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The following list of frequently asked questions is meant to help quickly address some of the commonly asked questions regarding the Cisco® OverDrive Network Hypervisor 4.0 release. For more information on the product refer to the OverDrive Network Hypervisor product page at http://www.cisco.com/go/overdrive.
Q. What is Cisco OverDrive Network Hypervisor?
A. Cisco OverDrive Network Hypervisor is designed to help enable customers to organize their network resources into a flexible cloud infrastructure that integrates the network with their existing IT operational tools and processes. OverDrive Network Hypervisor's network abstraction layer allows customers to provision and deploy numerous individual network components as sophisticated network "containers" across single and multipod cloud deployments much more easily and quickly than previously possible with template- and script-based systems, dramatically reducing network operations costs and the potential for misconfiguration while optimizing capacity utilization and accelerating service delivery.
Q. What are the main features and benefits of OverDrive Network Hypervisor?
A. Table 1 summarizes the key features and benefits of OverDrive Network Hypervisor.
Table 1. Features and Benefits of OverDrive Network Hypervisor
Q. How can OverDrive Network Hypervisor help to create service tiers across my cloud deployment?
A. Cisco OverDrive Network Hypervisor offers a flexible, policy-driven approach to how cloud services are managed and controlled. This is achieved by abstracting the components needed to build an isolated virtual network infrastructure for each cloud tenant. Through a cloud configuration user interface (Figure 1 - Cisco OverDrive Network Hypervisor helps enable administrators to dynamically define and control an array of behaviors in their cloud environment including:
• Creation of different levels of service capability or "service tiers" to be made available in the cloud (for example, gold, silver, bronze)
• Definition of the capabilities and resources available in each tier
• Structuring of a system of "containment" that defines virtual private clouds and virtual data centers and how they can be deployed
• Specifying how VLANs, service capabilities, and virtual machines can be defined and deployed within a virtual data center
Q. Can OverDrive Network Hypervisor be used to create clouds in both single- and multipod deployments?
A. OverDrive Network Hypervisor's policy-driven approach allows clouds to be created within single or multiple pods, each with potentially different and unique offerings and operational behaviors. One cloud may offer a simple self-service development environment, while another may offer tiered quality of service for customer- and partner-facing web content, and yet another may support sophisticated multitiered containers with internal business application, firewall, and load-balancing capabilities.
Q. In what ways could a service provider use OverDrive Network Hypervisor?
A. Service providers can use OverDrive Network Hypervisor to provision a multitenant environment with isolation of traffic and network services, which allows third-party providers, resellers, and wholesalers to operate their own "white-labeled" cloud environments for downstream customers using a cloud-within-cloud approach. This capability allows large service providers to build and deploy scalable cloud architectures, while small providers can more easily offer cloud services to their customers.
Q. How does OverDrive Network Hypervisor define and control the behavior and characteristics of a cloud?
A. Cisco OverDrive Network Hypervisor abstracts common objects, services, and resources that are critical to cloud operations into three distinct models, helping enable administrators to define and control the behavior and characteristics of a cloud. These abstracted business, cloud operational, and service and topology models interact with the OverDrive Network Hypervisor Network Services Virtualization Engine as requests for cloud services are provisioned and cloud resources are consumed or released.
Q. What are the key architectural components of OverDrive Network Hypervisor? Can you describe each of them briefly?
A. The OverDrive Network Hypervisor architecture consists of the OverDrive Network Hypervisor Command Center as the primary administrative interface to the system, allowing administrators to define cloud characteristics, services, and behaviors as well as construct business polices that define who (users and groups) or what (other computer resources) can access cloud resources.
The heart of the system is the OverDrive Network Hypervisor Network Services Virtualization Engine, which automates the provisioning of cloud services and dynamically generates the configuration instructions that control the devices and services in the cloud.
The OverDrive Network Hypervisor Network Services Virtualization Engine dynamically builds and deploys these configuration instructions that are pushed down to the OverDrive Network Hypervisor device service controllers that translate the instructions into the exact configuration semantics for each device type/model in the pod.
The OverDrive Network Hypervisor device service controllers interact with the devices and services in the pod in real time to determine the exact service characteristics of the devices and status of the deployed cloud services.
Figure 1. OverDrive Network Hypervisor Network Services Virtualization
Q. Can OverDrive Network Hypervisor be integrated with my existing IT operational tools and processes?
A. OverDrive Network Hypervisor can be integrated with external systems such as order entry portals or service catalogs where user requests for cloud services can be captured and pushed to the OverDrive Network Hypervisor Network Services Virtualization Engine for provisioning. Other ecosystem technologies such as higher-level orchestration frameworks or specific configuration management systems can also use this interface to move critical information into and out of the OverDrive Network Hypervisor Network Services Virtualization Engine.
Q. What are the system requirements of OverDrive Network Hypervisor?
A. Table 2 gives the system requirements for network services virtualization software, Table 3 gives the requirements for device service controller software, and Table 4 gives the system requirements for command center client software.
Table 2. Network Services Virtualization Software
Table 3. Device Service Controller Software
|
Hardware |
Xeon 3 GHz or equivalent |
|
Disk space |
10 GB |
|
Memory |
2 GB |
|
Software |
Centos 5.x base OS, Java 1.6, VMware ESX-based implementations are supported |
Table 4. Command Center Client Software
|
Hardware |
Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac Desktop |
|
Disk space |
500 MB |
|
Memory |
1 GB |
|
Software |
Firefox (Chrome is not supported) |
Q. How can I order OverDrive Network Hypervisor?
A. Cisco OverDrive Network Hypervisor is currently available in a controlled release for service provider customers deploying specific technologies of the Virtualized Multitenant Data Center Solution. For ordering information please contact your local Cisco account representative.
Q. Where can I get more information on OverDrive Network Hypervisor?
A. For more information on Cisco OverDrive Network Hypervisor, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/overdrive, contact your local Cisco account representative, or send an email to ask-overdrive@cisco.com.