Cisco Systems’ integrated data centre platform is proving to be a model foundation for the n generation of flexible, cost-effective and feature-rich hosting services from IT services provider Atos Origin

The market for data centre-based services is fiercely competitive, where the need to offer the keenest price is matched only by the requirement for absolute security and reliability of services that perform to stringent Service Level Agreements. Traditionally customers’ needs have been met by providing a discrete platform. This has resulted in the proliferation of under-utilised siloed solutions. The challenge now is how to better maximise assets through more effective use of resources, without sacrificing security or introducing risk through configuration changes for one customer wrongly rippling through to others.

Business Results

Moving from a siloed architecture is enabling resources to be maximised, leading to capital expenditure (CAPEX) savings on the network infrastructure. Operational savings are also expected through equipment space and environmental facilities savings. In addition, lower management overheads and reduced risks are achieved following consolidation and upgrading of the data centre network infrastructure.
Importantly, customer needs can now be met on-demand, at a lower cost and with reduced risk, with investment in new features being made as they are required. Significantly, the new architecture is being rolled out to other UK data centres as it becomes the corporate model going forward.

A Competitive Market

Within the UK, Adil Tahiri is a Senior Consultant leading a Technology Consulting team within Atos Origin. His job is to understand customers’ needs in an increasingly complex and competitive market. Customers’ requirements range from outsourced IT Management and Applications Management through to Business Process Outsourcing services. Increasingly, Business Continuity demands are more stringent,  and the challenge is to ensure these needs can be met as cost-effectively as possible.
“Customers are looking for solutions that meet their business needs. Often they are also looking for direction as to the right solution. We work in a very competitive market, where everyone is looking for cost savings, particularly those coming from consolidation of resources,” explains Tahiri. “At the same time quality cannot be compromised. Our contracts tend to be long-term. Outsourcing is a question of trust and we cannot afford to lose our customers’ trust throughout our relationship with them. Balancing the often competing demands of reducing IT costs and increasing business demand while maintaining quality of service is what we do.”

Tailored Solutions Versus Common Foundation

Cisco Systems has been an Atos Origin networking technology partner for many years. Not surprisingly, therefore, when it came to thinking about connectivity and particularly content acceleration via load balancing, the companies started to talk. Cisco was keen to understand the bigger picture and what solutions Atos Origin and their customers were looking for.

“We found that Cisco had a similar vision of a shared infrastructure. They also developed products that could be used to make it happen. We attended an Executive Briefing where Cisco outlined their view of a complete end-to-end solution from a data centre perspective. This gave us a lot of confidence,” recalls Tahiri.

In order to better explore the options available, Tahiri led two workstreams—one investigating with leading `point product' vendors providing a customer-tailored solution, and another working with Cisco on developing a shared infrastructure.

Enterprise Data Centre Architecture

This architecture is built from Cisco’s recognition that in meeting the needs of increasingly data-centric businesses during the last decade, the typical data centre has seen applications hosted on multiple, stand-alone environments. Not only are these environments expensive to manage, it is difficult to respond quickly and cost-effectively to changing requirements, whether for bandwidth or security policy. The alternative is to create a resilient, agile data centre environment where managers can securely deploy new applications with appropriate performance levels.

More than that, such investment should offer a rapid return on investment and lower cost of ownership.
The Enterprise Data Centre architecture meets that objective by enabling data centre managers to build a flexible, future-proof environment that integrates transparently with other components of the data centre using the concept of ‘functional layers.’ These layers are:
• Data centre IP network infrastructure
• Storage networking
• Application optimisation
• Data centre security
• Business continuance network.

CISCO Catalyst 6500 Multilayer Switches at the Heart

The core of the new foundation is the ‘distribution layer’ of the IP infrastructure that is built around Cisco Catalyst 6509 multilayer switches running the latest third generation Supervisor Engine 720, equipped with various service modules in a redundant configuration. Internet access is provided over multiple 155Mbps links using Cisco 7206 Internet Routers running BGP (Border Gateway Protocol).

The second layer, termed the ‘access layer,’ provides the flexibility to meet individual customers’ particular needs, and typically comprises Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series switches with gigabit connectivity to servers and uplinks to the Cisco Catalyst 6509 multilayer switches in the distribution layer.
Asked about the technical highlights of the solution, Tahiri points to the scalability, availability and port density of the Cisco Catalyst 6509 multilayer switches. “The fact that you are able to insert various modules, including the firewalls and load balancing, means that you end up with effectively a single architecture providing core services with the ability to layer additional tiers on top. One can keep expanding the access layer while keeping all the main services on the distribution layer,” he says.
Investment protection is another feature of the solution that is appreciated by Atos Origin. One example is the fact that despite being first launched over three years ago Cisco continues to develop the Catalyst 6500 series with the ability for it to be integrated with the new range of modules. Another example is the Supervisor Engine 720. “Because we know the roadmap for the 720 we are confident that the features we currently use will be supported in the future and that when we eventually upgrade we will be able to retain our current modules moving forward,” says Tahiri.

Security is another key concern. The Firewall Services Modules (FWSM) are blade versions of the Cisco’s industry-leading PIX firewall and offer the fastest firewall data rates in the industry: 5Gbps throughput, 100,000 CPS (characters per second), and one million concurrent connections.

Benefits of the Solution

“This solution is taking us towards utility computing,” explains Tahiri, “where resources can be provided on demand to meet a customer's need for increased bandwidth or extra security. Importantly, it also makes it simple to construct a clear cost model based on layers and services which can be shared with customers and enable them to better understand the impact of their requirements.”

A significant benefit to customers is Atos Origin’s ability to respond faster to customers’ changing requirements. The need to create, for example, a new De-Militarised Zone for a customer can now be met quickly and easily. Similarly, if a customer wants to add more web services and introduce content switching, that functionality can be made available from the distribution layer. In the past, a new content switch would have had to be ordered, delivered, installed and configured with all the delay those processes would have incurred.

The team is also finding that the density of the Cisco Catalyst 6509-based solution makes it easier to manage complexity, such as the numerous VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks) that a data centre has to support. Instead of numerous physical interfaces, traffic is supported via one piece of hardware which makes understanding traffic flows much easier than tracing flows between several different components.
For Atos Origin there are also other benefits. Not least is the reduced cost of purchasing and installing equipment, due primarily to the greater utilisation of resources compared to individually tailored units for each customer which are often under-utilised.

Reduced risk is another benefit, because with every new customer the foundation becomes increasingly ‘tried and tested.’ “And with this reduced risk comes greater flexibility. We can offer more services simply by adding a blade, confident that those services integrate into the entire solution. No major ‘fork-lift’ upgrades or major new designs are needed,” says Tahiri. “This in turn makes it easier to sell value added services to our customers and for us to maximise our return on investment by timing the purchase of new features such as SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Offload for when they are actually required by customers.”
In an environment where physical space and power represent a very real cost and concern, the density of the Cisco Enterprise Data Centre architecture is a real benefit due to the savings in rack space and environmental resource requirements, while the elegance of the solution is also improving ease of maintenance and network management issues such as diagramming and documentation.

Putting the partnership in perspective is Atos Origin’s Paul Thomas, Connectivity Services Manager. “Hosting and Data Centre services sit at the heart of our managed operations business and our consolidation strategy forms a critical part of our ongoing business model. We collaborated with Cisco to build a hosting infrastructure in our main data centre, optimising Cisco’s Enterprise Data Centre Architecture vision and roadmap enabling us to create a world-class capability. This strategic approach will lead us towards delivering a true virtual datacentre environment.”