a practical way, Composable Infrastructure competes with virtualized infrastructure. @zehicle
- 9. @zehicle Composable Infrastructure: Recent History 2013 Facebook OCP Disaggregation and Next-Generation System Design, 2014 Intel Rack Scale Design(Architecture) Software & architecture for partners, fabric agnostic, cloud focus Cisco UCS – Up to 16 micro-servers in one 2U chassis, storage and network resources reconfigurable via “System Link” ASIC § HPE – 2015 HPE Synergy – new generation blade server – up to 12 servers in 10U chassis, storage composability via SAS fabric @zehicle
- 10. @zehicle Remember Infiniband from the mid 2000s? At the time, we expected Infiniband would create a universal bus inside machine components for RAM, Disk and Compute disaggregation. It was crushed by cheap and fast IP ethernet. Today, we using PCIe and NVMe to extend the bus length of the components in a single computer. Composable Infrastructure: Longer History @zehicle
- 11. @zehicle Decomposing a single machine CPURAM Net Disk
- 12. @zehicle Using High Speed Interconnect / Fabrics RAM Net Disk NVMe PCIe PCIe CPU
- 13. @zehicle So we can break the “chassis” barrier RAM Net Disk NVMe PCIe PCIe CPU NOTE: Other interconnect protocols could be used (even ethernet)
- 14. @zehicle And create pools of machine resources RAM Net Disk CPU NetRAM Disk
- 15. @zehicle And create pools of machine resources RAM Net Disk CPU NetRAM Disk CPUCPU CPUCPU CPUCPU
- 16. @zehicle Why do this? Composition allows you to create heterogeneous machine configurations without knowing in advanced your target configuration needs. The key assumptions are that 1) you do not know your system requirements in advance, 2) you will want to reconfigure them post-deployment, or 3) you are not OK with machines having excess capacity.
- 17. @zehicle So, what about Virtual Infrastructure? Virtual Infrastructure allows you to create heterogeneous machine configurations without knowing in advanced your target configuration needs. Virtual Infrastructure is useful when 1) you do not know your system requirements in advance, 2) you will want to reconfigure them post-deployment, or 3) you are not OK with machines having excess capacity.
- 18. @zehicle Infrastructure Landscape @zehicle Rack Mount Rack Mount Rack Mount Blade Chassis Pysical Servers vs Composable vs Virtual Servers Virtual HCI Cluster Virtual SAN Cluster Shared Storage Composed Chassis
- 19. @zehicle Scaling Units are Important Pysical Servers vs Composable vs Virtual Servers @zehicle Rack Mount Rack Mount Rack Mount Blade Chassis Virtual HCI Cluster Virtual SAN Cluster Scale Unit Scale Unit Scale Unit Scale Unit Shared Storage Composed ChassisScale Unit
- 20. @zehicle Potentially, you will scale inside the chassis @zehicle Composed Chassis Scale Unit Using Composable Infrastructure could allow you to change the scale units of your systems inside the a chassis boundary. Assuming you had spare capacity or the ability to rebalance running capacity. Aka Unicorns
- 21. @zehicle Disaggregation may be more interesting CPURAM Net Disk GPU
- 22. @zehicle But that’s really “Network Attached” CPURAM Net Disk GPU
- 23. @zehicle Benefits of Composable Infrastructure Typically, these are virtualization benefits This is from a vendor…. • Reduce over-provisioning • Improve time-to-service • Improve availability • Simplify cluster management • Prevent cluster silos • Reduce SKU inventory @zehicle
- 24. @zehicle How do you buy Infrastructure? In my experience, there are two buyers 1) “Get me an appliance” Willing to spend more $ on standard units and systems Predictable uses for infrastructure Not building deeping expertise 2) “Commodities and Scale” Cost sensitive and multi-vendor Predictable uses for infrastructure Wants to own the whole stack @zehicle
- 25. @zehicle How do you buy Infrastructure? In my experience, there are two buyers 1) “Get me an appliance” Willing to spend more $ on standard units and systems Predictable uses for infrastructure Not building deeping expertise 2) “Commodities and Scale” Cost sensitive and multi-vendor Predictable uses for infrastructure Wants to own the whole stack @zehicle
- 26. @zehicle Composable is Cool! The ability dynamically re-assign commodities inside an infrastructure using high speed interconnect seems like a powerful feature. Established and startup vendors want to sell you this emerging and premium technology. But the use-cases are limited and it adds complexity.
- 27. @zehicle Thank you For more information about Rob Hirschfeld Follow @zehicle on Twitter Read our RackN.com Blog Listen to @L8istSh9y Podcast