FlexPod Definition
Technical specifications for small, medium and large architectures
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This section discusses a sample Bill of Materials for different size storage architectures.
Bill of material for small, medium, and large architectures.
The FlexPod design is a flexible infrastructure that encompasses many different components and software versions. Use TR-4036: FlexPod Technical Specifications as a guide to assembling a valid FlexPod configuration. The configurations in the table below are the minimum requirements for FlexPod, and are just a sample. The configuration can be expanded for each product family as required for different environments and use cases.
For this sizing exercise small corresponds to a Category 3 MEDITECH environment, medium to a Category 5, and large to a Category 6.
| Small | Medium | Large | |
|---|---|---|---|
Platform |
One NetApp AFF A220 all-flash storage system HA pair |
One NetApp AFF A220 HA pair |
One NetApp AFF A300 all-flash storage system HA pair |
Disk shelves |
9TB x 3.8TB |
13TB x 3.8TB |
19TB x 3.8TB |
MEDITECH database size |
3TB-12TB |
17TB |
>30TB |
MEDITECH IOPS |
<22,000 IOPs |
>25,000 IOPs |
>32,000 IOPs |
Total IOPS |
22000 |
27000 |
35000 |
Raw |
34.2TB |
49.4TB |
68.4TB |
Usable capacity |
18.53TiB |
27.96TiB |
33.82TiB |
Effective capacity (2:1 storage efficiency) |
55.6TiB |
83.89TiB |
101.47TiB |
|
Some customer environments might have multiple MEDITECH production workloads running simultaneously or might have higher IOPS requirements. In such cases, work with the NetApp account team to size the storage systems according to the required IOPS and capacity. You should be able to determine the right platform to serve the workloads. For example, there are customers successfully running multiple MEDITECH environments on a NetApp AFF A700 all-flash storage system HA pair. |
The following table shows the standard software required for MEDITECH configurations.
| Software | Product family | Version or release | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
Storage |
ONTAP |
ONTAP 9.4 general availability (GA) |
|
Network |
Cisco UCS fabric interconnects |
Cisco UCSM 4.x |
Current recommended release |
Cisco Nexus Ethernet switches |
7.0(3)I7(6) |
Current recommended release |
|
Cisco FC: Cisco MDS 9132T |
8.3(2) |
Current recommended release |
|
Hypervisor |
Hypervisor |
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7 |
|
Virtual machines (VMs) |
Windows 2016 |
||
Management |
Hypervisor management system |
VMware vCenter Server 6.7 U1 (VCSA) |
|
NetApp Virtual Storage Console (VSC) |
VSC 7.0P1 |
||
NetApp SnapCenter |
SnapCenter 4.0 |
||
Cisco UCS Manager |
4.x |
The following table shows an small (category 3) example configuration – infrastructure components.
| Layer | Product family | Quantity and model | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
Compute |
Cisco UCS 5108 Chassis |
1 |
Supports up to eight half-width or four full-width blades. Add chassis as server requirement grows. |
Cisco Chassis I/O Modules |
2 x 2208 |
8GB x 10GB uplink ports |
|
Cisco UCS blade servers |
4 x B200 M5 |
Each with 2 x 14 cores, 2.6GHz or higher clock speed, and 384GB |
|
Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Cards |
4 x UCS 1440 |
VMware ESXi fNIC FC driver: 1.6.0.47 |
|
2 x Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects (FI) |
2 x UCS 6454 FI |
4th-generation fabric interconnects supporting 10/25/100GB Ethernet and 32GB FC |
|
Network |
Cisco Ethernet switches |
2 x Nexus 9336c-FX2 |
1GB, 10GB, 25GB, 40GB, 100GB |
Storage network |
IP Network Nexus 9k for BLOB storage |
FI and UCS chassis |
|
FC: Cisco MDS 9132T |
Two Cisco 9132T switches |
||
Storage |
NetApp AFF A300 all-flash storage system |
1 HA Pair |
2-node cluster for all MEDITECH workloads (File Server, Image Server, SQL Server, VMware, and so on) |
DS224C disk shelf |
1 DS224C disk shelf |
||
Solid-state drive (SSD) |
9 x 3.8TB |
The following table shows medium (category 5) example configuration – Infrastructure components
| Layer | Product family | Quantity and model | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
Compute |
Cisco UCS 5108 chassis |
1 |
Supports up to eight half-width or four full-width blades. Add chassis as server requirement grows. |
Cisco chassis I/O modules |
2 x 2208 |
8GB x 10GB uplink ports |
|
Cisco UCS blade servers |
6 x B200 M5 |
Each with 2 x 16 cores, 2.5GHz/or higher clock speed, and 384GB or more memory |
|
Cisco UCS virtual interface card (VIC) |
6 x UCS 1440 VICs |
VMware ESXi fNIC FC driver: 1.6.0.47 |
|
2 x Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects (FI) |
2 x UCS 6454 FI |
4th-generation fabric interconnects supporting 10GB/25GB/100GB Ethernet and 32GB FC |
|
Network |
Cisco Ethernet switches |
2 x Nexus 9336c-FX2 |
1GB, 10GB, 25GB, 40GB, 100GB |
Storage network |
IP Network Nexus 9k for BLOB storage |
||
FC: Cisco MDS 9132T |
Two Cisco 9132T switches |
||
Storage |
NetApp AFF A220 all-flash storage system |
2 HA Pair |
2-node cluster for all MEDITECH workloads (File Server, Image Server, SQL Server, VMware, and so on) |
DS224C disk shelf |
1 x DS224C disk shelf |
||
SSD |
13 x 3.8TB |
The following table shows a large (category 6) example configuration – infrastructure components.
| Layer | Product family | Quantity and model | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
Compute |
Cisco UCS 5108 chassis |
1 |
|
Cisco chassis I/O modules |
2 x 2208 |
8 x 10GB uplink ports |
|
Cisco UCS blade servers |
8 x B200 M5 |
Each with 2 x 24 cores, 2.7GHz and 768GB |
|
Cisco UCS virtual interface card (VIC) |
8 x UCS 1440 VICs |
VMware ESXi fNIC FC driver: 1.6.0.47 |
|
2 x Cisco UCS fabric interconnects (FI) |
2 x UCS 6454 FI |
4th-generation fabric interconnects supporting 10GB/25GB/100GB Ethernet and 32GB FC |
|
Network |
Cisco Ethernet switches |
2 x Nexus 9336c-FX2 |
2 x Cisco Nexus 9332PQ1, 10GB, 25GB, 40GB, 100GB |
Storage network |
IP Network N9k for BLOB storage |
||
FC: Cisco MDS 9132T |
Two Cisco 9132T switches |
||
Storage |
AFF A300 |
1 HA Pair |
2-node cluster for all MEDITECH workloads (File Server, Image Server, SQL Server, VMware, and so on) |
DS224C disk shelf |
1 x DS224C disk shelves |
||
SSD |
19 x 3.8TB |
|
|
These configurations provide a starting point for sizing guidance. Some customer environments might have multiple MEDITECH production and non-MEDITECH workloads running simultaneously, or they might have higher IOP requirements. You should work with the NetApp account team to size the storage systems based on the required IOPS, workloads, and capacity to determine the right platform to serve the workloads. |