Deploying server virtualization requires two major hurdles

Http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/13995.html "> The value of server virtualization technology has been proven in many environments, and more and more users are beginning to consider the use of virtualization to improve the efficiency of the data center's main workload. While virtualization of mission-critical applications can bring benefits, there are still two of questions in the minds of IT professionals. First, since traditional backup technology is not available for virtual environments, how can you protect virtual workloads? We're talking about mission-critical applications! Second, I know that virtualization can streamline the infrastructure of the server while also leading to higher storage costs. So, how can you achieve both server virtualization and storage cost reduction?

ESG published a report on the impact of server virtualization on data protection, noting that most respondents asked about the most important server virtualization measures of the year 2010 that the importance of backup, recovery, and replication was second only to virtualized more workloads.

It is understandable that server virtualization cannot use traditional backup processes. Consolidation of servers and workloads leaves the system with very limited resources to perform data replication for backup applications. In a virtual server environment, CPU utilization climbs from an average of about 20% of physical servers to more than 60% to 70%, leaving the resources extremely limited to the resource-intensive work of backup. In addition, the utilization rate of network resources has greatly improved, the idle bandwidth is pitiful, it is difficult to meet the demand of massive data transmission of backup operation.

These factors have made IT professionals extremely cautious in moving their critical applications to virtual platforms. Such applications need to be backed up regularly, and in many cases, these workloads are difficult to meet in the backup window on the physical infrastructure. While some emerging technologies can solve some of the challenges, in most cases these solutions can only be applied to a specific virtual infrastructure and not across platforms. Still, in ESG's report, 77% of respondents tend to have the same set of backup and recovery solutions for the virtual and physical infrastructure.

Obviously, we do need to change the way data is protected. The CDP can effectively protect the virtual and physical environment. The solution uses a data protection pattern around storage to crawl applications to write data and create multiple recovery points at local and remote sites. This translates the bulk backup job into a continuous process, reducing the need for CPU and network resources to maintain a copy of the primary workload. These staging recovery points are application-consistent and can be used at any time to restore operations, making the lengthy recovery process an instant-usable pattern that greatly improves the delivery of service levels.

Another major obstacle to deploying server virtualization is the cost of storage infrastructure. The surge in virtual servers has led to a surge in storage capacity requirements. In addition, server virtualization requires shared storage to achieve server and application mobility, while shared storage resources are much more expensive than direct-attached storage (DAS).

Storage virtualization allows consolidation of disparate storage technologies into a pool of storage resources to optimize utilization and reduce waste while delivering the benefits of virtualization to the storage infrastructure level: increasing availability and data mobility, saving storage costs, and comprehensive data protection capabilities such as snapshots and replication. In addition, the fly-back CDP solution integrates disaster Recovery (DR) tools, such as VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager, so that replication between different storage platforms can be replicated to automate failover and failback operations, Thus reducing the cost of disaster recovery.

Every time a new technology is born, it will bring new opportunities and challenges. Server virtualization has proven to be a valuable technology, providing an excellent opportunity to manage and deliver better services and reduce costs. The advantages of this technology outweigh its drawbacks, and we now have the technology to overcome these shortcomings, with the use of the technologies of CDP, which can take full advantage of virtualization technology to create far more value than ever for businesses of any size.