Cisco Intersight Workload Engine at a Glance
Cisco Intersight Workload Engine (IWE) is a next-generation private cloud architecture for modern cloud-native workloads. With Cisco IWE, customers no longer need to cobble together open source distributions, excessive virtualization licenses, multiple management panes, and disparate hardware to support their enterprise service applications on the premises. The seamless integration of Cisco Intersight, Intersight Workload Engine, Intersight Kubernetes Service, and Hyperflex Data Platform (HXDP) eliminates the complexity and risk associated with integration at different layers of the infrastructure and application. This makes the cloud-native journey for enterprise applications faster, more predictable, and more cost-effective. Customers also get full stack support SLAs from Cisco’s industry-leading Technical Assistance Center (TAC) teams.
The Intersight Workload Engine provides the software infrastructure to run Intersight Kubernetes Service either virtualized or on bare-metal servers in a Cisco Hyperflex cluster. The result is a ready-to-consume Kubernetes Containers as a service (CaaS) platform that balances the need for increased application release velocity with the traditional IT needs for reduced cost and complexity. It is a fully integrated solution that supports every infrastructure layer needed to support modern microservices-based applications—from the physical layer to the software stack. Figure 3-39 illustrates Cisco IWE full stack integration.
Figure 3-39 Cisco IWE full stack integration
Benefits
The Intersight Workload Engine (IWE) is used to create and operate a cluster of UCS servers. The IWE OS is installed and runs on those servers, and IWE contains all the software needed to operate the IWE cluster, including the operating system, hypervisor, clustering software, and storage software. The following list explains some of the benefits of using IWE:
• Simplify operations: Address any application workload with an all-in-one integrated platform, including hypervisor, operating system, Kubernetes clustering, and storage.
• Unify VM and container management: Manage clusters from the cloud using one control point for upgrades, capacity expansion, repairs, and security with Cisco Intersight Cloud Operations Platform.
• Reduce costs: Utilize infrastructure efficiently with a purpose-built hypervisor without adding the cost of third-party virtualization solutions.
• Intersight Kubernetes Service integration: Automate balancing and optimization according to Kubernetes best practices.
• Full-stack cloud management: Simplify Day 2 upgrades and enable faster resolution of issues with full stack visibility.
Key Features
The IWE management UI and equivalent APIs are used to deploy and manage your cluster, including cluster lifecycle tasks such as upgrades, expansion, repair, security patching, and software or firmware upgrades. Your app or DevOps teams can use your IWE clusters to run the Cisco Intersight Kubernetes Service (IKS) and manage Kubernetes clusters. The following list mentions some features of IWE:
• Fully automated installer integrated in Cisco Intersight
• Operating system software maintained in Cisco Intersight repositories and automatically deployed on Intersight Workload Engine nodes
• Hypervisor with support for features like VM scheduling, VM migration, and CPU oversubscription
• Clustering software deployed with multiple control nodes to deliver system resiliency
• Automatically configured resilient network connectivity and segmented virtual networking for separation of system, user, and storage traffic
• Persistent enterprise storage based on Cisco Hyperflex deployed within Intersight Workload Engine nodes
• Unified Intersight management, including inventory viewing, monitoring, and alerting at the node, storage, and VM levels
• Connected TAC and secure access shells for cluster administration and support
• Node maintenance mode to allow for the replacement of defective node components
