Reduce Complexity and Accelerate Enterprise Cloud ... - Oracle

Reduce Complexity and Accelerate Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure Deployments Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure on SPARC ORACLE WHITE PAPER

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JUNE 2015

Table of Contents Introduction

3

Solution Overview

5

Security

6

Cost Savings

6

IBM Cost Comparison: More Than 60 Percent Lower Acquisition and More Than 55 Percent Lower TCO

7

HP and NetApp Cost Comparison: 20 Percent Lower Acquisition and More Than 30 Percent Lower TCO Leading Performance to Meet Service Levels at Lower Cost Consolidate, Virtualize, and Enable Cloud Agility and Efficiency Consolidating a Legacy SPARC Infrastructure: More Than 800 Percent ROI

8 9 10 10

Consolidation Scenario

10

Cloud Agility and Efficiency

12

Built-in Virtualization

13

Enhanced Security at No Extra Cost

14

Faster Time to Service and Reduced Risk

14

Conclusion

17

Appendix A

Financial Analysis for Cost Comparisons

18

IBM Comparison

18

HP and NetApp Comparison

19

SPARC Installed Base Comparison

21

Appendix B

Leading Performance Benchmarks

1 | REDUCE COMPLEXITY AND ACCELERATE ENTERPRISE CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE DEPLOYMENTS

23


Introduction To reap the full benefits of cloud computing, the IT infrastructure must be flexible and adjust to meet business needs. Many organizations, however, operate on an IT infrastructure that has been cobbled together over time and is based on disparate technologies that are aging, labor intensive to maintain, and have difficulty adapting to changing workloads. Upgrading the IT infrastructure to enable a cloud services delivery model can be a big undertaking.

IT organizations often spend multiple weeks to plan, architect, troubleshoot, and deploy a multivendor virtualization infrastructure. Deployment teams must assemble and integrate a range of hardware and software components from different vendors (e.g., servers, storage, network, virtualization software, and operating systems). The process is not only time consuming but also prone to errors, making it hard to achieve a timely and profitable return on investment. Complex integration tasks can expose even the most carefully planned deployments to unforeseen risks, such as implementation and testing delays, service downtime, costly upgrades, and inefficient system performance.

Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure on SPARC offers a simple and direct approach that speeds deployment and reduces risk. It is a single-vendor solution for the entire hardware and software stack, and it can be deployed in just 2 days, compared to an average of 10 days for a traditional deployment approach. This optimized solution has gone through extensive testing at Oracle, resulting in a documented, pre-optimized, and pre-validated configuration that can significantly simplify the demanding responsibilities of identifying a stable configuration and performing integration testing.


This paper describes the key business benefits of deploying Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure on SPARC. Advantages of this solution include: » Saving more than 60 percent on acquisition costs and realizing more than 55 percent better total cost of ownership (TCO) compared to a competitive IBM solution » Saving more than 20 percent on acquisition costs and realizing more than 30 percent better TCO compared to a competitive HP and NetApp solution » Generating more than 800 percent ROI by consolidating and modernizing an aging infrastructure built on previous-generation SPARC servers from Oracle » Leveraging Oracle’s end-to-end built-in security to protect customer data in the private cloud with secure boot, secure image delivery, image lockdown encryption keys, and more » Taking advantage of cloud agility and flexibility by transforming the IT infrastructure and implementing consolidation and virtualization » Deploying a comprehensive cloud infrastructure up to 5x faster than traditional approaches by leveraging Oracle’s investment in predesigning, documenting, and testing this Oracle Optimized Solution.


Solution Overview Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure on SPARC is a pre-tested, tuned, and validated solution. It combines Oracle’s scalable SPARC T5 and T4 servers, Oracle Solaris, and the right virtualization, storage, networking, and management technologies from Oracle to build out a full enterprise cloud infrastructure. The solution creates a general-purpose, flexible, and scalable virtualized foundation that is optimized to run any Oracle Solaris application, Oracle Database, or Oracle middleware solution. It addresses every layer of the infrastructure stack with Oracle hardware and software components that are optimized and tested together. The solution identifies technologies and best practices to deliver high service levels, enhanced security, and maximum efficiency. As shown in Figure 1, infrastructure components include Oracle’s SPARC T5 and T4 servers, Oracle Solaris 11, Oracle Solaris Zones and Oracle VM for SPARC for virtualization, Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance, Oracle’s 10 GbE networking, and Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c. For additional cloud management capabilities, Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c can be easily added to the solution to manage the full lifecycle of cloud services.

Figure 1. Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure provides a complete hardware and software stack that can accelerate deployment and reduce the risk of errors.

Oracle is the only vendor that can offer a complete single-vendor cloud infrastructure containing all of the hardware and software components needed for cloud. The remaining sections of this paper describe the business benefits that can be achieved with Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure: lower acquisition costs and TCO, efficiencies from consolidation, better agility, faster time-to-service, and reduced implementation risk.


Security A primary objective of all Oracle Optimized Solutions is to reduce risk, and security is an important element. There are three relevant main points: » Oracle builds security capabilities into each of its products that are either enabled by default or can be configured based upon need. » Oracle is innovating across layers by designing features that cut across products to deliver security capabilities that otherwise would not be possible. » Oracle provides recommended security practices, implementation guides, and other technical information to help ensure customers can properly maximize the value of Oracle's security innovations. Hardening Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure for SPARC has been an objective throughout the design of the solution. Steps are taken to ensure that the Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure solution is a secure multitenant private cloud environment. The solution is able to take advantage of the built-in security aspects that Oracle's SPARC T-Series servers, Oracle Solaris 11.2, and Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12.2 provide. This includes things like role-based access control, which can integrate with existing data center LDAP directory services, virtual machine (VM) network isolation using VLAN network segmentation, and ZFS data encryption. Security is built into the infrastructure as well by further isolating management networks from storage networks and virtual machine data traffic, thereby limiting the potential of network intrusion to the cloud infrastructure and management components. Small things, like changing the default factory passwords on each component, also are called so that simple security is not overlooked.

Cost Savings Oracle’s engineering investment in this solution yields lower acquisition costs as well as reduced operating costs in comparison to typical multivendor, custom-built environments. In addition, Oracle’s SPARC T-Series servers include built-in virtualization capabilities that yield significant cost savings. The major factors that contribute to cost reductions in Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure include: » Built-in virtualization—Oracle VM Server for SPARC and Oracle Solaris Zones, a feature of Oracle Solaris, are included at no extra charge for SPARC T-Series servers. » Simplified migration of legacy software—A physical-to-virtual (P2V)) migration tool (included with Oracle VM Server for SPARC) allows legacy systems to be easily migrated to run within a logical domain on a SPARC TSeries server. A virtual-to-virtual (V2V) migration tool also is available to migrate legacy Oracle VM Server for SPARC logical domains to logical domains in the new enterprise cloud infrastructure. » Management efficiency—Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c, part of the Oracle Enterprise Manager portfolio of management solutions, is included at no extra cost for systems management. The Oracle Enterprise Manager portfolio offers integrated functionality for managing the entire cloud infrastructure, including Oracle Applications, Oracle Database, virtual machines, operating systems, storage, firmware, administrative rights, patching, and updates. This can save considerable labor costs in comparison to using a variety of different multivendor tools. » Lower deployment costs—The time and effort from project conception to full operation can be reduced significantly with an Oracle Optimized Solution. For this specific solution, initially deploying a hardware and software infrastructure (prior to deploying virtual environments) can take place 5x faster in comparison to a traditional deployment approach. Taken together, these factors contribute to substantial savings in comparison to deployments of similar IBM and HP offerings. The subsections that follow provide cost comparisons for a competitive IBM solution and an HP solution with NetApp storage. In these comparisons, Oracle Optimized Solution offers more than 60 percent lower initial purchase costs and a 55 percent lower TCO than an IBM configuration. For an HP and NetApp comparison, Oracle


Optimized Solution enables a 20 percent savings for the initial investment and a greater than 30 percent better TCO. When consolidating and modernizing a legacy SPARC infrastructure, Oracle Optimized Solution requires an initial investment, but the five-year TCO is more than 85 percent lower than the five-year TCO of maintaining the status quo environment.

IBM Cost Comparison: More Than 60 Percent Lower Acquisition and More Than 55 Percent Lower TCO Figure 2 graphically illustrates the savings available with Oracle Optimized Solution compared to a similar configuration based on IBM systems. The Oracle solution saves more than 62 percent for the initial investment and has a five-year TCO that is 58 percent lower1. Table 1 summarizes the costs involved in the initial deployment (see Appendix A for details). The biggest savings are found in the server environment. Oracle Optimized Solution includes no-charge virtualization technologies and built-in cryptography engines, saving more than 60 percent in comparison to the IBM server configuration that requires add-on virtualization software licenses and PCIe cryptographic coprocessor technology to achieve equivalent functionality.

Figure 2. Cost savings compared to IBM.

TABLE 1. COMPETITIVE COST COMPARISON AGAINST IBM CONFIGURATION—COST OF ACQUISITION

Total initial investment Total savings on initial investment by choosing Oracle Percent savings on initial investment

Oracle

IBM

$908,748

$2,422,990 $1,514,242 62%

Table 2 summarizes the analysis of annual costs associated with the IBM configuration compared to annual costs for Oracle Optimized Solution (see Appendix A for details). The total cost of ownership over five years is computed

1 IBM and Cisco list prices obtained from publicly available Internet sources as of March 12, 2013.


by summing these undiscounted annual costs over the five-year period. Major factors considered in the TCO analysis include costs for power and cooling, floor space, hardware service, and software licensing fees. TABLE 2. TCO COMPARISON AGAINST IBM CONFIGURATION

Investments

Initial

Year 1

Year 2

YEar 3

$2,422,990

$260,778

$265,248

$271,623

$359,392

$566,299

$4,146,330

Oracle solution undiscounted cash flows

$908,748

$131,905

$138,982

$146,566

$154,886

$264,601

$1,745,688

Annual savings (undiscounted)

$1,514,242

$128,873

$126,266

$125,057

$204,506

$301,698

$2,400,642

IBM solution undiscounted cash flows

Year 4

Year 5

Total

Five-year TCO for IBM

$4,146,330

Five-year TCO for Oracle

$1,745,688

TCO savings with Oracle

58%

HP and NetApp Cost Comparison: 20 Percent Lower Acquisition and More Than 30 Percent Lower TCO Figure 3 graphically illustrates the savings available with Oracle Optimized Solution compared to a similar configuration based on HP and NetApp systems. The initial investment for Oracle Optimized Solution is 20 percent lower and the five-year TCO is 34 percent better2.

2 HP, NetApp, and Cisco list prices obtained from publicly available Internet sources as of March 12, 2013. See Appendix A for details.


Figure 3. Cost savings compared to HP and NetApp.

Table 3 summarizes an analysis of the costs for the initial deployment (see Appendix A for details). The biggest savings are found in the storage environment where the NetApp FAS3270 storage configuration is about four times the cost of Oracle's ZFS Storage 7320 system. TABLE 3. COMPETITIVE COST COMPARISON AGAINST HP AND NETAPP CONFIGURATION

Oracle Total initial investment

HP and NetApp

$908,748

$1,133,768 $225,020

Total savings on initial investment by choosing Oracle

20%

Percent savings on initial investment

Table 4 summarizes the analysis of annual costs associated with an HP and NetApp configuration compared to the annual costs for Oracle Optimized Solution (see Appendix A for details). The total cost of ownership over five years is computed by summing these undiscounted annual costs over the five-year period. The analysis takes into account ongoing annual costs such as power and cooling, floor space, hardware service, and software licensing fees. TABLE 4. TCO COMPARISON AGAINST HP AND NETAPP CONFIGURATION

Investments

Initial

Year 1

Year 2

YEar 3

Year 4

Year 5

Total

$1,133,768

$244,853

$261,151

$264,842

$318,913

$429,619

$2,653,146

Oracle solution undiscounted cash flows

$908,748

$131,905

$138,982

$146,566

$154,886

$264,601

$1,745,688

Annual savings (undiscounted)

$225,020

$112,948

$122,169

$118,276

$164,027

$165,018

$907,458

HP and NetApp solution undiscounted cash flows

Five-year TCO for HP and NetApp

$2,653,146

Five-year TCO for Oracle

$1,745,688

TCO savings with Oracle

34%

Leading Performance to Meet Service Levels at Lower Cost Oracle's approach of delivering an integrated, optimized, and fully supported stack yields performance advantages. These advantages can translate to lower costs because more application services can run on the infrastructure before additional capacity must be added. Oracle’s SPARC T5-2 is an ideal server for cloud infrastructure deployments because of the server’s extreme density—it has twice the cores, threads, memory capacity, and I/O


bandwidth of the previous-generation SPARC T4-2 server. For this reason, the SPARC T5-2 server is a superb choice on which to put into practice Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure. SPARC T5 servers yield leading performance results in a variety of application benchmarks, including: » More atomic network activation actions per second with lower CPU utilization » Record-breaking performance on both interactive and batch components of the “Day in the Life” benchmark that represents the most popular JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications from Oracle » For the SPARC T5 processor, fastest results to date in the industry-standard SPECcpu2006 benchmark » A world-record benchmark with Oracle’s Siebel Customer Relationship Management (Siebel CRM) on SPARC T5-2 servers » Twice the Oracle Database performance per SPARC T5 chip than that of the IBM POWER7™ processor Appendix B contains further details about these benchmark results. These record-breaking benchmarks show how SPARC T5 servers are capable of outstanding performance across a range of industry applications, including data warehousing, transaction processing, and enterprise business applications, making these servers a good fit for an enterprise cloud infrastructure.

Consolidate, Virtualize, and Enable Cloud Agility and Efficiency Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure enables organizations to consolidate existing applications onto fewer and more powerful SPARC systems while delivering cloud benefits, including greater system utilization, improved IT agility, reduced footprint, increased service levels, and better security. The complete solution helps to reduce complexity and risk so that organizations can spend less time and fewer resources deploying and supporting their infrastructure and applications. SPARC T5-2 servers, used as virtualization nodes in this solution, offer outstanding price/performance for a variety of application workloads. For a virtualized infrastructure, fast performance means that more applications can share a single server’s processing power, thus facilitating efficient consolidation since fewer servers are needed to support a given set of applications.

Consolidating a Legacy SPARC Infrastructure: More Than 800 Percent ROI It's easy to justify replacing an aging IT infrastructure with a new consolidated infrastructure, especially when the new acquisition can potentially pay for itself in less than six months. This is the case for organizations running previous-generation SPARC systems that are just three or four years old. The new SPARC T5 processor, used in the new generation of SPARC T5 servers, radically increases performance, with twice the threads and cores as previous generation SPARC T4 systems and 10x the performance of previous SPARC T3 processor-based systems. This makes Oracle’s SPARC T5-2 server an ideal platform for consolidating applications from older Oracle systems. The largest validated configuration of Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure on SPARC features 10 SPARC T5-2 servers per rack. Each SPARC T5-2 server contains two SPARC T5 processors running at 3.6 GHz. This server is ideal for a cloud computing infrastructure because it delivers up to 256 compute threads in a power- and space-efficient 3U chassis, enabling workloads from previous generations of SPARC servers to be consolidated in a dense and compact footprint. Consolidation Scenario A financial analysis was conducted to assess the fiscal benefits of consolidating older SPARC servers onto Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure. The consolidation scenario considered the replacement of the following legacy servers:


» Sixteen of Oracle's Sun Fire E4900 servers » Twenty-four of Oracle's Sun Fire V440 servers » Forty-eight SPARC Enterprise T5240 servers These specific quantities and server models were chosen because they offer comparable performance to a rack of 10 SPARC T5-2 servers. Relative performance of the SPARC T5-2 servers versus previous-generation SPARC servers is measured based on Oracle’s internally calculated M-values that represent average measured performance for a range of applications tested on each system. The M values of the above-listed SPARC servers add up to approximately the same M-values as 10 SPARC T5 2 servers. This means that ten SPARC T5-2 servers in a single rack have more than adequate performance to consolidate applications from all of these previousgeneration SPARC servers that would occupy 12 racks—about 12 times the floor space of an equivalent configuration of this Oracle Optimized Solution. The analysis finds that an upgrade to Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure on SPARC yields the following business benefits: » 95 percent reduction in hardware service costs for total five-year savings of approximately $10.5 million » 91 percent reduction in total floor space » 82 percent reduction in power » 82 percent reduction in CO2 emissions » $1,376,833 in estimated benefits over five years due to improvements in planned and unplanned downtime » $1,079,358 in estimated benefit over five years from labor productivity increases

Figure 4. Cost savings to replace legacy SPARC server ecosystem.

Figure 4 shows the initial investment of $892,248 for the proposed Oracle Optimized Solution versus a $0 investment assumed for the status quo legacy environment. Figure 4 also compares TCO values that represent all expenses over a five-year ownership period (including annual costs for hardware service, software licenses, power, cooling, and data center floor space). Oracle Optimized Solution provides an 87 percent lower TCO (see Appendix A for a detailed analysis). Table 5 provides a summary of the cost savings and benefits as well the overall value of the business investment. The NPV of $10.07 million is calculated by using a 10 percent discount rate (cost of capital) to discount the cash flows in the five-year analysis. The project would have a payback in just five months and deliver an ROI of 805 percent on the initial investment of $892,248. The financial benefits are so strong that even a three-month delay in the project would effectively cost the organization $237,845 in lost savings.


TABLE 5. TCO SAVINGS VERSUS LEGACY SPARC CONFIGURATION

Investment

Initial

Year 1

Year 2

YEar 3

Year 4

Year 5

Total

Cash flows for savings due to replacing legacy SPARC solution (undiscounted)

$(892,248)

$ 2,038,523

$2,141,701

$ 2,251,897

$2,367,390

$3,333,268

$11,240,531

Additional business benefits (undiscounted)

$0

$257,127

$527,942

$542,137

$556,858

$572,127

$2,456,191

Cash flows for investment in proposed solution (undiscounted)

$892,248

$129,925

$137,002

$144,586

$152,906

$244,141

$1,700,808

Total savings (NPV)

$10,073,681

ROI based on total proposed cash flow

805%

TCO savings with Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure on SPARC

87%

The potential financial savings of this scenario illustrates how it is extremely beneficial to consider consolidating older SPARC servers and implementing Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure. The annual cost savings combine with additional virtualization and cloud management benefits brought about by features of Oracle VM Server for SPARC and Oracle Enterprise Manager management technologies.

Cloud Agility and Efficiency In addition to consolidation benefits, this Oracle Optimized Solution makes it easy to take advantage of cloud agility and efficiency. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c, which is included as a standard component of the solution, supplies comprehensive system management for the cloud infrastructure. It provides deep visibility and control across Oracle hardware and software components, including physical servers, system resources, the Oracle Solaris operating system, and virtual machines. Detailed visibility enables faster, simpler, and better diagnosis of problems because it’s easier to identify which component is involved and then drill down for more details. Available separately, Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c adds total cloud control, providing as much as 10x higher operational agility for cloud-based IT environments3. Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c transforms the IT infrastructure into a dynamic, self-service enterprise cloud, supplying a complete cloud lifecycle management solution. Oracle Enterprise Manager enables self-service provisioning, centralized policy-based resource management, integrated chargeback and capacity planning, and visibility of the entire enterprise cloud infrastructure—from applications to disk. As illustrated in Figure 5, additional Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c modules permit the control of Oracle middleware, Oracle Database instances, and Oracle Applications.

3 See the paper “Private Cloud in Action: Early Adopters of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Report Agility and Productivity Benefits” by the Crimson Consulting Group, available from http://www.oracle.com/ocom/groups/public/@ocom/documents/webcontent/1851997.pdf


Figure 5. Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center combine to offer complete cloud control for Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure.

Built-in Virtualization Oracle VM Server for SPARC is included at no extra cost for SPARC T-Series servers, enabling virtualized environments that support a cost-effective cloud infrastructure. As shown in Figure 6, Oracle VM Server for SPARC installs directly on SPARC T-Series server hardware and allows each domain to run its own instance of Oracle Solaris 10 or Oracle Solaris 11. This lightweight virtualization technology relies on a SPARC hypervisor, a small firmware layer that subdivides and partitions server resources (CPUs, memory, I/O, and storage) among defined virtual machines called logical domains. A domain’s operating system is permitted to access only those resources allocated to it by the Oracle VM Server for SPARC hypervisor, and resource allocations can be adjusted dynamically. This makes it possible for compute and I/O-intensive applications and databases to obtain the resources they need to deliver performance in virtual environments, especially to address periodic workload spikes.

Figure 6. Oracle VM Server for SPARC is included in SPARC T-Series servers at no additional charge.

Oracle Solaris Zones, which is a no-charge virtualization technology in Oracle Solaris, can be used as another layer of abstraction for virtualizing the SPARC T-Series servers. Oracle Solaris Zones enables completely isolated virtual


servers within a single operating system instance. Legacy applications on Oracle Solaris 8 or Oracle Solaris 9 can run in a compatible virtualized environment within the Oracle Solaris 10 operating system. This is especially useful when migrating applications from older systems and taking advantage of consolidating on the latest hardware. Because Oracle VM Server for SPARC and Oracle Solaris Zones are fully certified and supported by Oracle, organizations avoid the complexity of dealing with multiple vendors for support.

Enhanced Security at No Extra Cost By upgrading the infrastructure to use the latest server, OS, and management technologies, Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure gives organizations a security upgrade as well. Advanced security features in Oracle Solaris 11 include role-based access control, process rights management, and least privilege. These features can help reduce security risk by enabling administrators to track activities of individual users and grant users or applications only the minimum capabilities needed to perform their duties. In addition, SPARC T5 servers offer built-in wire-speed encryption to help protect critical data and services without a performance penalty. An integrated cryptographic accelerator unit in each of the 16 cores of the SPARC T5 processor supports 17 of the most common ciphers and secure hashing functions. This means that Oracle Solaris applications can run securely without the CPU overhead and extra cost of a separate cryptographic processor, allowing organizations to use encryption pervasively without a performance or cost impact.

Faster Time to Service and Reduced Risk Oracle's approach of configuring and testing the complete Oracle Optimized Solution and documenting best practices and installation procedures can dramatically speed enterprise cloud infrastructure deployment. The traditional approach of purchasing, deploying, configuring, and provisioning hardware and software components from multiple vendors requires an upfront configuration and sizing effort, as well as a lengthy installation process and extensive testing. Oracle estimates that a traditional installation of comparable hardware and software components (up to the point where virtual machines can be deployed) takes approximately 10 days. Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure on SPARC shortens this process, simplifying installation and setup. Oracle provides an implementation guide with Oracle Optimized Solutions to help administrators quickly set up servers, networking, and software configurations. By leveraging Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, the entire infrastructure can be up and running in just two days. As illustrated in Figure 7, this is approximately 5x faster than the traditional approach. Hardware installation takes just a half day, versus two and a half days for a traditional deployment. Software installation is one and a half days—compared to seven and a half days for a traditional deployment.


Figure 7. A 5x faster deployment enables Oracle Optimized Solutions to speed time-to-service.

Key deployment benefits include: » Faster deployment with a pretested and optimized solution Designed to simplify solution integration and deployment, Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure on SPARC enables faster time-to-service. By preselecting hardware and software components and validating them in an optimized solution stack, this tried-and-tested solution can shorten deployment schedules. By using proven compatible configurations and applying best practices documented by Oracle engineers, IT organizations can have their cloud infrastructures up and running 5x faster than traditional installation methods. » Reduced deployment and operations risk Risk is inherent in any service deployment. Having the right platform underneath it all can mean the difference between failure and success. The components of this solution are optimized and prevalidated, reducing the risk of reliability and availability issues that can arise when cloud infrastructures are built from heterogeneous components. Oracle removes the need for the customer to do the research and development to successfully build out a private cloud. Configuration guidelines and documented best practices make sure that all components and patches are identified and verified, minimizing the risk of human error or unforeseen compatibility issues that might cause service interruptions in production. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c also includes automated fault management, storage and networking intelligence, and performance analyses to help IT managers maintain high service levels. » Additional speed and protection with Oracle Advanced Customer Support services Oracle offers fixed-scope deployment services to accelerate adoption of Oracle Optimized Solutions. Oracle Advanced Customer Support services engages Oracle technology experts to drive the implementation and deployment activities while following best practices. Proactive and preventive service options for postdeployment also are offered. » Simplified provisioning for up to 12x faster application deployment After the cloud infrastructure is in place, IT agility is dependent on the speed with which application services can be provisioned and executed. Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure leverages built-in virtualization technology to simplify application software provisioning and resource allocations to meet changing workload requirements. Guest VMs can be provisioned rapidly to deploy applications, including a complete Oracle


software solution, along with the operating system and related software infrastructure. Oracle VM Templates can be used to provision pretested and preconfigured installations of Oracle Database and Oracle Applications. In internal testing, using Oracle VM Templates proved to be up to 12x faster than independently installing and configuring application and virtual machine environments. For deploying third-party applications, Oracle VM Templates can accelerate the deployment of the OS, virtualization, and middleware infrastructure. » Enhanced reliability with the simplicity of single-vendor support An important benefit of running Oracle software on Oracle hardware is the simplicity and reliability of having a single vendor to call for support. In multivendor support environments, production teams can spend hours debugging or tracing an issue before they can determine whether the source of the problem is the application, the virtual machine, the OS, or the hardware server. When running an all-Oracle stack, Oracle Support can be engaged right away, enabling faster and easier problem resolution to help avoid downtime. Oracle Support engineers can address service and support issues from a holistic vantage point and can gain access to engineering resources at all levels of the stack, if necessary. It is also easy for Oracle to replicate the entire hardware and software stack for support purposes because Oracle owns and uses all of the products in the stack. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c also features an automated service request capability, whereby potential system issues are detected and reported to the Oracle support center without user intervention. This capability helps to assure maximum service levels and simplified support. Additionally, Oracle automatically advises customers of any resolution that is created for similarly configured Oracle stacks as soon as it is released.


Conclusion To reap the benefits of cloud computing, IT infrastructures must run efficiently and provide the flexibility to dynamically adapt to changing user workloads. Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure on SPARC greatly simplifies the task of building out an enterprise cloud infrastructure that can deliver on the promise of cloud. As presented in this paper, Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure offers a significantly lower TCO in comparison to competitive IBM and HP solutions. With no-charge virtualization and built-in encryption technologies, the solution offers true value when deploying a virtualized cloud infrastructure that supports pervasive security. In addition, with more than 15 world-record benchmarks, the solution’s SPARC T5-2 servers demonstrate new levels of compute performance and scalability, allowing the cloud infrastructure to expand to support growth. Whether an organization is modernizing and consolidating an aging infrastructure of legacy SPARC systems or building a new cloud infrastructure, this solution can help reduce costs and accelerate application deployments while improving data center efficiency and protecting against the risk of service interruptions. And since the solution stack is based on components that all are available from Oracle—a trusted business partner—implementing the solution gives customers a single touch point for purchasing, deployment, services, training, and ongoing support. For more information, visit http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/oos/enterprise-cloudinfrastructure/overview/index.html.


Appendix A

Financial Analysis for Cost Comparisons

This appendix provides detailed analysis for the cost comparisons outlined in the body of the paper.

IBM Comparison Table 6 shows a comparison of initial purchase costs for Oracle’s enterprise cloud offering with a similarly configured solution based on IBM servers and storage4. The IBM servers are running the IBM AIX operating system and IBM PowerVM virtualization software. The storage and networking environment is also based on IBM products. Specific product models are listed in the table. TABLE 6. COMPETITIVE COST COMPARISON AGAINST IBM CONFIGURATION

Oracle Category

Components

IBM Cost

Components

Cost

Server hardware, hardware encryption, racks, and software licenses for OS and virtualization

SPARC T5-2 servers, Oracle Solaris, and Oracle VM for SPARC

$697,493

IBM Power 740 Express servers with POWER7+ CPUs, 42U rack, IBM PCI-e Cryptographic Co-processor, IBM AIX Enterprise Edition, PowerVM Enterprise Edition

Storage and storage software

Sun ZFS Storage 7320 and Snap Mgmt. software

$71,555

IBM Storwize V7000 Unified Storage and SaaS software

$188,992

$93,844

IBM BNT RackSwitch G8264F – 10 Gb 48 Port Switch, IBM 10 GbE 850 nm Fiber SFP+ Transceiver (SR), IBM RackSwitch G8052R- 1 GbE top-of-rack switch, 10 GbE HBA

$423,374

Network equipment

Sun Network 10 GbE Switch 72p and Cisco management switch

Integration, deployment, and other costs Total initial investment

$1,754,400

$45,856

$56,224

$908,748

$2,422,990


$1,514,242


62%

The IBM configuration contains 20 IBM Power 740 Express servers, each configured with two POWER7+ processors, 128 GB of RAM, PCIe cryptographic coprocessors for encryption, and PowerVM virtualization software. This compares to an Oracle configuration of 10 SPARC T5-2 servers configured with two SPARC T5 processors, 512 GB RAM, on-core hardware encryption, and built-in virtualization technologies. There are twice as many IBM servers configured to achieve the same number of cores. (Each IBM server contains two 8-core POWER7+ processors while each SPARC T5-2 server features two 16-core SPARC T5 processors.) 4 TCO analysis done using industry-accepted formulas. Power consumption and floor space requirements sourced from IBM's publically available power calculators and product specification sheets. IBM pricing information sourced from IBM.com and www.storageperformance.org, as of March 12, 2013.


The storage environment contains 72 TB of storage based on 7,200 RPM SAS-2 disk drives. The IBM storage is also configured with the appropriate software licenses for mirroring of disk arrays for redundancy. Figure 8 provides an analysis of the cash flows of each environment over a five-year period. The analysis includes the initial acquisition costs from Table 7 along with annual costs for hardware service, software licenses, power, cooling, and data center floor space. In year five of the analysis, the cost model assumes the purchase and deployment of additional hardware to accommodate growth. The analysis shows a savings of 58 percent for Oracle Optimized Solution based on these undiscounted cash flows.

Figure 8. Detailed comparison of TCO for Oracle Optimized Solution versus IBM solution.

HP and NetApp Comparison Table 7 shows a comparison of initial purchase costs for Oracle’s enterprise cloud offering with a similarly configured solution based on HP servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux and VMware virtualization software5. The HP servers are deployed with NetApp storage systems and Cisco network switches. The table lists specific product models used in the cost comparison.

5 TCO analysis done using industry-accepted formulas. Power consumption and floor space requirements sourced from HP and NetApp publically available power calculators and product specification sheets. HP pricing information sourced from hp.com, as of March 12, 2013. VMware pricing information sourced from store.vmware.com, as of March 12, 2013. NetApp pricing information sourced from local reseller, as of March 12, 2013. Red Hat pricing information sourced from hp.com as of March 12, 2013.


TABLE 7. COMPETITIVE COST COMPARISON AGAINST HP AND NETAPP CONFIGURATION

Oracle

HP, NetApP, and Cisco

Category

Components

Server hardware, hardware encryption, racks, and software licenses for OS and virtualization

SPARC T5-2 servers, Oracle Solaris, and Oracle VM for SPARC

$697,493

Storage and storage software

Sun ZFS Storage 7320 and Snap Mgmt. software

Network equipment

Sun Network 10 GbE Switch 72p and Cisco management switch

Integration, deployment, and costs Total initial investment

Cost

Components

Cost

HP ProLiant DL380 G7 servers, HP AXL300 Crypto Adapter PCI Card, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and VMware

$595,562

$71,555

NetApp FAS3270 (2x controller)

$472,442

$93,844

Cisco 10 GbE network and management switches

$24,000

$45,856

$41,764

$908,748

$1,133,768


$225,020


20%

The HP and NetApp configuration contains 20 HP ProLiant DL380 G8 servers, each configured with 512 GB of RAM, a PCI card for hardware-accelerated encryption, and VMware virtualization software. This compares to an Oracle configuration of 10 SPARC T5-2 servers configured with 512 GB RAM, native on-core encryption capabilities, and built-in virtualization technologies. The reason that 20 HP servers are used in comparison to 10 SPARC T5-2 servers is to provide a similar number of processor cores in both configurations. (The HP ProLiant DL380 G8 server contains two 8-core Intel® Xeon® Series processors compared to two 16-core SPARC T5 processors in each SPARC T5-2 server.) The storage environment contains 72 TB of storage based on 7,200 RPM SAS-2 disk drives. The storage is configured with appropriate software licenses for mirroring of disk arrays for redundancy. Figure 9 provides an analysis of the cash flows of each of these environments over a five-year period. The analysis includes the initial acquisition costs from Table 6 along with annual costs for hardware service, software licenses, power, cooling, and data center floor space. In year five of the analysis, the cost model assumes the purchase and deployment of additional hardware to accommodate growth. The analysis shows a savings of 34 percent using Oracle Optimized Solution based on these undiscounted cash flows.


Figure 9. Detailed comparison of TCO for Oracle Optimized Solution versus HP and NetApp.

SPARC Installed Base Comparison Figure 10 shows an analysis of the cash flows when replacing an installed base of existing SPARC servers with Oracle Optimized Solution. This analysis considers the original purchase of the existing SPARC servers to be a sunk cost and thus the only cash flows considered for the existing systems are the ongoing annual costs to keep the servers running. The top part of Figure 10 shows a summary of the annual savings in the replacement scenario. The initial purchase costs are shown as negative because they are expenditures rather than savings. The annual savings shown in years one through five reflect the cost savings achieved by taking the installed base systems out of service after subtracting the related annual costs for the proposed cloud solution. The second part of Figure 10 shows additional soft benefits that can be achieved with the new solution. These include savings from reducing downtime and improving employee productivity due to faster and more highly available systems. The third section shows the combined cash flows from the TCO savings and these additional soft benefits. These combined cash flow savings are used to compute net present value (NPV) for the proposed solution using a discount rate of 10 percent. The NPV shows that the upgrade can provide more than $10 million in value to the organization.


The annual cash flows for the proposed enterprise cloud solution add up to $1,700,808. This total solution cost is used when computing the other financial ratios shown at the bottom of the figure. ROI, for example, is computing by dividing the total savings and benefits by the total five-year cost of the proposed solution.

Figure 10. Detailed analysis for consolidating from older SPARC servers to Oracle Optimized Solution.


Appendix B

Leading Performance Benchmarks

The following websites provide further information and validation of benchmarks presented in this paper: » http://www.oracle.com/benchmarks » http://blogs.oracle.com/bestperf


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Copyright © 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is provided for information purposes only, and the contents hereof are subject to change without notice. This document is not warranted to be error-free, nor subject to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally or implied in law, including implied warranties and conditions of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. We specifically disclaim any liability with respect to this document, and no contractual obligations are formed either directly or indirectly by this document. This document may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without our prior written permission. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Intel and Intel Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. AMD, Opteron, the AMD logo, and the AMD Opteron logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.0115 Reduce Complexity and Accelerate Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure Deployments May 2015 Author: Kris Bakke