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Alteon Virtual Appliance (VA) version 29 and

Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS)

Implementation Guide

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Table of Content Solution Overview ................................................................................................................................ 3

Cisco’s Unified Computing System Overview ..................................................................................... 3

Radware’s Alteon Virtual Appliance Overview .................................................................................... 4

Design Overview ................................................................................................................................. 4

Diagram 1.0 – Cisco’s UCS and Radware’s Alteon VA Physical Topology System Requirements ... 4

Alteon VA VM Requirements ........................................................................................................... 4

Environmental Requirements .......................................................................................................... 5

Tests Conducted for Solution Validation ............................................................................................. 5

Radware’s Virtual Appliance Configuration ......................................................................................... 7

Preparing the UCS ecosystem for the Alteon VA OVA installation ................................................. 7

Initial Configuration of the Management Interface ........................................................................ 11

Connecting to the VA .................................................................................................................... 11

Logging into the VA ....................................................................................................................... 12

Detailed Configuration Overview ................................................................................................... 12

Validating the Configuration and Service Status ........................................................................... 13

Appendix 1 – Alteon VA Configuration ............................................................................................. 14

Technical Support.............................................................................................................................. 15

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Solution Overview Radware’s Virtual Application Delivery Infrastructure (VADI) and Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) ensure customers a resilient, efficient and scalable solution catering to all forms of data center and cloud solutions. Radware’s Alteon Application Delivery Controller (ADC) guarantees the maximum availability, scalability and performance of applications and services running on Cisco UCS, while accelerating end to end traffic for a mobilized workforce towards globalized applications.

Radware’s Alteon ADC is offered in three form factors, all delivering identical feature set and configuration, including a dedicated hardware ADC, virtualized ADC (via ADC-VX™ ADC virtualization technology) or a software ADC, called Alteon Virtual Appliance (VA). The rest of this paper mainly refers to the integration of Alteon VA into Cisco UCS platforms.

Radware’s Alteon ADC integrated application acceleration features are designed to accelerate application response time and ensure best application SLA while offloading server processing. With the ability to intelligently align user agents and content, traffic is optimized for all users, addressing the critical need of a mobile workforce. By offloading processor intensive operations, such as SSL and/or TCP overhead, Alteon ADC frees the servers’ resources to expedite requests, which results in reduced server CPU utilization, lower latency and lowering CAPEX. Moreover, the bandwidth management service aligns the utilization of network resources with business objectives to guarantee SLA.

By embracing Radware’s “Pay-as-you-Grow” approach, customers only pay for the exact capacity currently required and prevent over-spending on the initial solution. Throughput capacity, acceleration capabilities, application-aware services and the number of ADC instances can be added on demand to meet new business requirements.

For additional information, please visit: http://www.radware.com/products/applicationdelivery/alteonva.aspx

Cisco’s Unified Computing System Overview

When rapidly changing business demands require fast response, turn to the Cisco Unified

Computing System (UCS). The industry's first converged data center platform, the Cisco UCS

delivers smart, programmable infrastructure that simplifies and speeds enterprise-class

application and service deployment in

bare-metal, virtualized and cloud-computing environments.

Unified, model-based management, end-to-end provisioning, and migration support come

together in this next-generation data center platform to accelerate and simplify application

deployment with greater reliability and security.

The Cisco Unified Computing System:

Integrates Cisco servers, and network and I/O resources into one system

Improves enterprise application availability and performance

Scales service delivery to increase business agility

Streamlines data center resources to reduce total cost of ownership

Radically reduces the number of devices requiring setup, management, power, cooling,

and cabling

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For more information, please visit: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10265/benefits.html

Radware’s Alteon Virtual Appliance Overview

Radware’s Alteon Virtual Appliance (VA™) is a fully-functional ADC solution packaged as a virtual appliance running on server virtualization infrastructure. It provides identical functionality to Alteon physical ADC devices including local and global server load balancing, Layer 7 capabilities and application acceleration.

Design Overview

This design is meant to simplify the repeatable deployment model for applications leveraging the UCS for networking, computing and storage functions. Leveraging the ADC as a built in networking component, the application can maintain a more consistent configuration between deployments, improving time and accuracy, minimizing the impact from a physical to virtual migration.

The ADC controls a globally routable virtual IP (VIP). This VIP is used to manage a single or multiple applications that may reside within the UCS framework. Health monitoring processes of the ADC dynamically determine the state of each service to optimize the resource selection per request according to availability, load and configurable policy. When the ideal resource is selected the ADC forwards the incoming request and retains persistency information according to where the specific session was sent. This persistent forwarding decision is retained throughout the life of a users dialog.

In this design, we use standard web applications to help evaluate the many tests conducted during validation.

Diagram 1.0 – Cisco’s UCS and Radware’s Alteon VA Physical Topology

System Requirements

Alteon VA VM Requirements

• Hypervisor Support

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– VMware ESX 5.0 or above

– Addition Hypervisors are supported if applicable

• Virtual Machine Requirements

– CPU: 2 vCPUs

– Memory : 2GB

– Logical Disk: 3GB

– Network: 3 virtual interfaces (Management, Clients, Servers)

Environmental Requirements

• 2 - Virtual Machine running web service/application

– Part of the IP subnet associated with Alteon Data port/interface

• Client or Browser capable of reaching the Alteon Virtual IP routed via the Client

interface.

Tests Conducted for Solution Validation

The following tests were conducted to ensure the most appropriate solution was defined and validated. All tests were successfully completed using the Radware Alteon VA, UCS and Server configurations following Table 1.0.

Test Case

Action Expected Result Actual Result

Status

Verify that Alteon is reachable via console and/or SSH

- Using the vSphere console ensure that CLI connectivity is available for initial configuration and on-going alerts

Login and general information summary should appear

Radware Alteon login page and general info is visible

Pass

Test Alteon Web-based manageme nt (BBI)

- Via the Jump Host,

using IP connectivity

across a routed network

login via WBM (BBI)

Radware Alteon VA login and web interface should appear

Radware Alteon VA

Home Page is

displayed

Pass

TCP Health Checking the status of various application servers

- Via the group health

monitoring definition

ensure that real servers are actively responding to the TCP port check defined

When stopping the web service on a real server, the

TCP port check

should fail

Real server became unavailable when web service was stopped

Pass

HTTP Health

Checking

the status

of various

application

servers

- Via the group health

monitoring definition

ensure that real servers are actively responding to the HTTP check defined

When deleting the index web service page on a real server, the HTTP port check should fail

Real server became unavailable when web service index page was removed

Pass

Load Balancing Real World Traffic Mix

- Send numerous session

requests towards the

virtual IP

Sessions should be equally distributed across web servers

Sessions were

equally balanced

Pass

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Load Balancing HTTP requests while maintaining persistency based on source IP

- Set virtual service persistency method to Client IP

- Send numerous session

requests towards the

virtual IP

Sessions should be

persisted according to SRC

IP regardless of

real server load

Sessions were

persisted

according to IP

Pass

Alteon ADC achieves client persistency (stickiness) based on cookie insertion

- Set virtual service

persistency method to

Cookie

- Send numerous session

requests towards the virtual IP

Sessions should be

persisted

according to cookie

regardless of real

server load

Sessions were

persisted

according to cookie

Pass

Alteon ADC

load

balances

- Set virtual service persistency method disable (SRC IP + SRC Port)

Sessions should be

persisted according to SRC

Sessions were

distributed evenly

across real servers

Pass

two web

servers in

cyclic mode

- Send numerous session

requests towards the

virtual IP

IP and port while

cyclically sending

new requests per server

Alteon ADC load balances two web servers in weighted mode

- Set virtual service persistency method disable (SRC IP + SRC Port)

- Set weight to 5 on real

server 1

- Send numerous session

requests towards the

virtual IP

Every 5 sessions should be sent to server 1 in respect to 1 session per server 2

Sessions were distributed according to weight across real servers

Pass

Alteon ADC load balances two web servers in least amount of connections mode

- Set group dispatch

method to “LeastConnections”

- Send numerous session requests towards the virtual IP

The real server holding the fewest number of connections should take new requests

Sessions were distributed according to the least loaded server

Pass

Verify Alteon’s ability to failover traffic with no service interruption while migrating VMs for real servers

- Migrate a real server IP to

a new virtual

machine without

touching ADC config

- Send numerous session

requests towards the

virtual IP

The health monitoring will identify the availability of the real server IP according to the new host and immediately use it for traffic distribution

without disruption to

existing

sessions

Sessions were retained while real servers were migrating to new underlying hosts, completely transparent to the virtual service or client

Pass

Table 1.0 - Test Conducted for Solution Validation

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Radware’s Virtual Appliance Configuration

Preparing the UCS ecosystem for the Alteon VA OVA installation

Using a jump host, running vSphere Client, connect to the UCS blade server.

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Click on File, in the upper left corner, and select “deploy from OVF template”.

Browse to the Alteon VA OVA File, in this case saved on the jump servers desktop, and select.

Then select Next on the navigation pane.

After reviewing the “Alteon VA template details” (information only), select Next.

Review the “license agreement”, Accept, and select Next.

Now, you will be asked to identify the specific “Host” for the VA. In the example, there is a location folder named “Radware” where 10.0.101.37 is the specific host used for our OVA instantiation. The OVA can be named anything to help in administration of the VA. Once the “Host” is identified, select Next, in the navigation pane.

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Accept defaults for “Disk Format” and select Next.

Next you will be asked to align Alteon VA interfaces with VNIC interfaces assigned to the Host. Note: Three interfaces are currently used during instantiation. Later, during Alteon VA configuration, it becomes the choice of network administration and layout which of the three interfaces will be used in production.

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Finally, you are asked to verify the “Ready to Complete” summary and select

Finish for installation to begin.

Moving to the Alteon VA entry now available in vSphere, you can now select the VA “AlteonVA_CiscoUCS” and Power On the VM.

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To watch the installation execute, now move to the “Console” tab.

Initial Configuration of the Management Interface

Using the vSphere “console” tab, connect to the Radware Alteon Virtual Appliance.

Use the /cfg/sys/mmgmt menu to configure the management IP address

10.0.107.10, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, and default gateway 10.0.107.1.

/c/sys/mmgmt dhcp disabled addr 10.0.107.10 mask 255.255.255.0 broad 10.0.107.255 gw 10.0.107.1 ena Enable access to the Radware Alteon VA for Telnet, SSH and HTTP.

/cfg/sys/access/http/ena /cfg/sys/access/tnet/ena /cfg/sys/access/sshd/on/ena apply save

Connecting to the VA

You can accomplish initial switch configuration and management in a number of ways. An Application Switch offers a console connection, Telnet session, SSH and Web Browser connection

for initial configuration.

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Logging into the VA

The user and password is (Default “admin”) for both.

Detailed Configuration Overview

Note: The configuration reviewed below defines session based persistency. Please see Appendix 1 for complete configuration.

The goal of the following section is to move data port 1 to VLAN 107, aligning to the UCS physical

NIC and logic VLAN assignment for our ecosystem.

/c/port 1 pvid 107

/c/l2/vlan 107 ena name "VLAN 107" learn ena def 1

/c/l2/stg 1/clear /c/l2/stg 1/add 1 2 107 /c/l2/stg 1/port 1/off /c/l2/stg 1/port 2/off /c/l3/if 1 ena

ipver v4 addr 10.0.107.65 mask 255.255.255.0 broad 10.0.107.255 vlan 107

/c/l3/gw 1 ena ipver v4 addr 10.0.107.1

/c/slb on

/c/slb/adv direct ena

/c/slb/real 1 ena ipver v4 rip 10.0.107.200

/c/slb/real 2 ena ipver v4

Assign VLAN 107 to Data port 1

Assign Data port 1 to VLAN 107

Remove STP from the single leg def.

Assign Data Network IP and VLAN association.

Assign Data Network default gateway.

Turn on “Server Load Balancing”.

Add Real Server 1 to the config.

Add Real Server 2 to the config.

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rip 10.0.107.201 /c/slb/group 1

ipver v4 health http add 1 add 2

/c/slb/port 1 client ena server ena

/c/slb/virt 1 ena ipver v4 vip 10.0.107.70

/c/slb/virt 1/service 80 http group 1 rport 80

Add Group 1 and associated Real Servers to be load balanced.

Identify the port where the ADC will process client and server traffic.

Add the Virtual IP address that will globally represent the service/group.

Add a HTTP service to the Virtual IP and associate the appropriate group.

Validating the Configuration and Service Status

Using the CLI of the Alteon VA, execute the following informational command to see the state of the service, group and real servers at a glance:

/info/slb/virt 1

Note: If the real servers are not actively responding to the HTTP health check configured, the service will not be active or ready to receive traffic on the Virtual IP. In the example above, the servers are active and ready for traffic. The service can be accessed via any web client via IP 10.0.107.70. With traffic running from clients towards the Virtual IP of 10.0.107.70, we now begin to see sessions distributed across the two available servers.

/info/slb/sess/dump

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Appendix 1 – Alteon VA Configuration

script start "Alteon Application Switch VA" 4 /**** DO NOT EDIT THIS LINE! /* Configuration dump taken 18:03:35 Tue Dec 11, 2012

/* Configuration last applied at 18:06:51 Wed Dec 5, 2012

/* Configuration last save at 17:57:24 Wed Dec 5, 2012

/* Version 29.0.0, Mgmt MAC address 00:50:56:8c:2e:56

/c/sys/mmgmt

dhcp disabled addr

10.0.107.10

mask 255.255.255.0

broad 10.0.107.255 gw

10.0.107.1

ena

/c/sys/access

http ena

/c/port 1

pvid 107

/c/l2/vlan 1

dis

learn ena

def 0

/c/l2/vlan 2

dis

learn ena

def 2

/c/l2/vlan 107

ena

name "VLAN 107"

learn ena

def 1

/c/l2/stg 1/clear

/c/l2/stg 1/add 1 2 107

/c/l2/stg 1/port 1/off

/c/l2/stg 1/port 2/off

/c/l3/if 1 ena ipver v4

addr 10.0.107.65

mask 255.255.255.0

broad 10.0.107.255

vlan 107

/c/l3/gw 1

ena ipver

v4

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addr 10.0.107.1 /c/slb

on

/c/slb/adv

direct ena

/c/slb/real 1 ena ipver v4

rip 10.0.107.200

/c/slb/real 2 ena ipver v4

rip 10.0.107.201

/c/slb/group 1 ipver v4 health http add 1 add 2

/c/slb/port 1 client

ena

server ena

/c/slb/virt 1 ena ipver v4

vip 10.0.107.70

/c/slb/virt 1/service 80 http

group 1

rport 80

/ script end /**** DO NOT EDIT THIS LINE!

Technical Support

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http://www.radware.com/content/support/supportprogram/default.asp.

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