Storage Note 10 Virtualization

storage virtualization

Identify different virtualization technologies

Describe block-level virtualization technology

Describes file-level virtualization technology

Discuss Virtual Provisioning

Virtualization Overview

What is virtualization

• Abstraction of physical resources into logical views
• IT utilization and performance
• Centralized/shared resources simplify resource management
• Reduce downtime
  • planned or unplanned
• Improve IT resource performance

1. Virtual Memory
2. virtual network
3. virtual server
4. virtual storage

Memory Virtualization

Each application has its own logical memory, independent of physical memory

Benefits of virtual memory

• Lift the physical memory limit
• Run Multiple Applications Simultaneously

Network Virtualization

Applications have their own logical network, independent of the physical network

• Announcement of access control attributes for single-link network links
• Manage logical networks (not physical
• Virtual SAN offers similar benefits for storage area networks

Server virtualization

no virtualization	Virtualization
A single OS image per machine	Virtual Machines (VMs) break the dependency between OS and hardware
Tight coupling of software and hardware	Encapsulate operating systems and applications into virtual machines and manage them as a single unit
Running multiple applications on the same machine tends to create conflicts	independent of hardware
underutilization of resources	Robust Fault and Safety Isolation

storage virtualization

• The process of providing a host with a logical view of physical storage resources

• Logical storage looks and behaves the same as physical storage directly attached to the host

• Examples of storage virtualization are:

  • Host-based volume management
  • LUN creation
  • tape virtualization

• Benefits of storage virtualization:

  • Improved storage utilization
  • Add or remove storage without impacting application availability
  • Non-Disruptive Data Migration

Storage Virtualization Implementation

Discuss the SNIA Virtualization Taxonomy

Describe block-level virtualization techniques and implementations

Describe file-level virtualization technologies and implementations

SNIA(Storage Networking Industry Association) Taxonomy

What/Where/How

Storage virtualization requires multi-level implementation

• server

  • path management
  • volume management
  • assignment

• storage network

  • path redirection
  • Load Leveling - ISL trucking
  • Access Control - Zoning

• storage

  • Volume Management - LUNs
  • Access control
  • storage
  • RAID

  Out-of-band implementation, the virtualization environment configuration is stored outside the data path
  In-band in-band virtualization environment is stored in the data path

challenge

1. scalability
   1. The storage device implements the appropriate requirements
2. Functionality
   1. Virtualized environments function as well or better
   2. Continue to use the existing functions of array
3. Manageability
   1. Virtualization appliances break down the end-to-end view of storage infrastructure
   2. Inherit existing management tools
4. support
   1. Multi-vendor interoperability

block-level storage virtualization

Multiple storage arrays are connected (heterogeneous storage arrays)

• as a single
• Device I/O is redirected to the underlying physical array

Deployment in SAN environment

Data migration/movement without interruption

cost resource optimization

File-level virtualization

without virtualization

• NAS devices are physically/logically independent of each other
• underutilization of resources
• Data Migration Downtime

Virtualization

• Break user access – data location dependency
• Optimize storage utilization
• migration without interruption

main point

Key points covered in this module:

Virtualization technology and form

• SNIA Storage Virtualization Taxonomy

Storage Virtualization Configuration

Storage Virtualization Challenges

Types of storage virtualization

Overview of Virtual Provisioning