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The system provides network automation and orchestration capabilities to the network administrators using Cisco APIC GUI, CLI and restful API · The systems allow the compute administrators to instantiate and control application Virtual Machines (VMs) from VMware vCenter · The system provides storage administrators a single point of control to easily provision and manage the storage using NetApp System Manager · The solution supports live VM migration between various compute nodes and protects the VM by utilizing VMware HA and DRS functionality · The system can be easily integrated with optional Cisco (and third party) orchestration and management application such as Cisco UCS Central and Cisco UCS Director · The system showcases layer-3 connectivity to the existing enterprise network For an in-depth discussion of the FlexPod DC with ACI design components, refer to the following design guide: Cisco CloudCenter – Setting up the Hybrid Cloud Management Cisco CloudCenter provides organizations with the process and tools to build and manage a cloud-agnostic application profile. An application profile can be used in any environment without modifying deployment scripts or changing application code. Cisco CloudCenter comprises of various components as outlined in the CloudCenter documentation: However, not all the CloudCenter components need to be deployed under all the circumstances. The components utilized in the FlexPod DC for Hybrid Cloud are shown in ‎Figure 12. This design guide does not cover installation procedures and design for CloudCenter HA. Customers and partners are encouraged to engage Cisco CloudCenter Technical Marketing or Cisco Advanced Services teams to design a robust CloudCenter deployment Figure 12 FlexPod DC for Hybrid Cloud – Cisco CloudCenter Components CloudCenter Manager (CCM) The CloudCenter Manager (CCM) is a centralized management tier that acts as a dashboard for users to model, migrate, and manage deployments. It provides for the unified administration and governance of clouds and users. The CCM interacts directly with each CloudCenter Orchestrator (CCO) based on the deployment's application profile(s). Users can access the CloudCenter features by either through the CCM UI or REST APIs. In this design, a single CCM instance is deployed on the FlexPod private cloud using the

Figure 4 NetApp FlexClone The FlexPod for Hybrid Cloud solution uses NetApp FlexClone technology to create copies of production data for application development and test instances. Hybrid Cloud Management System: Cisco CloudCenter Cisco CloudCenter™ is an application-centric hybrid cloud management platform that securely provisions infrastructure resources and deploys applications across more than 20 data centers, private and public cloud environments. Some of the supported cloud options are highlighted in Figure 5. Figure 5 Cisco CloudCenter Supported Clouds Cisco CloudCenter provides a single-platform solution with unique hybrid cloud technology that abstracts the application from the underlying cloud environment and helps ensure that the infrastructure adapts to meet the deployment and management needs of each application. With Cisco CloudCenter, IT organizations can deploy with one application in one cloud or manage multiple applications across multiple environments. It works with a simple virtual machine or with complex, multi-tier application stacks. With an application-centric management platform, enterprise IT organizations can pursue a range of powerful use cases such as on-demand hybrid IT as a service (ITaaS), automated DevOps and continuous delivery, capacity augmentation including bursting, high availability and disaster recovery, and permanent application migration across the clouds. Figure 6 Cisco CloudCenter; Model, Deploy, and Manage Applications Across the Clouds Cisco CloudCenter provides organizations with the process and tools to build and manage a cloud-agnostic application profile. One profile can be used in any environment without modifying deployment scripts or changing application code. The application profile defines the deployment and management requirements for the application in five key areas: · Application topology and dependencies · Infrastructure resource and cloud service requirements · Description of deployment artifacts, consisting of packages, binaries, scripts, and optional data · Orchestration procedures needed to deploy, configure, and secure · Run-time policies that guide ongoing management After applications are deployed, Cisco CloudCenter helps organizations to manage deployments and perform ongoing operations. Users can monitor the applications and use a range of lifecycle management actions, or specify automated responses using preconfigured policies. Unlike many cloud management platforms that are focused on managing infrastructure, Cisco CloudCenter application-centric management integrates the management of the

Information about setting up the VMware based cloud, see: Base OS Image In a VMware environment, the base OS image is a VM Snapshot. The VM is added to a folder called CliqrTemplates and is referenced using its snapshot name. For the OpenCart application deployment, the base image in use is the CentOS6 image. A VM called mag-centos6 is copied to CliqrTemplates folder and a snapshot named Snap1 is created: Figure 14 Base OS Image As shown in ‎Figure 14, the VM NIC is assigned to the distributed port-group created by APIC. ‎Figure 15 shows the VM template to Base OS image mapping in the CloudCenter: Figure 15 CloudCenter - VMware Image Mapping Amazon Web Services (AWS) Integrating AWS with the FlexPod DC for Hybrid Cloud solution is a three-step process: 1. Integrate AWS with Cisco CloudCenter 2. Setup secure connectivity between FlexPod private cloud and AWS 3. Configure AWS Direct Connect with NPS Integration with Cisco CloudCenter To successfully integrate an AWS account with Cisco CloudCenter and to be able to deploy applications in AWS, CCO and AMQP need to be deployed in the customer AWS account. Cisco provides both CCO and AMQP appliances for AWS deployments which need to be enabled for the customer AWS account. See for details on requesting CloudCenter image sharing. The URL above also guides customers on how to deploy the CCO and AMQP appliances. AWS to CloudCenter integration can be easily accomplished using the default customer Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and therefore the FlexPod DC for Hybrid Cloud utilizes default VPC for CCO, AMQP and application VM deployments. After CCO and AMQP are successfully deployed and configured according to the URL above, an AWS cloud can be added to CCM as detailed in: When an AWS cloud is setup, all the available AWS instance types become available in the CloudCenter. Customers can choose to limit the instance type to one or many instances depending on the organizational preferences. Figure 16 CloudCenter - AWS Instance Types Cisco CloudCenter also allows customers to select VPC and subnet information for the deployment. CloudCenter allows customers to

IT innovation. What’s New? The following design elements distinguish this version of FlexPod from previous models: · Integration of Cisco CloudCenter with FlexPod Datacenter with ACI as the private cloud · Integration of Cisco CloudCenter with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure Resource Manager (MS Azure RM) public clouds · Providing secure connectivity between the FlexPod DC and the public clouds for secure Virtual Machine (VM) to VM traffic · Providing secure connectivity between the FlexPod DC and NetApp Private Storage (NPS) for data replication traffic · Ability to deploy application instances in either public or the private clouds and making up-to-date application data available to these instances through orchestration driven using Cisco CloudCenter · Setting up, validating and highlighting operational aspects of a development and test environment in this new hybrid cloud model For more information about previous FlexPod designs, see: Solution Summary The FlexPod solution for Hybrid Cloud showcases a development and test environment for a sample open source e-commerce application, OpenCart. Utilizing an application blue-print defined in Cisco CloudCenter, the solution allows customers to deploy new application instances for development or testing on any available cloud within minutes. Using the NetApp Data Fabric combined with automation driven by the Cisco CloudCenter, new dev/test instances of the application, regardless of the cloud location, are pre-populated with up-to-date customer data. When the application instances are no longer needed, the compute resources in the cloud are terminated and data instances on the NetApp storage are deleted. Cisco CloudCenter is also integrated with Cisco ACI to provide both network automation and data segregation within the private cloud deployments. This makes an ACI based FlexPod an ideal platform for this new hybrid environment. This validated solution is delivered using following core design components: · Cisco CloudCenter (formerly CliQr) effortlessly deploys and manages applications across both public and private clouds · Secure connectivity is established from the FlexPod based private cloud to NetApp Private Storage (NPS), Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure · Application data is replicated from on-premise FlexPod storage array to NetApp Private Storage and cloned copies are made

Across VM reboots · Updating and provisioning the Base OS template · Automatic FlexClone volume provisioning and deletion · SnapMirror validation for data replication · Application security and access using cloud based VM access control Summary FlexPod Datacenter for Hybrid Cloud delivers a validated Cisco ACI based FlexPod infrastructure design that allows customers to utilize resources in the public cloud based on the organization workload deployment policies or when the workload demand exceeds the available resources in the Datacenter. This new FlexPod solution allows customers to seamlessly extend compute and storage resources from an on-premises FlexPod to major cloud providers such as Amazon and Azure using Cisco CloudCenter and NetApp Private Storage. The FlexPod Datacenter for Hybrid Cloud showcases: · A fully programmable software defined networking (SDN) enabled DC design: Cisco ACI · An application-centric hybrid cloud management platform: Cisco CloudCenter · High-speed cloud to co-located storage access: NetApp Private Storage in Equinix Datacenter · Multi-cloud support: AWS and Microsoft Azure References Products and Solutions Cisco Unified Computing System: Cisco UCS 6200 Series Fabric Interconnects: Cisco UCS 5100 Series Blade Server Chassis: Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers: Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers: Cisco UCS Adapters: Cisco UCS Manager: Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure: Cisco CloudCenter Amazon Web Services Microsoft Azure VMware vCenter Server: VMware vSphere: NetApp Data ONTAP NetApp FAS8000: NetApp VSC: Interoperability Matrixes Cisco UCS Hardware Compatibility Matrix: VMware and Cisco Unified Computing System: NetApp Interoperability Matric Tool: About the Authors Haseeb Niazi, Technical Marketing Engineer, Computing Systems Product Group, Cisco Systems, Inc. Haseeb Niazi has over 17 years of experience at Cisco in the Data Center, Enterprise and Service Provider solutions and technologies. As a member of various solution teams and Advanced Services, Haseeb has helped many enterprise and service provider customers evaluate and deploy a wide range of Cisco solutions. As a technical marking engineer at Cisco UCS solutions group, Haseeb currently focuses on network, compute, virtualization, storage and orchestration aspects of various Compute Stacks. Haseeb holds a master's degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California and is a Cisco