Tag Archives: Cluster Architecture

NPP Training series – Data Structure on Nutanix with Hyper-V

Posted on by
Reply

To continue NPP training series here is my next topic: Data Structure on Nutanix with Hyper-V
If you missed other parts of my series, check out links below:
Part 1 – NPP Training series – Nutanix Terminology
Part 2 – NPP Training series – Nutanix Terminology
Cluster Architecture with Hyper-V
To give credit due, most of the content was taken from Steve Poitras’s “Nutanix Bible” blog as his content is the most accurate and then I put a Hyper-V lean to it and have updated the graphics for Hyper-V.

Data Structure on Nutanix

The NDFS (Nutanix Distributed Filesystem) is composed of the following high-level structs:

Storage Pool

  • Key Role: Group of physical devices
  • Description: A storage pool is a group of physical storage devices including PCIe SSD (Solid State Drive), SSD, and HDD (Hard Disk Drive) devices for the cluster.  The storage pool can span multiple Nutanix nodes and is expanded as the cluster scales.  In most configurations only a single storage pool is leveraged.

Container

  • Key Role: Group of VMs/files
  • Description: A container is a logical segmentation of the Storage Pool and contains a group of VM (Virtual Machine) or files (vDisks).  Some configuration options (eg. (RF) Resiliency Factor) are configured at the container level, however are applied at the individual VM/file level.  Containers typically have a 1 to 1 mapping with a datastore (SMB Share(s)).

vDisk

  • Key Role: vDisk
  • Description: A vDisk is any file over 512KB on NDFS including VM hard disks.  vDisks are composed of extents which are grouped and stored on disk as an extent group.

Below we show how these map between NDFS and the Hyper-V:
SP_structure Data Structure

Extent

  • Key Role: Logically contiguous data
  • Description: A extent is a 1MB piece of logically contiguous data which consists of n number of contiguous blocks (varies depending on guest OS block size). Extents are written/read/modified on a sub-extent basis (aka slice) for granularity and efficiency.  An extent’s slice may be trimmed when moving into the cache depending on the amount of data being read/cached.

Extent Group

  • Key Role: Physically contiguous stored data
  • Description: A extent group is a 1MB or 4MB piece of physically contiguous stored data.  This data is stored as a file on the storage device owned by the CVM (Controller Virtual Machine).  Extents are dynamically distributed among extent groups to provide data striping across nodes/disks to improve performance.

Below we show how these structs relate between the various filesystems:
NDFS_DataLayout_Text Data StructureHere is another graphical representation of how these units are logically related:
NDFS_DataStructure3 Data StructureNext up, I/O Path Overview

Until next time, Rob…

NPP Training series – Cluster Architecture with Hyper-V

Posted on by
Reply

To continue NPP training series here is my next topic: Cluster Architecture

To give credit, some of this content was taken from Steve Poitras’s “Nutanix Bible” blog as his content is the most accurate and then I put a Hyper-V lean to it.

Cluster Architecture

The Nutanix solution is a converged storage + compute solution which leverages local components and creates a distributed platform for virtualization aka virtual computing platform. The solution is a bundled hardware + software appliance which houses 2 (6000/7000 series) or 4 nodes (1000/2000/3000/3050 series) in a 2U footprint. Each node runs an industry standard hypervisor (ESXi, KVM, Hyper-V currently) and the Nutanix Controller VM (CVM).  The Nutanix CVM is what runs the Nutanix software and serves all of the I/O operations for the hypervisor and all VMs running on that host.  For the Nutanix units running VMware vSphere, the SCSI controller, which manages the SSD and HDD devices, is directly passed to the CVM leveraging VM-Direct Path (Intel VT-d).  In the case of Hyper-V the storage devices are passed through to the CVM. Below is an example of what a typical node logically looks like:

NDFS_NodeDetail2 Cluster Architecture

Together, a group of Nutanix Nodes forms a distributed platform called the Distributed Storage Fabric (DFS).  DFS appears to the Hyper-V like any centralized storage array, however all of the I/Os are handled locally to provide the highest performance.  More detail on how these nodes form a distributed system can be found below. Below is an example of how these Nutanix nodes form NDFS and then presented up to Hyper-V via SMB 3.0 Share(s):

dsf_overview Cluster Architecture

DFS uses a software-defined, shared-nothing, scale-out approach to storage that eliminates the need for you to deploy a separate SAN along with its performance bottlenecks and scalability limitations. DFS leverages local SSD for fast VM performance and consolidates high capacity HDDs for cost-effective storage capacity.

The application data is intelligently placed in the appropriate storage tier, balancing storage performance and capacity needs. The environment’s noisy VMs on different hosts won’t impact the performance for any workloads—fulfilling key performance requirements for hybrid deployments.
Here are the key points with Hyper-V on Nutanix:

  • Hypervisor sees the Distributed Storage Fabric (DFS) as one or more SMB 3.0 file shares
  • Supports features like snapshots, dedupe, compression web-scale out, and disaster recovery
  • Locally shared storage is comprised of both flash and spinning disks
  • Variety of models (compute heavy, storage heavy, etc.)
  • Mix and match models within the same cluster
  • Pay as you grow – Start small and linearly scale your Microsoft infrastructure in minutes without the scalability shortcomings of traditional servers and storage.

Next up in the NPP Training series – Cluster Components

Nutanix Community Edition – Deploying and Configuring – Part 1

Posted on by
Reply

nutanix-community-edition_w_500Another very exciting announcement was Nutanix Community Edition (CE) on June 9th, 2015 at our Inaugural .NEXT conference. So, what is it?…..Our website describes it the best “Community Edition is a 100% software solution enabling technology enthusiasts to easily evaluate the latest Hyperconvergence technology at zero cost.”

In other words, you can use your own hardware to test out Nutanix.  Very cool.  This is great for building a lab and just gaining understanding of Hyperconvergence hands on.
Nutanix is offering a hardware compatibility list (HCL) to users that includes the minimum requirements to run the software; essentially, any standard x86 server can be used….

And to quote our CEO and co-founder Dheeraj Pandey:

“From our very first software release in 2012, Nutanix has been dedicated to open architectures and technologies, offering unprecedented customer choice and flexibility,” “Community Edition is the next step in democratizing HyperConverged infrastructure technology, enabling anyone to experience the transformative benefits of our software. Only by eliminating the requirement for proprietary hardware and embracing off-the-shelf platforms can the next revolution of datacenter technologies be fully realized.”

As the name implies, the support for the CE will come from the community through Nutanix’s NEXT online portal. Users will be able to log in, ask questions and get answers from the community.

CE also allow you to also check our new Acropolis hypervisor based on KVM.  Check out Josh Odger’s Blog to learn more about Acropolis.

Join the beta…And don’t forget my NPP training series that helps you with all the concepts around Hyperconvergence.

Currently, I am getting started with Nutanix CE installation and will be posting my experiences in a later blog post with how I build my Nutanix Lab @ Home. 🙂

Until next time….Rob

NPP Training Series – Nutanix Terminology – Part 1

Posted on by
1

I started with Nutanix about 1 month ago and concurrently began my Nutanix training which entails going through the NPP (Nutanix Platform Professional) training course. I will be posting a series of blog posts on my learning track with Nutanix and will eventually tie it all together with the Microsoft Stack. My track commenced about 2 weeks ago and I have keep detailed notes on my learning progress. My plan is to post every few days in a multi-part series.

Continue reading →