Integration and unification to build a flexible and optimized virtualization architecture

In the blink of an eye, virtualization technology has gone through more than 10 years of ups and downs, and there is no sign of slowing down. As enterprise data centers move quickly towards private clouds, virtualization technology is evolving from "optional" as a support technology to an "essential option" that integrates with the underlying architecture.

For enterprise data center, especially with the most famous server virtualization technology, after the practice of enterprise, server virtualization technology to data center operation value is gradually highlighted, and has "subversive" technology prospects. To sum up, the benefits of server virtualization technology for enterprises are embodied in two aspects: first, by consolidating the physical servers and legacy storage platforms, increasing the utilization of existing hardware and software, avoiding a new round of procurement, increasing ROI, and secondly, virtualization improves the flexibility of IT systems.

There is no doubt that server virtualization technology has a positive impact on enterprise IT operations. However, with the rapid popularization of server virtualization, success is also exposed to a number of difficult operational challenges: the server integration rate gradually reached the limit, the virtual server spread has become a threat, and directly threaten cost advantages and even lead to the disappearance of cost benefits; In addition, vendors, platforms, and interfaces are incompatible, storage networks (Sans) Many architectures and protocols limit the ability of an enterprise to rapidly respond and scale capacity on demand; Finally, as virtualization supports high-performance applications and quickly becomes the default configuration platform for all workloads, enterprises urgently need platform unified management to exceed server consolidation to maximize application performance, While minimizing the cost of hardware and software operations.

Storage virtualization is closely related to server virtualization

The growing complexity of the enterprise's IT architecture is undoubtedly making it difficult for data center management to make computing and storage resources not effectively utilized, thereby wasting energy and cost. To optimize the utilization of existing resources, improve the efficiency of data mobility and the overall architecture, you have to mention another important part of virtualization-storage virtualization.

Storage virtualization is not a recent "fresh word", it is accompanied by the development of large computer a classic concept. In recent years, as enterprises begin to switch to networked storage architectures, storage virtualization has been closely associated with server virtualization, which relies on networked storage to achieve its advanced performance and maximize it flexibility. More storage virtualization is inevitable as businesses evolve to virtualize a larger proportion of servers. According to IDC, companies that deploy server virtualization and use storage virtualization have an average of 387% return on investment (ROI), including deployment time, which can be rewarded in less than 10 months. (The business value of storage virtualization from the IDC white paper)

Storage virtualization technology creates an efficient and flexible storage pool that simplifies storage operations for virtual machines and directly leverages the capabilities of the storage infrastructure, providing the most efficient way to use and manage storage systems in a virtual environment. In the case of VMware storage virtualization software, VMware Storage Virtualization Technology consolidates storage resources, implements tiered storage for data centers, consolidates applications that were deployed on more than 100 servers to more than 40 servers, and connects San storage on the back end, which back-end connection storage, Multiple servers consolidate the way the server farm, dramatically increasing the availability and reliability of servers.

Server virtualization has broken the traditional "one server for one application" approach to computing, and requires a more flexible set of infrastructure to configure and allocate storage on demand for each VM.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)