1.
@zehicle
Composable Infrastructure
What It Means for Your Data Center

2.
@zehicle
“Composable Infrastructure (CI) is an important emerging class of
products for data center efficiency. This session will cover the evolution
of CI, place CI in the context of other data center technologies, discuss
application areas which are most appropriate for CI, survey the existing
CI vendors and their approaches to the market, and discuss future
directions for CI. We'll also discuss how the use of CI can affect the
decision to move in or out of the cloud, with real world examples.”
What is Composable Infrastructure?
Um… let’s rewind and start over.
@zehicle

3.
@zehicle
The Skeptics Guide to
Composable Infrastructure
What happens when you can change
your hardware’s form factor?

4.
@zehicle
I write composable software not hardware, so why Me?
RackN specializes in automating bare metal servers making
them as easy to use and manage as virtual machines.
And that has a lot in common with Composable Hardware
Speaker: Rob Hirschfeld
CEO of RackN
Follow me:
@zehicle
@zehicle

5.
@zehicle
Let’s get this out there...
I’m not a fan of this concept.
I’ll still give you a balanced view point,
AND I won’t be selling you any hardware.
IMHO, the primary buying criteria for infrastructure are:
1) Commodity / Interchangeable
2) Manageable At Scale
3) Reduces Implementation Complexity

6.
@zehicle
What is Composable Infrastructure
So… it’s exactly like a virtual machine,
but with actual bare metal.
It’s a server chassis that allows you to
dynamically re-allocate resources like RAM,
Storage, Networking, and GPUs between CPUs
to software define a physical server.
@zehicle

7.
@zehicle
“Composable” is Overloaded (“CI” is worse!)
And it’s confusing, but we’re stuck with it.
Dictionary.com:
“to make or form by combining things, parts, or elements”
• Compose.io (IBM) – managed database services
• Composable Software – research / software engineering topic
• Composable Analytics, Inc. – full stack analytics platform
• Composable Systems, Inc. – software outsourcing
• HTBASE – “Composable Operating System” – composing higher level
services, not bare metal
@zehicle

8.
@zehicle
And then there’s “Converged” Infrastructure
Not the same thing, but confusingly similar name!
Converged Infrastructure is about creating infrastructure using common
building blocks instead of having specialized compute / storage units.
Typically, Converged Infrastructure is used to simplify implementation of
virtualized infrastructure.
In a practical way, Composable Infrastructure competes with virtualized
infrastructure.
@zehicle

9.
@zehicle
Composable Infrastructure: Recent History
2013
Facebook OCP Disaggregation and Next-Generation System Design,
2014
Intel Rack Scale Design(Architecture)
Software & architecture for partners, fabric agnostic, cloud focus
Cisco UCS – Up to 16 micro-servers in one 2U chassis, storage and
network resources reconfigurable via “System Link” ASIC § HPE –
2015
HPE Synergy – new generation blade server – up to 12 servers in 10U
chassis, storage composability via SAS fabric
@zehicle

10.
@zehicle
Remember Infiniband from the mid 2000s?
At the time, we expected Infiniband would create a universal bus inside
machine components for RAM, Disk and Compute disaggregation.
It was crushed by cheap and fast IP ethernet.
Today, we using PCIe and NVMe to extend the bus length of the
components in a single computer.
Composable Infrastructure: Longer History
@zehicle

11.
@zehicle
Decomposing a single machine
CPURAM Net
Disk

12.
@zehicle
Using High Speed Interconnect / Fabrics
RAM Net
Disk
NVMe PCIe
PCIe
CPU

13.
@zehicle
So we can break the “chassis” barrier
RAM Net
Disk
NVMe PCIe
PCIe
CPU
NOTE: Other interconnect
protocols could be used
(even ethernet)

14.
@zehicle
And create pools of machine resources
RAM Net
Disk
CPU NetRAM
Disk

15.
@zehicle
And create pools of machine resources
RAM Net
Disk
CPU NetRAM
Disk
CPUCPU
CPUCPU
CPUCPU

16.
@zehicle
Why do this?
Composition allows you to create heterogeneous
machine configurations without knowing in advanced
your target configuration needs.
The key assumptions are that 1) you do not know
your system requirements in advance, 2) you will want to
reconfigure them post-deployment, or 3) you are not OK
with machines having excess capacity.

17.
@zehicle
So, what about Virtual Infrastructure?
Virtual Infrastructure allows you to create heterogeneous
machine configurations without knowing in advanced
your target configuration needs.
Virtual Infrastructure is useful when 1) you do not know
your system requirements in advance, 2) you will want to
reconfigure them post-deployment, or 3) you are not OK
with machines having excess capacity.

18.
@zehicle
Infrastructure Landscape
@zehicle
Rack Mount
Rack Mount
Rack Mount
Blade Chassis
Pysical Servers vs Composable vs Virtual Servers
Virtual HCI Cluster
Virtual SAN Cluster
Shared
Storage
Composed Chassis

19.
@zehicle
Scaling Units are Important
Pysical Servers vs Composable vs Virtual Servers
@zehicle
Rack Mount
Rack Mount
Rack Mount
Blade Chassis
Virtual HCI Cluster
Virtual SAN Cluster
Scale Unit
Scale Unit
Scale Unit
Scale Unit
Shared
Storage
Composed ChassisScale Unit

20.
@zehicle
Potentially, you will scale inside the chassis
@zehicle
Composed Chassis
Scale Unit
Using Composable
Infrastructure could allow
you to change the scale
units of your systems inside
the a chassis boundary.
Assuming you had spare
capacity or the ability to
rebalance running
capacity. Aka Unicorns

21.
@zehicle
Disaggregation may be more interesting
CPURAM Net
Disk GPU

22.
@zehicle
But that’s really “Network Attached”
CPURAM Net
Disk GPU

23.
@zehicle
Benefits of Composable Infrastructure
Typically, these are virtualization benefits
This is from a vendor….
• Reduce over-provisioning
• Improve time-to-service
• Improve availability
• Simplify cluster management
• Prevent cluster silos
• Reduce SKU inventory
@zehicle

24.
@zehicle
How do you buy Infrastructure?
In my experience, there are two buyers
1) “Get me an appliance”
Willing to spend more $ on standard units and systems
Predictable uses for infrastructure
Not building deeping expertise
2) “Commodities and Scale”
Cost sensitive and multi-vendor
Predictable uses for infrastructure
Wants to own the whole stack
@zehicle

25.
@zehicle
How do you buy Infrastructure?
In my experience, there are two buyers
1) “Get me an appliance”
Willing to spend more $ on standard units and systems
Predictable uses for infrastructure
Not building deeping expertise
2) “Commodities and Scale”
Cost sensitive and multi-vendor
Predictable uses for infrastructure
Wants to own the whole stack
@zehicle

26.
@zehicle
Composable is Cool!
The ability dynamically re-assign commodities inside an
infrastructure using high speed interconnect seems like a
powerful feature.
Established and startup vendors want to sell you this
emerging and premium technology.
But the use-cases are limited and it adds complexity.

27.
@zehicle
Thank you
For more information about Rob Hirschfeld
Follow @zehicle on Twitter
Read our RackN.com Blog
Listen to @L8istSh9y Podcast