Brocade Communications Systems SERVERIRON ADX 1000 Operating and installation instructions

FAQ

BROCADE SERVERIRON

ADX 1000, 4000, & 10000 SERIES

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Overview

Brocade®ServerIron®intelligent application delivery and traffic management solutions have

led the industry for over a decade, helping to mitigate costs and prevent losses by optimizing

business-critical enterprise and service provider applications with high availability, security,

multisite redundancy, acceleration, and scalability—in more than 3000 of the world’s most

demanding organizations.

The latest generation of ServerIron Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs) was designed to

meet growing demand for application connectivity, virtualization, and operating efficiency.

These new solutions include:

•ServerIron ADX 1000 Series Switches

•ServerIron ADX 4000 Series Switches

•ServerIron ADX 10000 Series Switches

General Questions and Answers

QWhat are the Brocade ServerIron ADX 1000, 4000, and 10000 products?

QA flagship platform for application-enabled networking, the ServerIron ADX 1000, 4000,

and 10000 represent a new class of data center-hardened Layer 4-7 Application Delivery

Controller for application performance monitoring, acceleration, and optimization in both

physical and virtual server environments. These products improve the user application

experience and offload servers to ensure higher availability and security at extreme data

rates, while lowering Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). They provide breakthrough

performance, a highly robust services platform, built-in extensibility, and seamless

interoperability across fabrics and networking protocols, stanchly supporting the most

mission-critical business applications.

The ServerIron ADX brings capacity on demand with both modular and fixed-

configuration platforms and enables growth in performance, interface density and

feature flexibility with growth in the business. With over 70 Gbps of Layer 4 and Layer 7

throughput, ADX leads the way in overall performance and price-performance, defending

application servers against up to 120 million Denial of Service attacks per second and

combating transaction revenue losses and security breaches with SSL performance

approaching 230,000 transactions per second. The ServerIron ADX ensures the greatest

application fluency and optimization with validated designs, completely customizable

application handling, backed up with an online community to engender collaborative

application delivery solutions.

The ServerIron ADX product family includes:

•Brocade ServerIron ADX 1000: This 1U ADC can be ordered in numerous

configurations ranging from the entry-level ADX 1008-1 with eight 10/100/1000

BASE–T ports, one application processor, and one AC or DC power supply, all the way

up to the ADX 1216-4, with 16 10/100/1000 BASE–T ports, two 10 GbE XFP ports,

four application processors, as well as SSL acceleration hardware, and GSLB (Global

Server Load Balancing), Layer 3 and IPv6 software.

•Brocade ServerIron ADX 4000: A 4U chassis configuration with one switch fabric

module, one AC or DC power supply, and one fan module. It can be configured with

one management module with a dual-core processor, up to two application switching

modules (each with four dual-core processors), one switch fabric module, either two

4-port 10 GbE XFP line cards, two 12-port GbE RJ45 line cards, two 12-port GbE SFP

line cards, or a combination of two of those three options, and up to two AC or DC

power supplies.

•ServerIron ADX 10000: A 10U chassis configuration with two switch fabric modules,

two AC or DC power supplies, and one dual-fan module. It can be configured with up

to two management modules (each with dual-core processors), up to four application

switching modules (each with four dual-core processors), either four 4-port 10 GbE

XFP line cards, four 12-port GbE RJ45 line cards, four 12-port GbE SFP line cards, or

any combination of up to four modules consisting of those three options, and up to

four AC or DC power supplies.

QWhat is ServerIron ADX 1008-1?

ATo enrich the ADX product line with an innovative entry-level offering, the ADX 1000 1U

fixed configuration platform was enhanced with a license based capacity on demand

system. The ADX 1000 can be ordered in the traditional factory-licensed configurations

ranging from the new, value-priced entry-level ADX 1008-1 with 8 10/100/1000 BASE–T

ports, one application processor, and one AC or DC power supply, all the way up to the

ADX 1216-4, with 16 10/100/1000 BASE–T ports, two 10 GbE XFP ports, four

application processors, as well as SSL acceleration hardware, GSLB (Global Server Load

Balancing), Layer 3 and IPv6 software.

However, in addition to these traditionally ordered factory configurations, any ADX 1000,

beginning with the new ADX 1008-1, can now be upgraded to any higher configuration

through instant software-based license activation pay-as-you-grow options, without

removing the switches from service—another example of the many ways Brocade

continues to deliver superior customer choice and investment protection.

QWhat is ADX release 12.2?

ABrocade continues to innovate with new features and functionality for Enterprise and

Service Provider networks in its application delivery product line. The 12.2 release

includes IPv6 gateway functionality (v6 to v4 and v6 to v4+v6), IPv6 Syn-Proxy capability,

extends L7 CSW scripting to non-HTTP protocols such as FIX protocol, enhances

Transparent Cache Switching (TCS), adds response time based load balancing algorithm,

and the Web GUI management additions such as simplified code upgrade and generic

HTTP template, along with numerous new features, tested or certified interoperable with

2 of 14

the leading technology partners and enterprise business applications and significantly

extending the range of solutions this powerful platform can provide.

QWhat is Application Resource Broker?

AWorking in tandem with ServerIron ADX, Brocade Application Resource Broker (ARB), is

an infrastructure software component used by IT operations staff who seek simplified,

on-demand application resource provisioning and de-provisioning within their data

centers. ARB assures adherence to application Service Level Agreements by dynamically

adding and removing application resources (VM’s) based on real-time monitoring of

infrastructure capacity and responsiveness.

QWhat is the business case for this product?

AIn tandem with ServerIron ADX, ARB delivers the key enabling technology to provide on-

demand services within a shared-infrastructure data center—commonly referred to as an

enterprise cloud. Brocade is enabling business-oriented and SLA-assured application

delivery with dynamically provisioned application infrastructure resources to

accommodate variable traffic loading for current and high-growth services. This

technology can reduce or eliminate the inefficiencies and high cost of provisioning for

peak load across thousands of applications, while ensuring resiliency in the delivery of

those services, and avoiding missed SLAs due to under-provisioning. Typical savings

include reduced intervention costs when remediating estimation errors and application

SLA issues, reduced power, cooling, space to service existing traffic demands and more

efficient infrastructure that can absorb the delivery of new business processes or

increased traffic without incurring additional capital expense.

QWhat is the key or distinguishing feature of Application Resource Broker?

AAs an extension to Brocade ServerIron ADX application delivery controllers, Application

Resource Broker can dynamically add and remove application resources when needed,

based on application traffic demands. This is achieved through real-time correlation of

application performance from the network and infrastructure capacity information from

server infrastructures like VMware. The Resource Broker leverages ADX’ unique position

in the network to provide real-time monitoring of application loading that drives

immediate, intelligent, and impactful response to changing application traffic demands.

This ultimately assures highly reliable service levels between end users and application

infrastructure without incurring the high cost of over-provisioning. The unique

combination of ServerIron ADX with Application Resource Broker associates the various

application components to their respective virtualized resources, enabling true

application-level visibility for IT operations. It is this pairing of application-centric visibility

with automated, on-demand provisioning that enables an on-demand virtualized IT

infrastructure.

QDoes Application Resource Broker support VMware vSphere 4.0

AYes, Application Resource Broker supports vSphere/ESX 4.0

QWill Application Resource Broker support other virtualization and orchestration

environments?

AYes. As a proponent of standards-based compatibility and interoperability with the

widest range of virtualization and orchestration vendors, and to ensure customer choice

and flexibility, it is our intention to support other orchestration tools in the future

3 of 14

QWhen do these products become generally available?

AThe ADX series became generally available on July 1, 2009 through Brocade Distributors

and Resellers. The ADX release 12.2, the ADX 1008-1, ADX capacity-on-demand

upgrade activation, and the Application Resource Broker will be generally available at the

beginning of the second half of 2010.

Marketplace

QWhy is Brocade in the application delivery controller market and how does ADX fit into

the overall Brocade strategy?

AFor the past decade, Brocade has brought technology leadership to Layer 4-7 switching

with more than 3000 high-profile customers. Building on a strategy of growth and

diversification, Brocade has been addressing the problem of growing data center

operational complexity resulting from increased consolidation and virtualization.

As server virtualization and the Enterprise cloud service model becomes commonplace

in production environments while the growth of Web-based applications and mobile

clients continues unabated, application delivery capacity, performance and management

requirements will multiply, particularly in the 10 GbE connectivity segment.

Brocade brings deep experience in the design, deployment, and management of high-

availability, high-reliability data center networks—focusing on the client side of server

farm connectivity and management. Moreover, Brocade can deliver the right solutions to

this rapidly growing market segment based on decades of Local Area Network (LAN) and

Storage Area Network (SAN) experience, as well as a proven history of developing the

most robust products and services.

This rapidly growing segment is an integral component of service provider and enterprise

data center cloud services. As data centers become increasingly virtualized, application

delivery platforms must grow in capacity, performance and intelligence, to optimize

delivery for larger online customer volumes and growing numbers of enterprise

application users—all connecting to ever-increasing numbers of virtualized applications.

With the addition of Application Resource Broker, Brocade demonstrates continuing

focus on application delivery solutions that optimize the end user experience while

ensuring efficient resource usage.

In addition:

•Brocade already provides high-performance and high-availability data storage access;

fabric extensibility and robustness; and streamlined fabric management for the most

demanding business applications. Adding Web client access, security, IPTV, and

Voice over IP (VoIP) application delivery is a natural extension to this business.

•Brocade has been leading the evolution of data centers by delivering highly reliable,

high-performance core data center products and services for over a decade.

•The Brocade vision is aligned with current data center needs, with a singular focus on

securely managing, sharing, and protecting data.

4 of 14

•Key elements of this vision are to simplify data networks and provide a foundation for

critical solutions—such as server virtualization, data mobility, and data protection—

running seamlessly without costly manual intervention or performance bottlenecks.

•Intelligent application delivery plays a crucial role in the success of this end-to-end

vision, and will help Brocade provide high-performance hardware and software

products with proven interoperability.

Technologies

QWhat is unique or advanced about the ServerIron ADX architecture?

QCompared to the many competitive offerings, the ServerIron ADX switches deliver

extremely high application throughput based on an advanced design that features

complete physical and logical separation of the application and management planes. In

fact, the multichip, multicore, application processing plane is designed for the highest

core density and performance upgradability.

This architecture utilizes modular hardware design to accelerate application processing

and to optimize the distribution and flow of internal traffic to a large number of

application cores. The high-speed non-blocking switching fabric uniquely supports

application processing, I/O, and management modules to maximize flexibility. The data

plane provides high-density 10 Gbps support with hardware assist for linear session

distribution across multiple application cores. In addition, the management modules

feature field-upgradable mezzanine cards for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), and other

planned future functions such as compression.

The ServerIron ADX switches are simple to configure and manage using the Brocade

Command Line Interface (CLI) or built-in browser-based interface. The CLI uses well-

known industry-standard syntax for fast error-free configuration. The switches support

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to allow device management using

applications such as HP OpenView and Brocade IronView®Network Manager (INM).

QHow does the ServerIron ADX improve network performance?

QThe ServerIron ADX switches use deep packet inspection and content transformation,

beyond the traditional Layer 2 and 3 packet headers, directing client requests to the

optimal servers. These intelligent Layer 4-7 application switches transparently support

any TCP- or UDP-based applications and provide specialized application acceleration,

server-offload, connection management, and network optimization.

The ServerIron ADX switches also provide a reliable line of defense by securing servers

and applications against many types of intrusion and attack without sacrificing

performance. In addition, they provide efficient traffic distribution among infrastructure

devices such as firewalls, DNS servers and cache servers. The ADX devices also deliver

high performance for higher-layer application switching functions. Intelligent content

switching capabilities include customizable rules based on URL, HOST, cookies and other

HTTP headers, XML, and application content.

5 of 14

QWhat are the key performance advantages of ServerIron ADX switches?

AThe ServerIron ADX architecture provides more application switching performance than

any previous application switch. Performance highlights include:

•Industry-leading performance with up to 14 million Domain Name System (DNS)

queries per second, 1.6 million Layer 4 connections per second, 16 million Layer 4

transactions per second, and up to 230,000 SSL TPS (transactions per second)

•Up to 70 Gbps of Layer 4 and Layer 7 application throughput—twice the throughput of

many competing vendors, making the switches ideal for demanding content delivery

and streaming media applications

•High 10 GbE port density with up to 16 10 Gbps ports in a single chassis

•Industry’s highest core density with up to 32 dedicated application cores for high-

performance application delivery

•Industry leading Denial of Service (DoS) protection, generating up to 120 million SYN

cookies per second with no impact to CPU utilization

•Industry’s only 1U fixed-configuration ADC to offer capacity-on-demand to meet

changing business needs. The ADX 1000 support simple software upgrades for

application processors, hardware accelerators such as SSL, 1Gig and 10Gig

interface ports, and software features to scale up to 9 Gbps of application

throughput, up to 200,000 L4 connections per second, up to 29,000 SSL TPS and

two 10 GbE ports.

•The industry-leading price/performance value per rack unit and per watt of power

with the best cost/transaction and cost/Gbps of throughput

Key Benefits

AServerIron ADX switches feature a unique architecture that supports scalability and

expansion to meet growing application delivey requirements with investment protection.

Key benefits include:

•High performance in a modular design: A choice of models starting with the compact

1U ServerIron ADX 1000 to the highly scalable ServerIron ADX 4000 and 10000

series with 320 Gbps of switching bandwidth

•Capacity on Demand: Scale system performance, activate software features and

1Gig and 10Gig ports as needs growRedundant power supplies: Support for

redundant, hot-swappable power supplies on all models—front-serviceable on the

ServerIron ADX 4000 and 10000

•Hot-swappable modules: Hot-swappable interface modules, fan trays, and power

supplies

•Interchangeable Modules: Module portability between two chassis platforms – ADX

4000 and ADX 10000. The management module, application switch module, switch

fabric module, interface modules and power supplies are completely interchangeable

•Hot-Standby and Active/active High Availability modes: Choice of three different high

availability modes for maximum reliability and service availability

•Upgradable to hardware-assisted SSL acceleration: Optional mezzanine application

expansion module add hardware-based SSL acceleration today, and other

acceleration modules that become available in future

•Reliability: A resilient switching and routing foundation with advanced support for RIP

2, OSPF 2 and 3 (IPv6), VRRP, and VRRP-E

•Flexible, scalable connectivity options: Expansion from 12 to 48 GbE ports in mixed

copper/fiber combinations, or up to 16 10 GbE XFP ports

6 of 14

QHow do ServerIron ADX switches improve ROI?

AThe ServerIron ADX switches simplify server farm management and application upgrades

by enabling organizations to easily add resources and remove them into the pool—

helping to minimize TCO. The switches uniquely provide a single platform that can reduce

network load and extend server farm design and scalability.

They accomplish this by combining a high-performance Layer 4-7 packet processing

architecture with the highest available throughput via 1 GbE and 10 GbE connectivity.

ServerIron ADX switches provide hardware-assisted, standards-based network

monitoring for all application traffic flows—improving manageability and security for

network and server resources. Extensive and customizable service health check

capabilities monitor Layer 2, 3, 4, and 7 connectivity—along with service availability and

server response time—to enable real-time problem detection. If a problem arises, client

requests are automatically redistributed to other servers capable of delivering optimized

service. This approach helps keep applications running smoothly with the maximum

availability.

ServerIron ADX switches also support many high-availability mode options, with real-time

session synchronization between two ServerIron ADX switches available to protect

against session loss during outages. As one device shuts down, the second device

transparently resumes control of client traffic with no loss to existing sessions or

connectivity. Organizations can use advanced synchronization capabilities to simplify the

management of two ServerIron ADX switches deployed in high-availability mode,

minimizing network downtime caused by configuration errors.

The intuitive browser-based GUI is easy to operate and can be used to rapidly deploy

ServerIron ADX switches and reliably set up basic configuration functions such as:

•Real server creation

•Virtual server creation

•Real-to-virtual server binding management

•Virtual/real server and port management

•L4 server load balancing

•L7 server load balancing (CSW)

•SSL key and certificate management and acceleration

•VLAN management and port assignment

•IP address configuration

•Standard Access Control List (ACL)

•Front panel view

•Live charts and statistics for real and virtual servers and ports

•Simplified software image upgrade

•Generic http application template

With intelligent application-aware load balancing and content switching capabilities,

ServerIron ADX switches significantly improve application and server farm performance

7 of 14

while increasing availability, security, scalability, and resource utilization. Key benefits

include:

•Improved infrastructure utilization: ServerIron ADX switches perform highly

customizable real-time health checks, dynamically monitoring the ability of servers to

optimize performance and transparently reacting to server farm congestion by

distributing client traffic loads to the most available servers. Intelligent content

switching maximizes server utilization and performance by eliminating the need to

replicate content and application functions on every server.

•Increased server availability: ServerIron ADX switches can be deployed in multiple

high-availability modes with hitless and stateful session synchronization and failover

to extend availability even through switch failures.

•Robust security: With built-in intelligence, ServerIron ADX switches detect and discard

viruses and worms that spread through application-level messages. The switches

load-balance legitimate application traffic while preventing and defeating attacks.

Through specialized embedded logic, the switches reliably protect against many

forms of DoS and Distributed DoS (DDoS) attacks at industry-leading data rates of up

to 32 million attack packets per second.

•Massive scalability: ServerIron ADX switches provide virtually unlimited scalability to

IP-based applications and server farms in a cost-effective manner. They allow the use

of multiple servers with load balancing and failover, eliminating forklift upgrades to

server farms and disruption to applications.

•Faster ROI: ServerIron ADX switches provide high ROI for application and server

infrastructure in a short timeframe, supporting significantly higher application traffic

and user loads on existing infrastructure by maximizing server resource utilization.

With support for server connection offload, the switches reduce connection

management overhead, freeing up resources for application processing and

improving overall server farm performance and capacity. On-demand and unlimited

virtual server farm scalability eliminates the need for forklift upgrades and

dramatically improves server infrastructure ROI.

Key Product Features

QWhat are the differences between the various model configurations?

AThe ServerIron ADX 1000 series switches come in fixed 1U form factor and can be

ordered in multiple configurations from a single application core in the ADX 1008-1 to up

to four application cores in ADX 1216-4. These can be scaled up through a pay-as-you-

grow expansion model by activating software upgrade licenses. Customers can activate

up to four application cores, two 10GigE ports, up to sixteen 1Gig ports, SSL hardware

acceleration and GSLB, IPv6 and Layer 3 software receiving true investment protection

from the industry’s most flexible, high-performing 1U application delivery platform.

When reconfiguration, scaling, or expansion is required for extra high throughput and

CPS/TPS, the unique chassis design of the 4U ServerIron ADX 4000 and the 10U

ServerIron ADX 10000 provides a dedicated backplane to support application, data, and

management functionality and capacity expansion through specialized modules.

QWhat kinds of modules are available for the ServerIron ADX chassis models?

AThe following model-interchangeable Field Replaceable Units (FRUs) are available for

ServerIron ADX 4000 and 10000 chassis:

8 of 14

•Management Module: ServerIron ADX Management Modules have a dual-core

processor, one console port, and one USB port, as well as space for an optional

Application Expansion Module.

•SSL Application Expansion Module: This SSL hardware offload upgrade fits any

Management Module in either the 4U ADX 4000 or the 10U ADX 10000, enabling

two SSL AEMs to be populated in an ADX 10000 when two Management Modules are

installed

•Application Switch Module: Each ServerIron ASM8 module is equipped with four dual-

core processors dedicated to processing application traffic. Up to four ASM8 modules

can reside in the ServerIron ADX 10000 for a total of 32 available cores.

•Switch Fabric Module: Each of the switch fabric module deliver 160 Gbps fo raw

switching capacity, giving up to 320 Gbps of raw switching with ADX 10000 chassis

providing scalability as I/O modules require more bandwidth.

•Interface Modules: Three configurations of ServerIron ADX line cards are available:

•12×1 Gbps copper (RJ45)

•12×1 Gbps fibre (SFP)

•4×10 Gbps fibre (XFP)

The ServerIron ADX chassis can scale to support even higher capacity I/O in the future as

40 Gbps and 100 Gbps line card interfaces become available.

QCan these modules be used on both the ServerIron ADX 4000 and 10000 chassis?

AYes. All modules can be used interchangeably on these chassis.

QWhat application switch features does the ServerIron ADX platform provide?

AServerIron ADX switches support a wide range of IP and Web traffic management

applications by providing the following capabilities:

•Efficient Server Load Balancing (SLB): Distributes IP-based application flows and

transparently balances traffic among multiple servers while continuously monitoring

server, application, and content health to increase reliability and availability.

•Intelligent application content inspection and switching: Avoids replicating application

content and functions on all servers, while scaling and optimizing performance. It

also helps defeat application-level attacks by using deep Layer 7 content inspection

and filtering of application messages.

•Disaster recovery and Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB): Distributes services

transparently across multiple sites and server farm locations, balancing traffic on a

global basis while monitoring site, server, and application health. By directing clients

to the best site for the fastest content delivery, ServerIron ADX switches increase

application availability and reduce bandwidth costs. Moreover, site-level redundancy

and fast transparent failover facilitate disaster recovery.

•Robust application security: Shields server farms and applications from wire-speed

multi-Gigabit-rate DoS, DDoS, virus, and worm attacks while serving legitimate

application traffic at peak performance.

•Enterprise applications: Supports enterprise environments running IP- and Web-

based applications, including popular applications such as Oracle, BEA Web Logic,

IBM WebSphere, PeopleSoft, SAP, Microsoft SharePoint, and Siebel. ServerIron ADX

switches enable load balancing and persistence to improve availability, security, and

performance.

9 of 14

•SYN-Guard: Protects server farms against multiple forms of DoS attacks, such as

TCPSYN and ACK attacks, by monitoring and tracking session flows. Only valid

connection requests are actually sent to servers. ServerIron ADX switches are

capable of defeating DoS attacks at the industry’s highest rate of up to 120 million

SYN/sec.

•High-availability application switching: Utilizes active-standby mode, whereby the

standby ServerIron ADX switch assumes control and preserves the state of existing

sessions in the event the primary load-balancing device fails. In active-active mode,

both ServerIron ADX switches work simultaneously and provide a backup for each

other while supporting stateful failover.

•HTTP multiplexing (server connection offload): Increases server performance,

availability, response time, and security by offloading connection management from

the servers. Using persistent HTTP 1.0 and 1.1 connections to the server, ServerIron

ADX switches stream a large number of client connections to very few server

connections. Connection offload enables the servers to dedicate resources for high-

performance application content delivery.

•Application rate limiting: Protects server farms by controlling the rate of TCP and UDP

connections on an application-port basis, thereby guarding against malicious attacks

from high-bandwidth users.

•High-performance access control: Uses extended ACLs to restrict access to specific

applications from a given address or subnet.

•Application redirection: Uses HTTP redirect to send traffic to remote servers if the

requested service or content is not available on the local server farm.

•Hardware SSL acceleration: Utilize dedicated SSL hardware for high-performance SSL

offload, both in SSL terminate and proxy modes

•Advanced firewall and security device load balancing: Increases firewall and

perimeter security performance by distributing Internet traffic loads across multiple

firewalls and other perimeter security appliances. This approach overcomes

scalability limitations, increases throughput, and improves resiliency by eliminating

perimeter security devices—such as firewalls, anti-virus gateways, VPN devices, and

intrusion appliances—as single points of failure.

•Transparent Cache Switching (TCS): Balances Web traffic across multiple caches,

eliminating the need to configure each client browser, improving Internet response

time, decreasing WAN access costs, and increasing overall Web caching solution

resiliency. ServerIron ADX switches improve service availability by implementing

cache health checking, redirecting client requests to the next available cache server

or directly to the origin server in the event of a cache or server farm failure.

QDo ServerIron ADX switches provide SSL offload and application server acceleration?

AThe ServerIron ADX 1000, 4000, and 10000 series, provide industry-leading high-

performance SSL offload, in both SSL terminate and SSL proxy modes. The ADX 1000

models 1008-1, 1016-2, 1016-4 and 1216-4, that is shipped post February 1st, 2010, is

shipped with built-in SSL hardware and can be upgraded for SSL offload through simple

software license upgrade. The ADX 4000 and ADX 10000 chassis can be field-upgraded

for SSL by adding an SSL expansion module on top of the management module. The ADX

1000 with 4 application cores can process up to 28,672 TPS (transactions per second),

and the ADX 10000 chassis with two SSL expansion modules can process up to

230,000 SSL TPS.

10 of 14

Other manuals for SERVERIRON ADX 1000

This manual suits for next models

Table of contents

Other Brocade Communications Systems Switch manuals