Attached storage infrastructure design
IBM Cloud® for VMware Solutions provides VMware® technology that is deployed in an automated way within IBM Cloud data centers across the globe. Within the VMware Solutions portfolio, the VMware vCenter Server® offering consists of up to 10 clusters. Each cluster contains up to 59 vSphere hosts, a single Platform Services Controller (PSC), and a vCenter Server Appliance capable of managing up to 400 hosts and 4,000 virtual machines.
The architecture that is presented here complements the vCenter Server solution by adding attached storage as a shared storage device for the environment. The attached storage device is located within the same IBM Cloud data center as the vCenter Server deployment. The storage device consists of a single Network File System (NFS) share or multiple NFS exports from the IBM Cloud.
The following graphic provides the overall architecture of the attached storage on vCenter Server deployment.
Physical infrastructure design
The physical infrastructure consists of three main components: physical compute, physical storage, and physical network. The physical infrastructure includes the IBM Cloud services network and the physical storage that is used by the infrastructure.
Physical network design
Physical networking is handled by IBM Cloud. The following section describes the physical network that is provided by the IBM Cloud as it relates to attached storage.
IBM Cloud network overview
The physical network of IBM Cloud is separated into three distinct networks: Public, Private, and Management. For more information about the public, private, and management networks, see Overview of VMware Solutions.
For more information about the IBM Cloud network, see IBM Cloud global data centers.
Review the following information for a description of the services network that is part of the private network.
Private services network
IBM Cloud has a private services network that provides common services such as IBM Cloud® Block Storage for Classic, IBM Cloud® File Storage for Classic, Object Storage, DNS resolvers, and NTP servers. This private network is separate from the customer private network and it enables environments to seamlessly connect to services located in the IBM Cloud. The private network is multitiered in that servers and other infrastructure are connected to aggregated back-end customer switches (BCS). These aggregated switches are attached to a pair of separate routers such as back-end customer routers or BCR, for L3 networking. The private network also supports the ability to use jumbo frames, such as, MTU 9000, for physical host connections.
VLANs
For more information about the VLANs, see the Physical network design section in Physical infrastructure design.
Physical storage design
The following section describes the configuration of the attached storage device that is present in the IBM Cloud. The attached storage device complements the existing vCenter Server solution. As a result, locally attached disks that are internal to the physical hosts aren't presented.
Attached storage performance
Performance and endurance storage are IBM Cloud storage solutions that are designed to support high I/O applications that require predictable levels of performance. This predictable performance is achieved through the allocation of protocol-level input/output operations per second (IOPS) to individual volumes.
IOPS ranging from 100 through 96,000 can be ordered with storage sizes of 20 GB - 24 TB. Performance and endurance storage volumes are available for both Block Storage for Classic and File Storage for Classic.
In this design, vCenter Server offers endurance storage for attached storage. As a result, you can select and attach (through automation) endurance NFS exports ranging in size from 20 GB to a maximum of 24 TB. The IBM Cloud allows up to 96 vSphere ESXi hosts to connect to a single endurance NFS export.
Endurance storage is available in three IOPS performance tiers to support varying application needs.
After an NFS share is ordered, it can be resized or reconfigured to allow for more or less IOPS.
For detailed IOPS options, see the Storage settings section in Ordering vCenter Server instances.
In addition to the tiers of storage, IBM Cloud endurance storage supports a wide selection of application needs, including snapshots and replication, and encryption at rest in the IBM Cloud data center locations.