May 2016

Datanet Systems and VMware have recently organized the “VMware uncovered” workshop that included practical solutions for increasing performance and storage capacity with VMware Virtual SAN as well as ways to simplify and automate network management using the VMware tandem NSX – SRM. The workshop brought together over 40 virtualization, storage and networking specialists interested in increasing the availability of data and applications, as well as optimizing management processes.

Alexandru Tecuceanu, Data Center Consultant at Datanet Systems, presented a series of scenarios where VMware Virtual SAN responds to the need to increase the performance and capacity of companies with extensive virtual infrastructures.

Virtual SAN is a Software Defined Storage (SDS) solution, optimized for VMware virtual environments, which has a number of implicit advantages:

– is hardware-neutral (using the hypervisor does not depend on the type of storage equipment used);

– aggregates and abstracts existing storage resources internally and / or externally;

– enables automation of processes at the virtual machine level (specific policies can be defined and applied on each specific VM);

– ensures access to enterprise services (replication, cloning, snapshot, etc.)

– centralizes and simplifies storage resource management.

VMware Virtual SAN offers increased flexibility in configuration, ensures the management of hybrid architectures (using HDD and Flash storage systems) as well as those using only Flash devices. The solution is designed to meet both specific performance enhancement needs (can be configured to provide 15,000-20,000 IOPS and a capacity of about 6 TB in one node) as well as storage capacity (5,000-10,000 IOPS and a 48 TB capacity in one node).

Virtual SAN is simple to deploy and configure and can be quickly expanded. The solution ensures a high level of resilience (“0 downtime” through unified cache mechanisms, automatic debugging, etc.) and integrates a monitoring service that indicates in real-time the estimated lifespan of storage devices.

The new Virtual SAN (6.2) version offers IPv6 support, it allows the use of RAID 5 arrays (load factor 1.33) and RAID 6 (load factor 1.5) and includes:

– deduplication (cluster) and compression functionalities to reduce the storage space used;

– the Quality of Service (QoS) feature for the dynamic allocation of resources, regardless of the machines’ order of provisioning;

– Software Checksum features for “silent corruption”;

– Client Cache option – uses a percentage of virtual machine memory (up to 4%) to increase performance;

– Health Service feature, which analyzes and reports the level of performance and loading degree. (Capacity limit values can be set, and once exceeded, the solution performs automatic rebalancing operations, issues alert alerts, etc.).

“By using all of these combined features, VMware Virtual SAN delivers significant savings by eliminating the need for network infrastructure investments, allowing incremental storage capacity to grow as needed, reducing configuration effort, automating virtual machine provisioning operations, and simplifying the process of “capacity planning.” In total, Virtual SAN can provide a TCO of up to 50% lower,” explains Alexandru Tecuceanu, Datanet Systems.

Virtual SAN integrates natively with all VMware solutions and there is already an extensive partner ecosystem with compatible technologies (“Virtual SAN ready”).

Cristian Radu, VMware System Engineer, presented, during the workshop, practical ways in which the use of VMware NSX and Site Recovery Manager (SRM) reduces the effort of network configuration and management in Disaster Recovery websites. “Combined with SRM, NSX offers a low RTO (Recovery Time Objective), improves the efficiency of Disaster Recovery architectures, and provides rapid upgrade and testing of Disaster Recovery Plans. NSX – SRM Tandem supports any type of architecture, automates routine processes, simplifies management and eliminates the need for investment in other adjacent solutions, ” the VMware specialist said. The workshop was completed by a presentation of the latest changes introduced by VMware in the application packaging, pricing and licensing policies.

For more information about the solutions presented in the workshop, contact the Datanet Systems team.

 

VMware Virtual SAN: 

https://www.vmware.com/products/virtual-san/ 

https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vsan/VMware_Virtual_SAN_Datasheet.pdf 

 

VMware NSX – SRM:

https://www.vmware.com/products/nsx?src=www_bestmatch_us 

https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/SRM/vmware-site-recovery-manager-whats-new.pdf

 

Learn more about the Datanet Systems portfolio in our dedicated section.
Pentru mai multe informații, contactați:
Gabriel Mușat
Technical and Marketing Manager
office@datanets.ro
www.datanets.ro