Logical Server Farms

The control plane, switched fabric, and resource pool work together to dynamically create logical server farms within an I-Fabric. Logical server farms are securely allocated from the Resource Pool and managed by N1 Provisioning Server software. N1 Provisioning Server software creates server farms from the resources available within the Resource Pool. Logical server farms are built using the same physical resources as traditional server farms but they are established and managed under the flexible control of N1 Provisioning Server software. Logical server farms are analogous to traditional, manually built, dedicated server farms except that you can create, grow, shrink, and delete them as data structures that reside within N1 Provisioning Server software.

Logical server farms have the same performance and control characteristics as traditional server farms. N1 Provisioning Server software is not in the data path and does nothing to limit the performance of the devices or prevent the logical server farm from running at wire speed.

Secure partitions enforced by N1 Provisioning Server software and methodologies enable you to exercise independent administrative control over each logical server farm. Even though the user of a specific logical server farm has full administrative access on all devices within that farm, the user cannot view, access, or modify the devices or data associated with a different logical server farm.

The following graphic illustrates the life cycle of a logical server farm in the Control Center.

Figure 1–6 Logical Server Farm States

• D – Design State

• A – Active State

• S – Standby State

• I – Inactive State

For more details on how to manage logical server farms, see Chapter 4, Building, Updating, and Monitoring Server Farms in N1 Provisioning Server 3.1, Blades Edition, Control Center Management Guide.