Nutanix Validated Design – AOS 6.5 with Red Hat OpenShift
Nutanix delivers the Validated Design – AOS 6.5 with Red Hat OpenShift as a bundled solution for running Red Hat OpenShift 4.12 that includes hardware, software, and services to accelerate and simplify the deployment and implementation process. This Validated Design features a full-stack solution for hybrid cloud deployments that integrates not only products like Nutanix NCI and NUS but also Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus including Red Hat Quay and Advanced Cluster Manager.The Validated Design – AOS 6.5 with Red Hat OpenShift sizer reference scenario has the following features:
A baseline configuration for each Availability Zone is comprised of three clusters:
Management – 4-16 nodes cluster based on NX-3170-G8 for Prism Central, Active Directory, OpenShift Hub Cluster for Quay Registry and Advanced Cluster Manager, and any other management services including OpenShift Controlplane when using “large footprint” layout.
Workload – 4-16 nodes of NX-3170-G8 for Red Hat OpenShift Workloads.
Storage – 4-node cluster of NX-8155-G8 for Nutanix Files and Nutanix Objects.
A dedicated management cluster in each Availability Zone provides increased availability, security, operations, and performance. Management Cluster starts with 4 nodes and can be scaled up to 16 nodes if multiple “Large Footprint” OpenShift Clusters should be deployed.
The workload cluster has a defined maximum size of 16 nodes, which provides a reasonable maintenance window for rolling firmware and software upgrades. Smaller workload clusters can be deployed, but the maximum size should not exceed 16 nodes.
NVD defines two footprint for OpenShift Cluster Sizes:
Small Footprint, OpenShift Controlplane shares same workload cluster as worker nodes, maximum of 25 worker nodes
Large Footprint, OpenShift Controlplane runs in Management Cluster, worker nodes are running in workload cluster
Table: OpenShift Cluster Sizing: OCP Cluster (Workload) Small Footprint
Component
Instances
Size
Control plane
3
4 CPU cores, 16 GB
Infrastructure
3
4 CPU cores, 16 GB
Worker
2+ (max 25)
4 CPU cores, 16 GB
Table: OpenShift Cluster Sizing: OCP Cluster (Workload) Large Footprint
Component
Instances
Size
Control plane
3
16 CPU cores, 128 GB
Infrastructure
3
16 CPU cores, 128 GB
Worker
2+ (max 360)
Minimum 4 CPU cores, 16 GB
Services SKUs are not included in the Sizer reference scenarios. Review the BOM in the NVD appendix for the complete list of Services SKUs which should be included.
It is extremely important to review the entire Validated Design – AOS 6.5 with Red Hat OpenShift on the Solutions Support portal to understand the complete validated solution.
With the current release, Sizer introduces two new capabilities .. Compute-only/Storage-only nodes and linking Frontline quotes:
Compute-only/Storage-only nodes:
Cluster settings has Node type to select only HCI solution(or with CO or SO options)
Supports the DBOptimized nodes (CO+SO) as part of AOS 6.6.2
In UI, the nodes will be tagged as CO or SO to identify the node types
In manual mode, you can treat a node as CO or SO by tagging
As you know, this should help creating a solution especially on databases optimizing on 3rd party licenses
Linking quotes
All Frontline quotes generated for that scenario can be referenced via ‘Related quotes’ pop-up
Includes quoteId link along with the status and date created/modified
This will be helpful in tracking the scenarios to quotes for past or future reference
We will be soon coming up with a concept of primary sizing(locking it once quote is created) and allow edit only on clone. This would help avoid 1 to many mappings and better tracking.
Other enhancements:
Discounts pre-filled in budgetary quote is more aligned with good/target discounts from Frontline
Expert cluster templates – models changed to NG8
NC2 clusters max limits-13 for NC2/Azure and 28 for NC2/AWS
vCPU:pcore for imported workloads – using exact ratio (no rounding off)
The latest release of Nutanix Collector 4.4 is now available for download.
WHAT’S NEW
Nutanix Collector provides you an option to gather data for virtual Microsoft (MS) SQL servers (version 2016 or higher) using Windows Command Line Interface (CLI) mode. You can gather the configuration data of the SQL servers that are helpful in sizing the Nutanix Database Service requirements accurately. Nutanix Collector gathers the below information.
DB Servers: Cluster role, Witness, Operating System, Sockets, Processors, CPU & Memory information.
SQL Instances: Name of the instance and DB server, SQL version, DB count, collation, authentication mode, concurrent, and active connections.
Databases: Name, ID, and size of the database, DB server, active connections, availability group, recovery model, and backup details.
Database Files: Name and ID of the database, type & size of the file, filegroup, used and free space, and file growth.
Availability Group: Name and status of the availability group, databases, replica, role, availability mode, failover mode, seeding mode, and listener details.
Sizer 6.0 has come up with a concept of cluster profiles. These are specific cluster settings for a sizing. The cluster profile is user-defined and users can create as many profiles as needed by giving the profiles a unique name.
How does creating a cluster template help ?
Different types of workloads have different preferences for the recommended solution. For example – a Database cluster would be quite different from a VDI cluster. Whereas a DB cluster would almost always be All Flash or for some SEs even prefer All NVMe nodes, a hybrid node for VDI cluster would be sufficient in most cases. These are different options in the cluster settings that can be set for the given workload by the users.
Another example is preferred set of models. Some customers would like to go with certain models (already existing in their environment) or filter out certain models (for ex: 1065 as it is single SSD).
Currently, SEs change these filters and preferred options in the cluster settings page every time for a new scenario/sizing.
With Sizer 6.0, Nutanix SEs and partners can save these settings (as a cluster template) and use it for future sizings.
For example: There are certain settings a user typically prefer for Oracle
1. Nodes have to be All Flash (or NVMe)
2. Should be a hot processor (>3.0GHz)
3. Only certain models (NX-8050 , NX-8070)
SEs can save an Oracle cluster profile with these settings and import this profile every time they size for an Oracle workload. This helps avoid repeating the settings every time making the sizing process faster and consistent.
Power of Cluster template/Expert Library:
Leveraging Nutanix expertise:
Why care?
Focus on the Workloads with the customer and then let your preferred cluster settings control Auto sizing and yield strong solution
Can get more consistency across wide range of Sizer users
You don’t have to know all 18 vendors in Sizer (focus on workloads and software and less on HW)
Can easily compare multiple vendors
Brings uniformity to solutioning
Across different user persona(expert, moderate, beginner)
Across internal SEs and partners
Removes the need to be Nutanix technology expert or expert of the workload being sized(eg Database)
How do I create a cluster template?
There are two ways to create a user-defined cluster profile in Sizer.
Directly creating cluster profile from user preferences
Saving an existing cluster setting as profile while doing a sizing
Steps for creating user defined templates:
Directly creating template from user preferences
Go to the User icon on the top right corner and click Templates (pic 1)
There are two approaches to templates.
Under ‘Templates’ , click on ‘ClusterTemplate’
Click on Create in the next screen (shown below)
Next, on the cluster settings screen, enter a name for the profile (eg Database cluster template) and select settings (certain CPUs, CVM allocations, preferred platforms and many more attributes shown in next section)
Click “Review” and then “Save” the profile which starts showing in the Cluster template dashboard (shown below)
Save Template while creating the scenario
To provide flexibility and for users to be ‘in context’ while creating/saving a template, additionally, an option in Sizer is to save a particular cluster setting done for a current sizing/opportunity as a template for applying in future for a similar opportunity or workload type.
This is provided as an option “Save Template” in the cluster settings page. It saves the current settings in the page (user needed to provide a name for the template) as shown:
Cluster template attributes:
Below is the list of attributes and filters which can be set for the cluster profiles based on the requirement of the cluster/customer.
Cluster Profile attributes
sample values
Data Center models / Robo Models
NX 1065-G8/1075S/3060…
Minimum CPU Freq(in GHz)
1.7
CVM per Node
Cores(physical)
4
RAM
28
Cluster type
Homogeneous
Failover
Standard(N+1)
Storage
Any
Sizer Policy
Production
Threshold %
CPU
85%
RAM
85%
SSD
85%
HDD
85%
Minimum Networking speed
10G
Minimum SSD per node
1
Minimum socket per node
1
CVM : vCPU:pcore
2
Compression % (default)
30%
ECX
OFF
Cluster settings UI in Sizer:
What is an Expert Library ?
Expert library is exactly same as the cluster profiles except that instead of the users defining the cluster profiles themselves, these profiles are created by experts in their respective areas.
The Expert library of cluster profiles is listed by workloads. For ex: Database experts know best what an Oracle cluster should look like and apply the settings accordingly. Similarly, there are libraries for VDI, Files , General purpose Server Virtualisation etc.
SEs and partners would just need to apply these libraries during creating a sizing for the respective workload/s from the cluster settings page (explained in detail in next section).
Expert Library is a separate tab next to the user defined cluster profile in Sizer.
How to use Cluster template/Expert libraries ?
While creating a sizing, on the cluster settings page, click on ‘Apply cluster template’ which pops up the list of user defined profiles and expert libraries. SEs can select any and have a quick view of the set attributes and hit apply. This will automatically select values in the cluster settings screen for the scenario which is being sized.
Similarly, as shown in the below image, using the Save template button, a new Profile can be saved from the cluster settings page of a scenario being sized. This becomes handy for leveraging the work done in manually setting the filters for current sizing for future reference for a new sizing.
For example: If an SE is sizing for a customer BestBuy which prefers certain NX models , SE would need to select only those models in platform list in the Cluster settings page for the given scenario. At the same time, they can save this as a template (say naming it as BestBuy template) and can apply every time when sizing for BestBuy opportunity.
List/View/Apply Cluster template while creating a sizing:
HW (Hardware) templates are pre-defined node configurations that can be created and saved by user. These will appear in their list of saved HW templates and can be used/applied while current or future sizings.
Similar to Cluster templates, HW template is a user-defined settings, only difference being HW templates allows to create exact specific HW config whereas Cluster templates provides attributes or settings guiding the sizer to pick up best configuration.
How can one create a HW Template?
There are two ways to define your fixed configuration of node via HW templates:
One – Upon landing to sizer (my scenario) dashboard, users can click on “Templates” and select HW Templates which opens up the HW configuration page ( similar to Manual mode page) where they can choose the vendor / platform and everything else (CPU/MeM/SSD/HDD/NICs/GPU)
Second – In order to save the effort, users can also create the HW templates while in the midst of a current sizing. While in a sizing exercise, in manual mode, when users would be defining a configuration , they can also quickly save it as a HW template in one additional step by giving it a name (either for a workload or by customer for example: HW Template-Databases, or HW Template-BestBuy)
How to use the HW templates ?
The objective for HW template is that you create once and use every time for that particular situation ( by workload or for a particular customer or any other scenario).
After creating the workload, when users are presented the Cluster settings/Sizing options screen, it shows them the option of HW Templates which can be applied for that sizing. This is in along with the other Cluster / SW settings they would like to use for that scenario. Sizer , then, iterates through the different solutions meeting the workload criteria and the cluster settings but restricting itself to only the HW Template(s) that the user selected for that sizing. Sizer would then recommend the right number of nodes (of the selected HW template(s)) meeting all the workload and cluster settings criteria.
How is HW Templates useful ?
The biggest advantage for HW Templates is that it optimizes the sizing activity for situations where their is a fixed BOM involved. That could be whether based on a customers existing server farm or a Service Provider or a reseller/distributor with a fixed BOM(like Arrow with custom built HPE configs) or simply SE preferred config for a given workload.
Another use case can be for upgrades. SEs can define the NG8 equivalent of their older HW upgrades(like NX G5) and always map the existing cluster on older models to a mapped one via Templates.
Once the config is fixed, Sizer then comes up with number of nodes avoiding any back and forth for number of nodes of that BOM to meet the criteria.
Also, for future sizings for the similar criteria, users need not do all the manual exercise all over again (and even run the risk of manual errors) but simply import the HW Template for that criteria and get uniform/consistent sizing in one single click.
While creating the fixed BOM configuration, HW Templates also ensures all the platform rules are adhered to. Additionally, after importing the templates, users can edit/modify configs and tweak it from the original template and before going ahead with the sizing, can save the edited template with a different name.
Here is a short demo on HW Templates, how to create and use :
Nutanix Collector 4.3 is now available for download.
WHAT’S NEW
Support CLI for Collector Windows – You can run Nutanix Collector in the CLI mode on the Windows operating system to initialize data collection from Prism, vCenter, Hyper-V (remote and local), and ONTAP CIFS shares.
For v-Center – Collection output includes a new sheet named Datastore that allows you to look at the individual datastore, associated hosts, VMs, and their properties.
RESOLVED ISSUES
For vCenter environments, the data collection fails when Collector encounters nested datacenters hierarchy while scanning a list of available clusters.
Removed the domain administrator check for single node Hyper-V local cluster collection. Note: For Hyper-V (remote) cluster with multiple hosts, you must be the domain administrator and for Hyper-V (remote) cluster with a single node, you must be the local administrator.
In certain scenarios, collection fails when gathering the VM performance data of a Hyper-V cluster.
Collector identifies a Hyper-V cluster as a single node when running on 64-bit Windows operating systems.
For ONTAP CIFS share cluster, collection fails when the search path for the CIFS home directory is not configured.
KNOWN ISSUES
When you run Collector in the CLI mode on Windows, the CIFS Shares count equal to or greater than 20 is displayed as 21 CIFS Shares.
Collector fails to gather the information when there is only one Prism Element cluster under the Prism Central. For the workaround, see the Troubleshooting section of the Collector User Guide.
