Pods, Clouds, Scapes, and Labs

By Datalink
8/18/2011

Thanks to the relentless teamwork of our engineering, product, marketing and practice groups, Datalink labs feature examples of two distinct virtual data center (VDC) unified reference architectures. We think that makes us a more selective lab-enabled company than one that has no VDCs/private clouds in their labs.[1]

Kent writes over here about the nature and subtle differences of the two architectures. Our Santa Clara lab hosts a V-Scape™ featuring:

  • Cisco UCS C-Series and Dell rack servers
  • VMware vSphere 4.1 with NetApp Virtual Storage Console (VSC) management
  • Cisco Nexus 10GbE networking
  • NetApp, Hitachi Data Systems and EMC storage

The Minneapolis lab hosts an example of the FlexPod architecture with:

  • Cisco UCS B-Series blade servers (with UCS Manager for blade management)
  • vSphere 4.1 with NetApp VSC management
  • NetApp storage (wouldn't be FlexPod without it...)
  • Cisco Nexus 10GbE and 1000V (virtual switch) networking.

Expect both VDC environments to be strutting the runway and hosting demos at Datalink’s VMWorld 2011 booth #754 in a few weeks. The lab rumor mill says there may even be a V-Scape instance running a VMware vSphere 5 beta thanks to the secret toiling of a mysterious lab advocate known only by the code name Honey Badger.

Let's be careful out there. Request a demo in Datalink labs today!

[1] Yes, this sentence does not make sense… but if you’re the first non-robot to submit a comment to this post with the name of the movie this quote is (sort of) pilfered from, you’ll win a $50 Amazon gift card-email-thing and my appreciation of your taste in film (unless you Google to find the answer… which would be cheating, cheater).