Virtualized Storage for Virtualized Workloads: The Smarter Data Center

© 2010 IBM Corporation

Virtualized Storage for Virtualized Workloads: The Smarter Data Center

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AGENDA

Why Virtualize? • Industry Trends• 2010 and Beyond• Economic and Business drivers

Storage Virtualization Comes of Age Customer Use Cases Value Proposition

• Why XIV?

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“Better together…”


Storage Virtualization Definition

“Adding an abstraction layer of software that hides the physical devices from the user and allows all devices to managed as a single pool”

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Source: “Why are IT Leaders Deploying Virtualized Storage?”, Dick Csaplar, Aberdeen Group, June 2010


What’s all the buzz about storage anyway?

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Database Data ProtectionVirtualizationE-mail Analytics

Consolidate

•Reduce cost•Reduce complexity•Reduce risk•Reduce energy and floorspace•Increase productivity•Increase reliability

© 2010 IBM Corporation5 5

IBM/XIV and VMware Global Partners

Mutual Global Partners IBM is the largest OEM of VMware on the planet! IBM XIV Storage VMware® certified for ESX 3.5 &

vSphere 4.0/4.1 Optimal Virtualization Platform


Navisite Hosting virtualizes success with IBM XIV

Challenge:–Deliver a flexible

platform at a low cost Solution: XIV Advantages:

Smaller footprint – saves75% floor space

Reduces power consumption by over 80%

Ease of management• From days to minutes

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http://www.xivstorage.com/flash/Navisite_clip.htm

http://www.xivstorage.com/materials/case_studies/navisite_casestudy_ibm_xiv.pdf


All of these key attributes with unlimited scalability

Five Key Attributes of Enterprise Storage for Virtualization

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10.03s

Darvis Patton, 2008

Old Problems – New Solutions

1:41.09

David Rushida, 2010

World record 800m

(101.09s)

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Traditionally application determines whether writes and reads are sequential or random

As VMs are added to an ESX server, the read and write data pattern becomes more randomized to disk

High random read and write access greatly reduces traditional disk performance

Disk bottlenecks reduce the consolidation ratio in the virtual infrastructure

Random I/O Characterization of VMware

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The XIV Storage System already optimizes for random read/write access

Random seek times dramatically reduced More granular and efficient caching Highest performance for consolidated

environments

Random I/O Characterization of VMware

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How is XIV different?

Controller-centric– Custom hardware and software

Centralized, shared cache– Needs lots of shared bandwidth– Complex cache lock

management Scales capacity

Grid of autonomous servers

– Software only Distributed cache

– No shared bandwidth needed– No complex lock management

Scales in every dimension

XIV Virtualized Storage Software

vs.

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© 2010 IBM Corporation12

Cache

Controllers

Interface Interface Interface

JBOD JBOD

Traditional Dual Controller I/O

IOs must pass single or dual controllerNo parallel IO -> needs fast Disks!Host spots most likely to occur

© 2010 IBM Corporation13

Data Module Data Module Data Module Data Module Data Module Data Module

Switching Switching

Data Module Data Module Data Module Data Module Data Module Data Module

Data

All IO parallel ! Totally balanced:

Paths, CPUs, Caches, Disks No hotspots!

Interface

Interface

Interface

Interface

XIV’s Parallel Architecture


vMotion with Traditional Storage

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VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

Datastore - VMFS

VMDK

CPU Overload!

Disk Hotspot

Virtual Machine heavily using CPU and DiskvMotion moves VMs non-disruptively to resolve CPU bottleneck

Virtual Disk (VMDK) has not moved and hotspot is unresolved


vMotion with XIV

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VMotion + XIV Perfect Server AND Storage Load Balancing for VMwareAll Hotspots Eliminated

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

VMDK

Datastore - VMFS

VMDK

Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1

Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1 Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1Data Module 1


Data Module 1

CPU Overload!


Traditional Storage Snapshots

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Data Module 1

LUN for VMware DataStore

Traditional Storage assigns certain spindles to the LUN of the Datastore

Incremental R/W snapshot uses the same limited spindles + snapshot reserve. Production LUN affected negatively when snapshot is in use.

To overcome negative affect on production LUNs, full clones are created for each snapshot that needs R/W access.

Full Clone of LUN for VMware DataStore

Full Clone of LUN for VMware DataStore

Snapshot Reserve


XIV Snapshots vs Traditional Storage for VMware

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Data Module 1

Incremental Snapshots perform well as blocks are already optimally distributed and configured. No dedicated reserve space required.

Disk required for read/write performance LUN snapshots is reduced exponentially compared to traditional storage


VM#4

VM#3

VM #1

VM#2

DATADATA

DATADATA

Storage Failover

Application Failover

VM#2

IBM XIV with VMware Site Recovery Manager

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Coming Attraction – VAAI* Support in Q42010

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Supported Features:Block zeroingFull copyHW-assisted locking

Benefits:Better I/O performanceReduced CPU consumptionBetter VM scalabilityFaster VM provisioning and startupFaster thin provisioning allocation

* vStorage APIs for Array integration


IBM XIV is certified with the applications you rely on

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Database Data ProtectionVirtualizationE-mail Analytics


MS Exchange Stress Test: “Simply Outstanding... Sensational…”The worst case scenario included running a new baseline Exchange Jetstress test with 50+% of the XIV architecture disabled. XIV, with a major disadvantage due to the disabled architecture, still outperformed the unencumbered HP EVA and EMC DMX architectures. Simply outstanding!

According to (customer name withheld) .... "XIV was subjected to a battery of stress test exercises that simply COULD NOT be performed on other enterprise storage platforms. XIV’s ability to extend resiliency while maintaining performance extends far beyond the breaking point of other enterprise arrays"

"XIV, with a major disadvantage due to a 50+% disabled architecture, still outperformed the unencumbered HP EVA and EMC DMX architectures. Simply outstanding!"

"Sensational performance marks, in my opinion.."

faster than HP EVA & DMX-4

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Why XIV With VMware? Ideal pairing for virtualized servers with virtualized storage

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Performance: – What would it mean to you if you never had to

worry about HOT SPOTS in your storage?– Optimal Data Placement – data in the right place

without manual intervention– Servers and Storage enhanced in parallel -

Servers and now storage able to take advantage of advances in commodity components

Simplicity– Easy Management - Reduced complexity of

common storage tasks– XIV does with storage what VMware does with

servers – optimizing resources the first time– XIV is evenly distributed which means

consistent storage performance for all VMs Reduced Cost and TCO

– 50-60% less than any other storage platform


THANK YOUTHANK YOU

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Virtualized Storage for Virtualized Workloads: The Smarter Data Center

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