Frequently Asked Questions for HP EVI and MDC

Frequently Asked Questions for HP EVI and MDC Q. What are we announcing at VMworld? A. HP will be expanding Virtual Application Networks with new FlexFabric innovations that simplify the interconnection of geographically dispersed data centers and enable multi-tenancy. Q. What are the new innovations being announced by HP? A. HP is announcing two ground breaking technologies for data centers Ethernet Virtual Interconnect, or EVI and Multitenant Device Context, or MDC Ethernet Virtual Interconnect Q. What is HP Ethernet Virtual Interconnect? A. HP Ethernet Virtual Interconnect (EVI) is a new innovative technology for connecting geographically dispersed data centers over IP infrastructures Q. Which HP networking platforms are supported by EVI? A. HP EVI will be supported initially on the HP 12500 Series Switches Q. Does the HP 12500 support the other HP DCI solutions? A. Yes. The HP 12500 Series Switches are a family of flexible and versatile data center core switches that supports HP Data Center Interconnect (DCI) solutions including MPLS/VPLS and the new Ethernet Virtual Interconnect (EVI) Q. Which physical media is required to run EVI and over what distances? A. HP EVI is supported over standard Ethernet interface and is only limited by the span of the IP network DC 1 DC 3 DC 5 DC 7 Layer 2 Routing Extension DC 2 DC 4 DC 6 DC 8 One logical Data Center Q. Is HP EVI the same as Data Center Interconnect? A. EVI is the latest addition to HP s Data Center Interconnect (DCI) solution. HP EVI is a form of DCI solution that runs over IP infrastructure Q. What are other forms of DCI solutions supported by HP Networking products? A. HP EVI is a new addition to the DCI solutions supported by HP networking. In addition to EVI, HP networking supports the transport agnostic solution, Data Center Interconnect (DCI) and MPLS/VPLS

Q. What are the benefits of EVI vs. other DCI solutions? A. HP EVI delivers simplified connectivity across multiple data centers with single touch deployment to enable all the computer resources in multiple data centers to be linked within minutes rather than months, enabling multiple dispersed data centers to look like one logical data center for resource optimization. Connecting new data centers to an existing EVI deployment only requires five commands/steps at the new site, further reducing complexity over legacy solutions. EVI automatically synchronizes the new data center with all other sites. Q. How many data centers one can support with EVI? A. Customers can interconnect up to eight data centers with HP EVI Q. How many data centers one can support with Cisco s Overlay Transport Virtualization (OTV)? A. Customers can interconnect a maximum of six data centers with OTV Q. How many VLANs does EVI support? A. HP EVI supports up to 4K VLANs Q. How many EVI network can be supported concurrently? A. While HP EVI supports up to 32 EVI networks, each network can be designated to different sites or VLANs or applications. Q. Does EVI require dedicated infrastructure or special transport? A. HP EVI is an overlay technology that works over any existing network transport such as Internet, Private IP network or MPLS and avoids a network redesign. EVI also does not require dedicated transports such as DWDM, or any customization such as multicast Q. What is the difference between EVI and OTV in the way they relate to multicast? A. HP EVI does not require nor rely on multicast to operate. On the other hand, Cisco s DTV relies on multicast by default. Starting with the most recent network OS upgrade, OTV adjacency server feature was added to allow OTV to work with IP cores that do not support multicast. Q. Does EVI require MPLS as part of data centers infrastructure? A. HP EVI runs over IP and does not require MPLS as part of the data center infrastructure. Q. Is EVI an open industry standard? A. HP is in the process of proposing EVI as an open industry standard to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) before the end of the 3rd quarter of 2012. Q. What is the technology used in HP EVI? A. HP EVI is a MAC Routing technology that extends Ethernet Layer 2 domains Q. Does HP EVI require Tree Spanning Protocol (STP)? A. HP EVI does not utilize STP, which is an advantage of EVI as it avoids the development of loops across the datacenters Q. Does HP EVI utilize active/active configurations between data centers? A. Yes. Unlike competing solutions, HP EVI uses active/active redundancy configurations that enhances data centers availability and reliability 2

Q. Does HP EVI require multicast to operate? A. HP EVI does not rely on, or requires multicast for operation. Q. Does HP EVI supports multicast and broadcast traffic? A. Yes. Q. Does setting up HP EVI require a lot of effort? A. Setting up HP EVI is simple; it only requires five simple commands to set up a data center. Q. Will EVI require new hardware, or will this be a software upgrade? A. HP EVI is a software upgrade that does not require hardware upgrade Q. Do you need to connect HP 12500 switches on the internet facing edge of data centers to run EVI? A. Yes. EVI works between HP 12500 switches only. Q. What are the use-cases for EVI? A. HP EVI delivers unmatched customer benefits for customers in the areas of long distance workload mobility and long distance disaster recovery, or business continuance. Q. What benefits does EVI bring to workload migration in data centers? A. HP EVI delivers unprecedented vmotion migration time reductions by up to 80% and faster vmotion recovery times that are up to 5 times faster than physical platforms HP EVI Unmatched in the market DCI Feature Brocade Juniper Cisco HP Layer 2 Routing Extension No No Yes OTV Yes EVI Layer 2 Routing Extension Scaling N/A N/A 512 VLANS 6 Data centers 4K VLANS 8 Data centers Layer 2 Routing Extension with Multitenancy No No No Multiple MPLS/VPLS-based & Layer 2 DCI on one switch No No No YES EVI & MDC YES 12500 3

HP EVI Advantages vs. Cisco OTV DCI Feature VPLS Cisco OTV HP EVI End-to-End Loop-free without STP Failure Domain Isolation Multi-pathing and Load-balancing Independent of Infrastructure MPLS required Multicast required by default Multi-DC Interconnectivity Up to 6 Up to 8 Active/Active Physical Redundancy Large Number of VLANs 512 4K Number of Network Instances 10 per Nexus 7000 32 per MDC Q. How does EVI work with other overlay technologies such as VxLAN? A. EVI and VxLAN, as well as other overlay virtualization technologies, are complementary. EVI is primarily suited for establishing connections between data centers (Inter data center), whereas VxLAN is more suited for Intra data center communications. HP has plans to support VxLAN and other overlay technologies for intra data center communications to complement its current offerings. Q. Which software release will support EVI? A. HP EVI will be available on the Comware V7 release for the HP 12500 switch series Q. When will the release be available? A. HP EVI is targeted for availability in Dec 2012 Q. When will IMC be supported on EVI? A. HP IMC support for EVI is targeted for availability in second half of 2013 Q. How does HP EVI relate to technologies from Nicira that was recently acquired by VMware? A. HP EVI and Nicira solution are complementary. The Nicira solution is aimed at deployments within data centers; while HP EVI targets inter-data centers deployments that interconnect geographically dispersed data centers. 4

Multitenant Device Context Q. What is HP Multitenant Device Context? A. HP Multitenant Device Context (MDC) is a new innovative technology that enables multi-tenancy for enterprise data center network platforms. In other words, it gives customers the ability to virtualize one physical switch into up to four logical switches, with each logical device having its own tenants Q. Which HP networking platforms are supported by MDC? A. HP MDC is initially supported on the HP 12500 Series Switches Q. What impact will MDC have on my platform scalability? A. HP MDC technology virtualizes and slices the network platform which allows for more control and better utilization of the physical hardware resources Q. How many tenants (MDC) can be supported on one switching platform? A. HP MDC supports up to four tenants per physical platform Q. How many tenants (MDC) can be supported on HP 12500 platform? A. HP 12500 platform can support up to 4 MDCs. In order to support MDC, 12500 MPUs need 4GB of memory. Line cards with 1GB of memory can support two MDCs Finance R & d Marketing Legal Q. Can multi-tenants utilize separate EVIs? A. Yes. Each MDC can use its own EVI function. In other words, HP EVI can run independently on each of the MDCs. Each MDC can support up to 32 EVI networks and 4K VLANs Q. Can we combine MDC & EVI? A. Yes. HP EVI and MDC provide cumulative value when working together. Each MDC can initiate its own EVI. Q. How does EVI s support for network instances on the HP 12500 compares to that of Cisco s OTV and Nexus 7000? A. HP 12500 can support up to 128 network instances with four MDC installed. On the other hand, Cisco s OTV supports only ten (10) network instances per Nexus 7000, which is less than 8% of the network instances supported by EVI on the HP 12500 Q. Does MDC deployment require changes in data center configurations? A. HP MDC does not require changes in existing data center configurations 5

Q. Why should one use MDC instead of just adding physical platforms? A. HP MDC delivers several benefits to customers Reduced number of physical platforms by up to 75% leading to CapEx and OpEx reductions Increased resiliency with complete isolation of tenants Simplified management and operations Secure operating environment for all tenants Q. What are the benefits of using MDC versus separation through VLANs or other means? A. HP MDC provides complete and secure separation of logical switches between the multiple tenants residing on the same physical switching platform. With MDC, there is complete separation of control planes, data planes and forwarding capabilities of logical tenants. In addition to that, each tenant can take advantage of its own up to 4k VLANs, its own IRF configurations and its own EVI networks. Q. Can IRF be used in conjunction with MDC? A. Yes, IRF can be used to link MDCs across physical chassis to provide resiliency with a single unified control plane for simplified management. Currently, on the 12500, up to 2 MDCs can be part of an IRF domain, with up to 4 instances of IRF on each chassis (one per MDC). Q. Is the number of supported MDCs, currently 4, a fixed number or can it be higher in the future? A. We currently support 4 MDC(s), we are investing the support for more MDC(s) in the future. Q. Will MDC require new hardware or this will be a software upgrade? A. HP MDC is a software upgrade that only requires MPU memory upgrade to 4GB. Q. Which software release will support MDC? A. HP MDC will be available on the Comware V7 release of HP 12500 Q. When is the release available? A. HP MDC is targeted for availability in Dec 2012 6

EVI and MDC solution Q. Are there any TCO advantages of EVI & MDC over Cisco VDC & OTV. A. HP EVI and MDC solution offers customers lower cost of ownership in the areas of cost of acquisition and licensing. Our research has show a 56% lower cost of the HO solution as opposed to comparable Cisco one HP EVI TCO vs. Cisco OTV $ 140,000 $ 120,000 $ 100,000 $ 80,000 HP Lowers CAPEX by 56% or Cisco CAPEX is 127% than HP $ 80,000 Licenses Enterprises VDC OTV Licensing $ 60,000 $ 40,000 $ 20,000 $ 0 $ 58,610 12503 chassis 4xFabric 1xMPU 2xPSU 1XGbE Module $ 88,000 7010 Chassis 2xFabric 1 1xSup 1xPSU 1xGbe Module HP 12500 Cisco Nexus 7000 Base System Q. Can you divide the chassis in a flexible way with MDC? Or do we need new line cards? Do we need to group specific interfaces (as with Cisco)? A. We can divide the MDC by line card or by port groups, older line cards with 512MB of memory will support 1 MDC, newer line card with 1GB of memory can support 2 MDCs. Q. EVI and MDC will be supported in Comwarev7, so will 5900 and 5920 support EVI and MDC? A. We currently don t have plan to support EVI and MDC on the 5900 series of switches, but are investigating the potential for supporting MDC on the other platforms Q. Are there any implications of 12500 as both core switch as well as EVI machine (do you need an MDC between two datacenters)? A. HP EVI can be enabled on the aggregation switch as an option, which is a significant differentiator over the competitive offerings Q. Where does SDN fit into the EVI & MDC announcement? A, HP EVI and MDC deliver elements of Virtual Application Networks which is our Software-defined networking strategy 7

Use Cases of HP EVI and MDC HP EVI and MDC work together offering customers potent solutions for virtualized data centers and private clouds. With both technologies customers can deploy robust long-distance data and workload mobility along with disaster recovery solutions that ensure business resilience and continuity. HP EVI gives customers the ability to configure data centers for long distance connectivity and cloud support in minutes. EVI Use Cases for Virtualized Data Center Long-distance Workload Mobility Long-distance Data Mobility Disaster Recovery Business Continuity VM VM Hypervisor Virtualized Data Center 1 Ethernet Extension Any Transport Hypervisor Virtualized Data Center 2 Deploy over Existing Network No Redesign Required Five Configuration Steps per Site Automatic Fault Isolation EVI & MDC Use Cases for Private Cloud Data Center Cloud Bursting Long-distance Workload & Data Mobility Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity VM Hypervisor VM VM VM VM Hypervisor Ethernet Extension Private Cloud 1 Any Transport Private Cloud 2 75% Reduction of Devices Lowers Cost DCI in minutes from months 80% faster vmotion w/irf* 500X faster vmotion failover w/irf* Get connected hp.com/go/getconnected Get the insider view on tech trends, support alerts, and HP solutions. Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Trademark acknowledgments, if needed. 4AA0-xxxxENW, Created August 2012