Data center virtualization takes a longer path

Source: Internet
Author: User

The enterprise data center virtualization introduced in the past few years has become a widely accepted concept today. The latest virtualization technology can help enterprises increase efficiency, reduce costs, and fulfill their commitment to reducing carbon emissions.

However, when it comes to a real virtualized data center and server virtualization, so that multiple applications can run independently on a physical server, only half of enterprises adopt this solution.

Storage requirements will continue to grow

Today, CIOs are still trying to keep their storage capacity up to meet the increasing needs. This, in turn, makes it necessary for them to add a special storage system to meet specific deployment, business features, or geographical regional needs. Because of this, many enterprises have created a complex and flexible storage infrastructure, which has become a cumbersome and expensive management solution for enterprises.

To help enterprises solve the complexity of this problem, leading storage vendors have stepped up their R & D work and work closely with server virtualization software vendors, such as VMware, Citrix, and Microsoft. It is hoped that the storage system can be seamlessly connected through a highly virtualized server environment.

Through these efforts, industry-wide projects such as VMware's VAAI storage array can now be said to be the most optimized storage to meet the performance and flexibility of virtual servers.

New storage systems use virtualization

Although the integration of the virtual server and storage array is very important for the success of the virtualized data center, innovative storage systems should use the virtualization technology itself. In fact, when the two are combined, a real virtualized server and storage environment have paved the way to become the most effective cloud infrastructure.

Storage Virtualization will be available here.

The storage virtualization technology enables complex storage environments to be managed with simplified and cumbersome tasks, such as performance adjustment, load balancing, and configuration arrays.

These tasks continue to happen, but they occur in the context of a virtualized storage environment. They abstract not only managers, but also servers. In short, the storage capacity can be consolidated and, as a single, highly automated volume, looks like a normal disk virtual server.

This is simple to explain, but it is actually much more complicated. A good understanding of why the storage virtualization system is quite effective is at the core of this issue. They need to improve efficiency and productivity, because it helps them reduce time and energy, and more importantly, this requires effective management of storage knowledge.

Indeed, this is a comprehensive storage, but it can be used as a storage "pool" system, so that load balancing and volumes can be created and quickly expanded, without affecting or damaging users. In this process, disk array configuration, replication, and snapshot are integrated and transparent applications.

IT managers know that not all storage creation is equal. The SAN storage Domain Network StorageAreaNetwork of most enterprises uses a layered environment, including faster and more expensive storage speeds and slower and more economical Drive storage. Key data is stored in faster, high-performance storage, and seldom used data is stored in low-end drives. Some enterprises' SAN needs a manual process to move all of the data, while the more modern and virtualized SAN layers are automatically processed, this is why this feature is sometimes called automatic Hierarchical Storage.

Examples of storage requirements in real life

So what are the storage requirements in real-life scenarios? When? Milwaukee law firm lawyers remotely log on to their workstation and Storage Virtualization begins to work. The company's automatic storage array for virtual desktop access data is equipped with high-performance SSDS and more economical SAS drivers.

Physical devices determine which types of data belong to, and migrate to the most cost-effective storage type, it is easy to become a tedious, labor-intensive, and unnecessary expensive process. ? Milwaukee law firm uses storage arrays and automatic load balancing to handle traffic during peak hours, all employees, such as early morning, started logging on to their virtual desktops and switched to a higher-performance drive "hot data" during the "startup Storm" period ".

The exceptional performance of automatic layering and load balancing has led the company to deliver virtual desktops from 7 minutes to 40 seconds.

Because of this, the company has become an example of improving efficiency and saving costs. More importantly, it provides real flexibility for a virtual data center, not just server virtualization.

Virtualization Technology reduces the need for more devices

The law firm also found that storage virtualization can reduce the need for more storage devices and other businesses. By automating existing storage management, data centers can not only use all available space, but also use mobile data without interference. Migrating data to the most cost-effective storage layer becomes an automated process, which not only reduces labor costs, but also dynamically utilizes less expensive storage products, at the same time, free up valuable space on the drive with higher performance.

The configuration is streamlined automatically without the need to pre-allocate the drive capacity. Sometimes it involves a long-term problem, that is, after the determination, the required storage capacity is used by the best guess method. The old method for managing storage usually leads to excessive supply, high costs, and a waste of resources.

The needs of today's IT environment are often huge and complex. Data continues to grow exponentially. In many cases, we have to comply with relevant regulations and data governance policies to specify which types of data must be retained for how long-even if the data is not regularly accessed. The data access team expects that real-time information can be obtained from remote offices or mobile devices, no matter where the data is accessed.

Data center Transformation

IT managers have begun to enjoy the cost savings and efficiency brought about by server virtualization. Many people now find that a real virtualized data center is not just server virtualization. This also includes the combination of server and storage virtualization, and provides a framework for setting a easier environment for sharing and optimization, users deploy various clouds and IT as a natural service mode transition.

Enterprises that are implementing or considering deploying server virtualization strategies need to know that these efforts are only part of the solution. Storage Virtualization will bring past data centers into the future and eliminate outdated methods.

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