Application and significance of storage virtualization technology in government industry

The challenges of data storage in government industry

In the process of building government industry information system, different systems use different storage devices, which leads to the information resources being confined to a single storage device, and the system cannot be effectively integrated and shared. With the development of network Region Storage (SAN) technology, the network storage system has been gradually developed, but the original storage devices can not be integrated into the new system and the huge waste of resources is formed.

The construction of networked storage system solves the problem of data sharing and integration to some extent, but it also brings many problems. First, the networked storage system is generally composed of a single disk array and tape library, the disk array bears the responsibility of all information system data storage, once the failure will cause the total loss of data and a long time system pause, thus facing the great risk of data concentration. Second, vulnerable to the limitations of a single equipment supplier, the future of new equipment or upgrades, expansion of the choice of limited scope, resulting in high procurement costs, difficult to timely use of new technologies, and bring after-sales service and other aspects of the problem.

The networked storage system itself is still limited to the local area network, which can not meet the requirements of the data resource sharing and integration of the department, province, City and county four-level information system. At the same time, with the deepening of government industry informationization, it is necessary to establish an effective risk prevention and security system, including data backup in different places, remote disaster-tolerant system, and so on, also put forward strict requirements for data transmission across wide area, and the networked storage system is difficult to meet.

The integrated, unified, standard and shared data resource storage platform established by storage virtualization technology can effectively manage large, numerous, complex data and related equipments, improve resource utilization and establish a comprehensive data security system.

Storage Virtualization Technology

Storage virtualization technology is to abstract the underlying storage devices unified management, to the server layer to mask the specificity of storage equipment hardware, but only to retain their unified logic characteristics, so that the storage system centralized, unified and convenient management. In contrast to a computer system, the virtual storage part of the entire storage system is like the operating system in the computer systems, which manages a variety of special and specific devices, while the upper layer provides a relatively uniform operating environment and resource usage.

SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association, storage Network Industry association) is defined for storage virtualization by integrating one or more target services or features with other additional features, Unified to provide useful comprehensive functional services.

Storage virtualization can be implemented at three different levels, including the implementation of a dedicated volume management software on a host server, or the use of the array controller's firmware (firmware) on a disk array, or the use of a dedicated virtualization engine to implement on a storage network.

1.1 Host-based Storage Virtualization

Host-based Storage Virtualization Technology is accomplished on the server by Logical volume management software under the host operating system (the Client software agent is installed), and virtualized storage space can span multiple heterogeneous disk arrays.

This type of virtualization is typically implemented by the logical volume Management software (logical Volume Manager) under the host operating system. They have been widely used for many years on both host and UNIX servers, and similar volume managers are currently available on Windows operating systems.

The government industry information system is large in scale, the host type and application software are more kinds, and the system performance and stability requirements are high, so it is unsuitable to use host-based storage virtualization technology.

1.2 Storage virtualization based on storage devices

Storage virtualization Technology for storage devices is available when multiple host servers need access to the same disk array. At this point, virtualization is done on the controller of the storage device, dividing the storage capacity on a storage device (such as a disk array) into multiple storage spaces (LUNs) by adding virtualization to the storage device controller for different host system access.

Intelligent storage device controllers provide data block-level consolidation while providing additional functionality such as LUN masking, caching, instant snapshots, data replication, and more.

For City and county government departments, the amount of data is small, storage device is single, suitable for using storage virtualization technology based on storage device. Department, provincial government departments, large amount of data, often using a variety of storage equipment, and require the ability to cross equipment, cross-regional data sharing and integration, and therefore is not suitable for the use of storage-based storage virtualization technology.

1.3 Storage virtualization based on storage network

Storage-network-based store virtualization technology is implemented by adding the virtualization engine to the storage Area network (SAN). The virtualization engine is one or more stand-alone devices that manage multiple storage devices and data and provide the interface for data storage and access to multiple hosts.

Storage Network based virtualization is a developing direction of storage industry in recent years. Unlike host-based and storage-device virtualization, the virtualization capabilities of storage networks are done within the storage local area network (SAN), and the benefits of both storage and host-based virtualization approaches can be reflected simultaneously in storage network virtualization, It supports data center-level storage management as well as heterogeneous host systems and storage systems.

For departments, provincial government departments, the large amount of data, often using a variety of types of host and storage equipment, and often require the under the jurisdiction of the provincial and municipal systems for data sharing and integration, so suitable for the use of storage-network based storage virtualization technology.