Server virtualization cracked storage virtualization dilemma

From CPU, memory, motherboard to server, who will be the next beneficiary of the virtualization camp as more and more IT system core components choose to join the virtualization camp? From the current development situation, server virtualization is becoming mainstream, storage is very likely to become the next one because of virtualization and important changes in IT components.

No applause.

In fact, the concept of storage virtualization is not new, it is accompanied by the development of large computers and a classic concept emerged. As early as the 70 's, large applications or multiple application applications were severely constrained by the low capacity and high prices of storage devices. In order to overcome this situation, people began to adopt the technology of storage virtualization.

With the growth of demand and the progress of technology, storage virtualization is endowed with new connotations. The industry generally believes that the use of virtualization technology to make storage efficiency, manageability significantly increased, the total cost of equipment ownership significantly reduced. Excellent performance advantages, so that storage virtualization quickly become the focus of industry attention. But it is puzzling that, despite the efforts of major manufacturers to promote, storage virtualization has always been a big hit. Even industry experts predict that it is too early to talk about storage virtualization. So what is the reason why such competitive technology has been slow to break the deadlock?

There are three main reasons why the application of storage virtualization has been slow to progress. First, storage virtualization products are generally more expensive and focused on high-end users a few years ago, and it decision makers generally have a low level of understanding of virtualization technology, and storage vendors and users wait and see for virtualization. Second, the standardization process for storage systems is slow, and until today, the consolidation of virtualization products among storage vendors remains difficult. Finally, there is a lone phenomenon in the field of storage virtualization, and manufacturers have been unable to seek common development. It turns out that it's hard to get the user's approval for a virtual storage solution that is only for the storage itself and ignores other IT components.

The catalytic effect of server virtualization

In stark contrast to the stagnation of storage virtualization, server virtualization is on the dash. More and more users around the world are choosing to deploy virtualization technology to consolidate servers, thereby significantly reducing total cost of ownership, simplifying server management programs, implementing rapid server deployments, and ensuring data center reliability.

The rapid popularization of server virtualization, the concept of virtualization is pervasive, so that the IT industry to re-examine the storage system virtualization issues. In fact, server virtualization will be an important force for storage virtualization to move forward.

First, server virtualization provides an excellent platform for the eventual landing of storage virtualization. From the development of virtualization, before the PC server virtualization, storage virtualization is used on Unix small machines, and it is not suitable for windows/linux and other x86 platforms. Until 1998, VMware pioneered the introduction of virtualization technology into the x86 platform. This allows storage virtualization applications to be extended to PC servers, thereby breaking free of the platform's constraints.

Second, server virtualization itself contains the storage virtualization layer. For example, VMware Vstorage is one of the core technologies and interfaces for the only server virtualization Suite--vmware infrastructure that is currently available on the market for production environments. VMware Vstorage uses virtualization technology to create efficient and flexible storage pools that not only simplifies the storage operations of virtual machines, but also directly leverages the capabilities of the storage infrastructure, providing the most efficient way to use and manage storage systems in a virtual environment.

As an important component of VMware Infrastructure, VMware Storage vmotion reallocate virtual machine disk files between shared storage locations and across shared storage locations, ensuring continuity of service provisioning and integrity of transactions. VMware vstorage Vmfs is a clustered file system that uses shared storage as an additional layer of virtualization in the storage architecture, allowing users to manage the storage resources in the background of the virtual machine as a large LUN.

VMware's virtualization technology is now providing services to customers worldwide. In the case of the FAW-Volkswagen, they also use VMware's storage virtualization technology to consolidate storage resources and implement tiered storage of data centers while implementing virtualization. Consolidate applications that were originally deployed on more than 100 servers to over 40 servers and connect SAN storage back-end. This back-end connection storage, multiple server consolidation, which forms the server farm, enables advanced features such as efficient and online migration of ESX server 3, which significantly increases server availability and reliability.

Effective integration to complement each other

Note that while server virtualization has included partial storage virtualization in its own administration, this does not mean that server virtualization can be completely fragmented with storage virtualization.

Storage virtualization has the distinction of "storage device Layer Virtualization" and "Server Layer storage Virtualization". The former refers to virtualization at the physical level of the storage device. The latter is the LUN-level storage virtualization at the server level, the logical volume management (LVM) we often call it. Storage virtualization implemented in the VMware Virtual architecture layer, for example, is a storage virtualization of the server layer, but beyond the functionality of the general LVM, because it can quickly consolidate different types of storage.

On the one hand, the virtualization of the server layer into the virtualization of the storage device layer builds up an excellent platform. On the other hand, if the storage device itself does not have virtualization capabilities, any RAID level or other configuration adjustments can cause the storage device to shut down and cause the associated virtual machine downtime. This means the virtualization of the server layer and the virtualization of the storage device layer need to be better integrated in order to release the value of virtualization perfectly.

As the industry's leading provider of server virtualization solutions, VMware is currently working with industry vendors, including EMC, IBM, HP, to collaborate on the integration of server virtualization and storage virtualization. This will greatly drive the development of storage virtualization.