Cisco UCS, Nexus 1000 virtual switches power VMworld labs but suffer glitches

Data center that serves 20,000 virtual machines sits on mere 1,700 square feet

A year after introducing the Nexus 1000 virtual switch, Cisco is using that switch and its unified computing system servers as a proving point at VMworld in San Francisco. A Cisco-based implementation that taps into both EMC and NetApp SANs is powering the show's lab sessions. However, the setup performed so poorly in its first two days that many users were left unable to access the labs, they said.

(VMWorld product blitz slideshow)

Self-paced labs were all but completely offline until 2 p.m. on Monday, users reported, and a bootcamp session on Sunday, which demonstrated how to upgrade to VSphere, also had performance issues.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

A year after introducing the Nexus 1000 virtual switch, Cisco is using that switch and its unified computing system servers as a proving point at VMworld in San Francisco. A Cisco-based implementation that taps into both EMC and NetApp SANs is powering the show's lab sessions. However, the setup performed so poorly in its first two days that many users were left unable to access the labs, they said.

(VMWorld product blitz slideshow)

Self-paced labs were all but completely offline until 2 p.m. on Monday, users reported, and a bootcamp session on Sunday, which demonstrated how to upgrade to VSphere, also had performance issues.

“Some of the more advanced stuff was doing host profiles, distributed switches, and you couldn’t do any of it. It just didn’t work. That was Sunday,” explained Jay Weinshenker, senior Oracle applications database administrator for Luminex Corp. in Austin, Texas.

As for the self-paced labs on Monday, Weinshenker noted that the performance problems made the experience "rather unpleasant. The labs are what I really look forward to. They’re good to get a lot of hands on experience. They talked to you a little bit and then you got to click around, but try actually messing around with some of it, and you couldn’t really,” he said.

According to Cisco, Monday's lab performance problems were due to unspecified software-related issues and not due to the virtual data center of which Cisco UCS architecture was supporting.

Despite these issues, Weinshenker wasn't a seeking a refund on his conference. “I’m still getting a lot of knowledge out of it and the boot camp was free,” he said.

VMware acknowledged the issues, but emphasized that they were fixed by Tuesday. "We did have problems with one lab on Monday, but the issues have been addressed and all of the labs are fully functional. To give a sense of what we've been able to accomplish with the labs during the show, there have been 11,000 virtual machines that have been provisioned since 11:00 a.m. this morning," said VMware spokesperson Mary Ann Gallo.

Cisco downplayed the performance problems and focused its message on the small footprint of the system, which it dubbed a virtual data center.

"This is one of the largest deployments of a single site virtual data center ever rolled out," Ed Bugnion, vice president and CTO of Cisco's server access and virtualization business unit told Network World. "Cisco is bringing virtualization closer to the network, with direct visibility into the virtual machine. There are significant implications of virtualization on the network. The network was designed with static machines, static data centers in mind."

There is nothing static about the Cisco Lab network. It isn't even hosted in a permanent room. Engineers from Cisco and VMware grabbed 1,700 square feet of hallway at the base of the escalators in Moscone Center and built the virtual data center there. They designed and built it in two months, with the last couple of servers, running bare metal hypervisors, provisioned in two hours.