Several problems needing attention in storage virtualization

If you are an IT manager, have you ever considered deploying storage virtualization for your company? Gartner's recent survey shows that One-fourth of employees in large companies with more than 500 people have deployed storage virtualization products, and another 55% are ready to do so in the next two years.

Storage virtualization is an abstract representation of the fact that current server and application storage is different from real physical storage, and that the more representative technique is to consolidate multiple storage devices and manage them on a single console. This technology can quickly gain a niche in the business world, and there is no doubt that it has its own characteristics: In many cases it can help ease the burden of storage management; provide a better model for data center migration, backup, and disaster recovery.

Enterasys Networks recently moved their data center from Boston to the head office in Andufer, Massachusetts. This "move" gives them a taste of the benefits of storage virtualization. Enterasys Marketing vice President Trent Waterhouse said: "Before deploying storage virtualization, such a migration will at least waste us a day, a week to complete this matter is possible." But with storage virtualization technology, the entire process takes less than 30 minutes. ”

There are some common problems that need to be considered by the storage administrator to be able to deploy storage virtualization items at present, they should definitely make the question mark in the mind clear. Let's take a look at some of the more representative questions below.

Does virtualization need to be monitored at all times?

Compared to storage virtualization, allocating storage is a little easier--perhaps too easy.

Jonathan Smith, chief executive of Itoncommand, warns IT managers to keep a close eye on storage and the job requirements of each application: "You can influence a lot of systems." You may not have this power before, but all of a sudden you can manipulate them as you like. ”

Smith's company is currently using the Lefthand networks virtualization system built with HP storage. An IT administrator, he says, may see a lot of unused space in a particular storage area and create the desire to fill it. If the storage is assigned to a database, or some I/O-intensive applications, the overuse of resources can have an impact on performance.

"Be sure to identify the right space and really understand the performance of the runtime environment your application requires," Smith said. ”

These concerns are very pragmatic, especially when it comes to an integral part of virtualization technology-automatic streamlining of configurations. Compared with physical allocations, IT administrators can give the current application more storage capacity by automating the streamlining of configuration technology. The benefit of this is that it solves the problem of unused storage space for the application, and the resulting excessive storage space supply.

With the automatic compact configuration technology, you can use more than 100% of the storage capacity allocated to your application because it does not consume all of the disk capacity at once.

Truly Nolen Pest control, a system engineer Themis Tokkaris, says that users can ensure system security by allocating less volume space than physical capacity, or allocating storage space to each application as much as necessary. The system is then monitored at any time. If you want to find a balance between application and storage space, this is the best way to do it.

Tokkaris said: "You have to monitor the resource footprint to prevent storage space from being filled because it really destroys everything." ”

Can server virtualization work independently?

A common problem is that if you are not using server virtualization technology, does it make sense to deploy storage virtualization separately? The answer is yes. Although, in fact, you don't get much flexibility compared to how servers and storage are virtualized. IBM Storage Virtualization Marketing manager Chris Saul said: "If you virtualize both, you'll get the most flexibility when deploying new applications." "However, it is also beneficial to make storage virtualization stand alone."

Storage Virtualization Vendor DataCore SOFTWAREPRODUCT Marketing Manager Augie Gonzalez says that without a virtual server, it can still improve operational conditions such as disaster recovery, availability, and data migration. In addition, storage virtualization itself can provide an automated, streamlined configuration technology, along with the consequent simplification of management architectures for centralized management of storage devices, and so on. But looking back, there is no virtualization storage, and a single run of virtualized servers is a bit of a problem. Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) analyst Mark Peters said it was inconceivable that multiple virtual servers configured on the same physical device could not share data. "Even without server virtualization, you can get a lot of benefits from storage virtualization," Eters said. The opposite is not so easy. ”

Is it possible to buy only one storage vendor's product?

Since virtualization is designed to consolidate multiple storage devices, if all components come from one vendor, the effect is not obvious.

This has become a common practice in people's mouth. However, storage analyst Arun Taneja said: "Many people believe that storage virtualization has a heterogeneous premise, that is, some people's view is that there are three companies participating in the same time to make storage virtualization effective." All I have to say is, forget about this kind of talk. Even if you insist on signing with only one supplier, there is no problem. ”

Compared to other it areas, the storage market is more proprietary, says Taneja. This leads to problems if you just love a storage vendor.

For example, if you are an EMC customer and have two Symmetrix DMX box products, Taneja said: "You just want to integrate the two into one management, but you can't do that without storage virtualization, which is ridiculous logic in the storage world." "When you want to manage the storage devices of multiple vendors, the exclusive level of this" ridiculous logic "presents a new feature in the storage market. And that's exactly what we're going to talk about here.

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Buy virtualization products from device vendors or third parties

It is a problem to buy a storage virtualization product from a vendor or a third party, and it often leads to a dilemma in corporate procurement. Taneja says that if you value flexibility, especially if you plan to migrate your primary data, third-party companies are a better choice. such as Fei Kang Software and datacore have the ability to manage multiple vendors at the same time storage devices, whether EMC, HP, IBM, Hitachi.

Truly Nolen chose a third-party manufacturer DataCore, although truly Nolen used HP storage. Tokkaris said the truly Nolen had evaluated virtualization vendors, including HP, EMC and Dell EqualLogic, but was finally positioned on the datacore, mainly because it was cheaper and more flexible on the compatibility of hardware vendors.

Most storage vendors are committed to managing heterogeneous environments. These include products such as IBM SAN Volume Controller, NetApp v-series, and EMC Invista. However, the industry's unspoken rule is that manufacturers will prefer to support their own storage products, compatible with other manufacturers of products are actually placed in a secondary position.

Taneja said: "Manufacturers will continue to support their own systems, as always. This means that EMC Invista supports DMX and CLARiiON products, and they may support other devices, but this support is always deferred and the support level is not complete. This is called not to stand in the same trench as the enemy. "Peters predicts that as storage virtualization technology becomes increasingly popular, market pressures will force manufacturers to do their jobs better so that they can support competitor technology."

In fact, if your storage device is purchased from the same manufacturer, the solution is simple. "I told some people that if you are a Hitachi customer and a big fan, buy their virtualization products to liberate themselves," Taneja said. ”

Where is virtualization a "panacea" that works?

In most cases, storage virtualization simplifies operations. Who doesn't want to manage multiple storage devices from a single console, increasing the mobility of data and making disaster recovery easy? Peters a metaphor that storage virtualization would be a car that didn't last two years: "There's got to be a better, smarter technology than the human thing." ”

However, even storage virtualization vendors acknowledge that there are examples that this technology is not suitable for all situations. "Storage virtualization does not apply to every business," says Kyle Fitze, head of HP's storage market. Virtualization, he argues, actually adds a layer of complexity to the storage process, and you manage the virtual layer in addition to managing individual storage devices. He added that despite the virtualization of the enterprise, you would still have to reconfigure the device after adding a new physical drive to the disk array. As a general rule of thumb, the more complex the storage system environment, the greater the benefits of virtualization.

Fitze said: "There will be a complex and effective lever." If the current environment is complex and difficult to manage, adding a virtual layer can simplify this complexity. If the virtualized environment itself is not large and can be managed effectively without data protection, virtualization may not be a good idea for virtualization. ”