Planning for Your Storage Needs in a Virtualized Environment

Vital storage considerations for SMBs One segment of your IT infrastructure that is most directly impacted by virtualization is storage. This paper will help you consider your storage needs as you think about the future of virtualization in your environment.
Contents
Where Have All the Floppies Gone? Virtualization Refresher The Importance of Storage Why Dell and VMvware? Plan for Growth 1 2 3 5 5

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Where Have All the Floppies Gone?

If you pause to think about the vast changes that have affected IT professionals over the past two decades, you might be astounded. Step back for a moment and imagine a workplace without Internet, portable computers the size of a small suitcase, and a server room in which each singlecore server ran a single application that needed just a few megabytes of disk space and RAM. If you heard about virtualization at all, you thought of it as mainframe technology for use in very large (and very well-funded) data centers. It is not an overstatement to say that its a different IT world today. The Internet changed the way we create and consume computing services, and portable computers now fit in your pocket. Those single-core servers gave way to powerful dual-core and multicore servers with many times their predecessors computing and storage capacity. Virtualization emerged as a way to use that increased capacity while helping to reduce costs and energy consumption. Once seen as the

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>> Virtualization Benefits by the Numbers According to a VMware survey, SMBs that implement virtualization realize significant benefits 1 A majority of respondents achieved improvements in: Time spent on routine IT tasks Application availability Backup and data protection Business continuity preparedness Ability to respond to changing business needs Ease of infrastructure management End-user satisfaction

domain of very large, mainframe-based data centers, virtualization now fits just as well in small and midsize businesses (SMB) server rooms as it does in the largest enterprise data centers. In fact, chances are good that you already use it in your IT infrastructure.

Expand Virtualization for Rapid Benefits

As virtualization continues to mature and a rich ecosystem continues to produce new solutions around it, the technology is an increasingly viable option for SMBs. In fact, a 2009 VMware survey found that SMBs are rapidly adopting virtualization, with 72 percent of respondents reporting that they use it to improve server utilization. Better server utilization is just one of the potential benefits of virtualization. It can also help: Shrink the physical footprint in your server room, which reduces energy consumption and associated costs. Increase your productivity and efficiency because virtual machines (VMs) are easier and less time consuming to provision than new physical servers. Improve business continuity by enabling faster and simpler backup of workloads and data. Enhance your flexibility so that resources can be allocated more quickly in response to changing conditions. As many SMBs are discovering, virtualization has great potential. However, in order to take full advantage of the technology, careful planning is required. One segment of your IT infrastructure that is most directly impacted by virtualization is storage.

Virtualization Refresher
Virtualization is the use of software to abstract, or decouple, the operating system (OS) and applications from the underlying hardware. This abstraction allows you to run multiple VMs, each with its own OS and applications, on a single hardware platform. Most SMBs already use virtualization to consolidate multiple physical servers as VMs onto one physical platform, and those that do very often see a reduction in the time administrators spend performing routine tasks. Although server consolidation is the primary reason SMBs use virtualization, it is far from the only use case. Virtualization vendors such as VMware offer mature virtualization solutions that SMBs are adopting because of their potential to save time and money. For example, after server consolidation, you might consider desktop virtualization as a way to simplify and control the desktop infrastructure. Business continuity and disaster recovery solutions are another growing use case for virtualization. Because VMs are easier to get up and running than physical servers, virtualization can improve application availability and data protection. This means that you can be better prepared to keep the business running when servers fail. According to the VMware survey, 67 percent of SMBs that use virtualization improved their business continuity preparedness.

After Consolidation
Most IT professionals in SMBs understand the benefits of virtualization, but some delay expanded use of the technology because they think that additional virtualization would require
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The Benefits of Virtualization for Small and Medium Businesses, VMware, 2009. Download the full report at http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMware-SMB-Survey.pdf.

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>> Why VMware? VMware is the most trusted virtualization vendor across all industries and company sizes More than 190,000 customers worldwide use it, including 80% of small businesses

a large investment in additional infrastructure. However, expanding your use of virtualization does not have to be a major undertaking to have major benefits. The goal is not to redesign your infrastructure from the ground up, but to simplify and improve efficiency where possible. In other words, you do not have to leap from server consolidation to Infrastructure as a Service you just need to take the next step. You might find immediate opportunities to expand virtualization with little preparation or additional hardware required: Look at underutilized or end-of-life servers that can be consolidated. Consider virtualizing your test and development environment. VMs can accelerate testing cycles because they take less time to provision, configure and reset than physical servers. Evaluate other workloads as virtualization candidates. Once you have virtualized the obvious candidates, such as underutilized servers, look to the next tier of applications in your environment to identify additional candidates. VMware has tools that can help SMBs take the next steps in virtualization. For example, the SMB Virtualization Assessment is an interactive tool that can point you in the right direction. Get started by visiting www.vmware.com/smb/.

The Importance of Storage

You can achieve dramatic benefits when you expand virtualization in your environment, but virtualization can tax an aging server room, especially when it comes to storage. Many SMBs use only attached storage disk drives inside the servers. In the one-server, one-application model, attached storage is sufficient because disk drives can keep up with read and write requests without impacting performance. But when you consolidate, you break the one-server, oneapplication barrier and might double or triple the number of read and write demands on the disk. These reads and writes are typically measured as input/output operations per second (IOPS), and when applications demand more IOPS than disk drives and internal storage can deliver, you might begin to see performance degradation. Furthermore, I/O access patterns by VMs are inherently random, making it difficult to predict storage needs. These cautions are especially true with more ambitious virtualization projects, such as desktop virtualization. To ensure the best possible performance of virtualized applications, you should consider storage solutions that are not bound to your server hardware.

Storage Refresher
There are three general storage models to choose from when evaluating your storage needs: DAS, NAS and SAN. Direct-attached storage (DAS): In this model, storage is usually the disk space provided inside the server. It can also be external to the server in a subsystem comprising its own controller and disk drives. Whether internal or external, DAS is bound to the server hardware through a direct connection (typically SCSI). The primary limitation of this model is that each DAS system is isolated from all others and can serve only one computer. This can mean that you have many different underutilized storage systems and their data to manage. Network-attached storage (NAS): As the name implies, NAS is attached to the server through the Ethernet network and is one form of shared storage. Multiple servers can use

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the same NAS system disk drives for their storage component. Unlike DAS, NAS systems include a software layer that provides file-sharing capabilities to multiple platforms that use different file protocols, such as Windows systems and UNIX or Linux systems. Storage area network (SAN): SAN systems also provide storage over a network connection, but are built on a Fibre Channel (FC) or iSCSI switched fabric that connects to the Ethernet network. Storage in a SAN is more flexible than in a NAS system, and you can easily reallocate disk space as your needs change. DAS and SAN systems provide block-level storage, which is like a blank hard disk that you can use for any type of application or data, including files, databases and VM files. NAS systems provide file-level storage designed to share files across the network. File-level storage can be simpler to install and manage, but can also introduce performance latency in demanding environments where high I/O throughput is a must. Some virtualization projects create such conditions. For example, desktop virtualization creates a multi-tenant environment in both senses of the term: multiple VMs reside on a single server and multiple distributed users access the application layers and data. With so many I/O demands, it is not surprising that some storage systems struggle to keep up. By contrast, SAN technology can complement expanded virtualization because it helps reduce or even eliminates IOPS bottlenecks. These bottlenecks occur when storage cannot write or retrieve data fast enough and the CPU sits idle while the disk drives finish their job. SAN systems are dedicated storage networks with much more hard disk space than can be crammed into a server chassis as DAS. More disk space means more IOPS, and because the SAN operates on its own network fabric, storage traffic does not contend with other network traffic for bandwidth. All of these elements combine to provide outstanding performance for demanding I/O environments. In addition, a SAN can more effectively support virtualization because storage space can easily be assigned and reassigned when servers needs change, including virtualized servers. In fact, todays virtualization-aware SAN arrays allow you to carve up disk space and create highly flexible virtual pools of storage that can be easily allocated according to demand. This is a dramatically different approach from DAS, where storage space is tightly bound to server hardware. As a result, a SAN can be easier to manage because it requires less manual configuration when server needs change and change can be constant in a flexible virtualized environment. Ease of management is a characteristic of modern SAN arrays in which much of the provisioning and disk allocation work is automated, such as with Dell EqualLogic SAN systems. A SAN can bring further benefits in addition to performance. Because of their flexibly assigned virtual pools of storage resources, SAN systems can simplify and complement business continuity and disaster recovery plans and help improve storage utilization. Perhaps more important for SMBs in the long term, a SAN investment now can provide room to grow well into the future.

Not Just for Enterprises Anymore

Many IT professionals in SMBs think that SAN technology is for large enterprises with deep pockets, or that a SAN means a large investment to redesign your IT infrastructure to add FC support. While these concerns were valid years ago, cost and FC need not stand in your way today. Modern SAN arrays support iSCSI, which means FC switches are not required. iSCSI support also

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means you can configure and manage SAN arrays over your IP network using existing skill sets, without the need for specialized knowledge and training. In addition, due to the hot competition in the storage space, SAN arrays are increasingly affordable for SMBs. For example, Dell offers affordable entry-level SAN arrays in single- or dual-controller configurations that provide a mix of solid-state and SAS drives to ensure high throughput while balancing performance and capacity.

Why Dell and VMware?

Whether or not a SAN is right for your environment, Dell and VMware are ready to support your virtualization expansion. Integrated solutions from Dell and VMware, leaders in the SMB storage and virtualization markets, can help IT professionals in organizations like yours get the most from their virtualization efforts. With automated tiering and other capabilities that optimize storage performance in virtualized environments, virtualization best practices are built into Dell storage arrays. This means that you can expand your virtualization strategy with confidence that your storage hardware is up to the challenge. Additionally, Dell and VMware collaboration has resulted in VMware vStorage APIs for Dell EqualLogic iSCSI storage arrays. These APIs help ensure that the storage array and VMware vSphere work together to enhance performance and simplify storage provisioning for VMs. This joint engineering can bring functionality to your environment that you might have thought possible only with high-end, enterprise-grade SAN systems. For example, EqualLogic SAN arrays integrate with VMware data protection tools to deliver replication capabilities that enhance your high-availability readiness including online migration, replication, snapshots and cloning. EqualLogic arrays also let you configure and use a virtualized pool of storage, making it easy to automate provisioning intelligently and in response to changing business needs.

Plan for Growth

If you are ready to expand virtualization in your server room and across the network, the next steps are clear. Look for end-of-life or underutilized servers and consolidate them. Then, prepare for a virtualized future by evaluating your storage system and its ability to perform under the new demands that increased virtualization will place on it. Change can be challenging, but the changes that are coming to your server room are manageable. Learn more today about how Dell and VMware can help you prepare for expanded virtualization by visiting www.vmware.com/dell.

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