STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION

By Mohd Nazziman Bin Mohd Mustapha

Storage Requirements
Zettabytes Storage requirements growing 20-40% per year

Information doubling every 18-24 months

Exabytes

Storage budgets up 1%-5% in 2010

Petabytes The information explosion meets budget reality Terabytes Gigabytes

2000 2005 2010 2015

Storage efficiency strategies and best practices

Stop storing so much
Data Compression Data Deduplication

Move data to the right place

Automated Tiering Automated Data Migration

Store more with whats on the floor

Storage Virtualization Thin Provisioning

What is Virtualization?
Virtualization is a technique of abstracting physical resources in to logical view Increases utilization and capability of IT resource Simplifies resource management by pooling and sharing resources Significantly reduce downtime
Planned and unplanned

Improved performance of IT resources

Examples of Virtualization
Virtual Memory
Each application sees its own logical memory, independent of physical memory

Virtual Networks

Each application sees its own logical network, independent of physical network

Virtual Servers

Each application sees its own logical server, independent of physical servers

Virtual Storage

Each application sees its own logical storage, independent of physical storage

Storage Virtualization
Process of presenting a logical view of physical storage resources to hosts Logical storage appears and behaves as physical storage directly connected to host Examples of storage virtualization are: Host-based volume management LUN creation Tape virtualization

Servers

Virtualization Layer

Heterogeneous Physical Storage

Why Storage Virtualization is needed?

SNIA Storage Virtualization Taxonomy

Storage Virtualization What is created

Block Virtualization

Disk Virtualization

Tape, Tape Drive, Tape Library Virtualization

File System, File/record Virtualization

Other Device Virtualization

Where it is done Host Based Virtualization Network Based Virtualization Storage Device/Storage Subsystem Virtualization

How it is implemented In-band Virtualization Out-of-band Virtualization

SNIA - Storage networking Industry Association

Wheres it done?
Path management Server Volume management Replication

Storage Network

Path redirection Load balancing - ISL trucking Access control - Zoning

Volume management - LUNs Storage Access control Replication RAID

How it is implemented
Servers Servers

Virtualization Appliance
Storage Network Storage Network

(a) In out-of-band implementation, the virtualized environment configuration is stored external to the data path. The configuration is stored on the virtualization appliance configured external to the storage network that carries the data. (b) The in-band implementation places the virtualization function in the data path. General-purpose servers or appliances handle the virtualization and function as a translation engine for the virtual configuration to the physical storage

Storage Arrays

Storage Arrays

Out-of-Band

In-Band

(a)

(b)

Block-level Virtualization
Ties together multiple independent storage arrays
Presented to host as a single storage device Mapping used to redirect I/O on this device to underlying physical arrays

Servers

Virtualization Applied at SAN Level

Deployed in a SAN environment

Non-disruptive data mobility and data migration Enable significant cost and resource optimization
Heterogeneous Storage Arrays

File-level Virtualization
File-level virtualization addresses the NAS challenges by eliminating the dependencies between the data accessed at the file level and the location where the files are physically stored. This provides opportunities to optimize storage utilization and server consolidation and to perform non- disruptive file migrations.

File-level Virtualization
Before File-Level Virtualization Clients Clients After File-Level Virtualization Clients IP Network Clients

IP Network

Virtualization Appliance

File Server

Storage Array NAS Devices/Platforms

File Server

File Server

Storage Array NAS Devices/Platforms

File Server

Every NAS device is an independent entity, physically and logically Underutilized storage resources Downtime caused by data migrations

Break dependencies between end-user access and data location Storage utilization is optimized Nondisruptive migrations

Tape Virtualization
Virtual tape is an archival storage technology that makes it possible to save data as if it were being stored on tape although it may actually be stored on hard disk or on another storage medium.

Types of Tape Virtualization

The three basic types of tape virtualization today are: - Virtual Tape: disk is used as a cache to concatenate datasets in a manner that most efficiently uses the capacity of a tape cartridge. - Virtual Tape Library (VTL) disk is used to emulate a physical tape library. - Tape library virtualization tape drives and tape slots can be allocated dynamically rather than having fixed assignments.

Types of Tape Virtualization

Type
Virtual Tape

What/where?

Benefits

Temporary disk workspace organizes More efficient use of tape cartridges. data for writing to tape. Increased reliability of restoration, shortened backup times

Virtual Tape Library Disk storage is used to emulate a (VTL) tape library. Tape Library Virtualization

Flexibly allocates the tape drives and More efficient use of tape library resources. tape slots of a physical tape library.

Benefits of Storage Virtualization

Easy Storage Provisioning:

Virtual disks can be created, resized, and assigned to hosts in a fraction of the time it takes to provision physical storage.

Benefits
Non-disruptive Data migration:

The ability to migrate data from old equipment to new gear, or from one storage tier to another, without bringing systems offline and disrupting applications and users.

Benefits
Simpler Storage Management:

Virtualization brings a central management point and standard set of services to heterogeneous storage devices, simplifying tasks such as mirroring and replication.

Benefits

Challenges
Scalability Ensure storage devices perform appropriate requirements Functionality Virtualized environment must provide same or better functionality Must continue to leverage existing functionality on arrays Manageability Virtualization device breaks end-to-end view of storage infrastructure Must integrate existing management tools Support Interoperability in multivendor environment

END