Simplifying, Virtualizing and Protecting your Data Center
1copyright I/O Continuity Group, LLC
PresentersDoug Theis, Lifeline Data CentersVP and Datacenter Security Specialist
Anne Achleman, I/O Continuity GroupVMware on SAN Specialist
David Paquette, Double-TakeSenior Technical Analyst
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Administrative information
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• Maximum Uptime and Value• Facilities – New Eastgate Mall construction• Connectivity• Security• Environments• Managed Services• Hosting/Owning/Leasing• The Lifeline Difference
Lifeline Data Centers
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Virtualization is revolutionizing IT
• It is changing how we do everything.• Offering much greater value- doing more with less.
• What do people want?
–To build and quickly deploy applications that are always available and always responsive, to drive their business non-disruptively.
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Where does Virtualization live?
• Internal datacenters• Hosted services• Computing clouds
• It’s changing how we do everything.• Virtualization cuts across physical boundaries.
• It can be adopted in phases.
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Audience
• Show of hands:– Understanding of basic SAN concepts?– Implemented a SAN already?
– Understanding of basic virtualization concepts?– Implemented virtualization already?
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Agenda
• Storage Consolidation with SAN’s• Server Consolidation with Virtualization• Best practices and how we can help
• Please hold questions to the end• Please complete post-event survey
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Einstein Quote:Explaining it to a 3 year old
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Data Proliferation• IT organizations have been battling year-after-
year information growth rates of 50 to 100 percent.
• This trend will continue into the next decade.• Just storing more data is no longer an option. • Consolidating multiple application tiers into a
single common infrastructure will lower costs and improve service levels.
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Data Explosion!!
I’m down and I can’t get up!
IT Challenge• Every new IT trend involves a:
• New vendor solution to integrate with current systems• New hardware requirements and software licensing• Need for special talent and integration strategies• More energy costs, more datacenter space, extra
cooling• Need to protect data without a lot of difficulty
• Data capacity doubles every 12-18 months (based on average business growth)
• Managing data becomes difficult and expensive• Backing up data takes longer as more data
accumulates
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Phases of Consolidation
• Reduce the need for valuable resources:
• Phase 1: All servers share the storage array(s) on a Storage Area Network
• Phase 2: Many applications running as “Virtual Machines” on fewer servers
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Top Three Questions• Why is storage important?
– 80% of most company’s capitalization– If you lose your data, corporate stability is lost– Revenues suffer when systems are down
• How can consolidation save $$$ ?– Less Hardware– Fewer IT staff– Reduced Energy Consumption
• How do you choose?– Storage Area Networks (Fibre Channel or iSCSI)– Virtualization (VMware, Virtual Iron, Hyper-V)
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Storage Basics• Every operating system and application
NEEDS a DISK to hold data:• Web sites, e-mail servers, databases,
video recordings, etc
• What happens when data grows quickly or disks get full?
• Data keeps growing
• Adding more disks can lead to interruptions and downtime.
• Server becomes unmanageable when it is difficult to predict storage needs.
copyright I/O Continuity Group, LLC 14Consolidated
Not Consolidated
Pre-SAN=Direct-Attached Storage • One-to-one model leads to
“server sprawl” when simply more disks may be needed.
• Servers are each attached directly to dedicated storage.
• No disk sharing among servers means manual management.
• No dynamic scalability/growth• Difficult to know future server
capacity needs upfrontcopyright I/O Continuity Group, LLC 15
ServersNot sharing
storage
Storage Array holding disks
Storage Array holding disks
What is a Storage Area Network?• Storage Area Networks (SANs)
consolidate disks on their own high-speed dedicated network.
• Storage array allows addition of more disks on-the-fly.
• Servers can connect to more disk space without rebooting.
• Move more data faster and more efficiently.
• The “de facto” storage solution.
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Servers
Switches
Storage Array holding disks
HBA’s HBA’s
SAN ReliabilityHardware
• All components are duplicated (two Server HBA’s, two Switches, two Storage Controllers) so if one fails the other part takes over seamlessly.
• Vendors receive automatic notification of the failure across the internet with rapid resplacement time.
• When a new server is added there need for an experienced IT technician.
Management
• Dynamic storage means anytime a server requires more capacity, the storage array can provide it instantly.
• The server operating system is able to rescan to add the new disk volume without rebooting.
• When adding disk capacity an experienced IT technician is needed.
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DAS vs SAN FeaturesDAS
• Standalone disk enclosures• One-to-one model – no
switched network• Hardware intensive• Management intensive• No redundancy (expect
downtime)• Capacity , management and
disk allocation is not seamless• Average speed/bandwidth 200
MB/s (with overhead)
SAN• Consolidated disk enclosures• One-to-many model with
switched network• Hardware shared• Seamless management• No single point of failure (no
downtime) “Runs by itself”• SAN foundation is required for
virtualization• Average speed/bandwidth up to
800 MB/s (less overhead)
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SAN Architecture• Current “de facto” storage design• Price has come down approx 80%
in 8 yrs• All devices must be compatible• Two connections to end devices–
no single point of failure• Dynamic scalability/growth
through plug-n-play disk shelves• Servers simply rescan for more disk
space
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Servers
Switches
Storage Array holding disks
HBA’s HBA’s
Types of SAN SwitchesFibre Channel SAN
• Fast Optical switches • Bandwidth 200- 800 MB/s• Low latency (quick
response)• More expensive• Supports demanding
workloads• Mission-critical server
applications• Limited distances 500 km
IP SAN (iSCSI)• LAN/WAN Switches (GigE)• Bandwidth avg 100 MB/s• High latency (more processing
overhead in software)• Less expensive• Supports less complex
workloads• Second-tier server applications
( ¼ performance for ¼ price)• Max distance unlimited
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SAN vs iSCSI Stacks
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SAN is fast and robust with minimal network overhead.
iSCSI is “bloated” protocol with high network overhead.
• SCSI to IP packet• Software initiators
– Built-in NICs (teaming)– CPU overhead/latency
• Hardware HBA initiators– Offloads CPU processing– MPIO multipathing
Server Host Bus AdaptersFibre Channel HBA’s
• SCSI to Fibre Channel protocol• Hardware initiator• Requires server PCI slot• Speeds: 200/400/800 MB/s• Bus technology
– PCI Express- pt-to-pt• “Multipathing” load balancing.
iSCSI Initiators
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Types of Disks and Arrays
• ATA/IDE – mostly desktops• Parallel SCSI – slower data transfer (200 MB/s)• SATA (Serial ATA) – low-cost FC drives• SAS (Serial attached SCSI) – point-to-point
• FC (fibre channel) – faster 400 MB/s– RPM speeds 10,000-15,000 – If a disk or hardware part fails, the vendor
automatically sends a replacement
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Top-to-bottom approach• Evaluate your current server/storage
arrangement and data growth• Prioritize application importance• Measure server workloads and current
performance • Tailored storage design: assign each server to
the proper storage “tier” (see next slide)• Match current and future capacity needs to
vendor storage array options.
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Tiered Storage StrategyTier 1
High end, Mission-critical
Tier 2
High-Mid rangeFibre Channel diskLocal replication
Tier 3
ATA Low-cost Fibre Channel
Tier 4
Static, Content-addressed storage
Tier 5
Archives and Tape
Availability
•Seconds to minutes •Minutes to hours •Hours •Hours •Hours to days
Performance•Dynamic workloads•Heavy transaction volume
•High performance•Constant workloads
•More read access than writes•Moderate performance
•More read access than writes•Internet performance
•Not applicable
Recovery Point•Seconds •Seconds to minutes •Minutes to hours •Up to 24 hours •Up to 72 hours
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Questions to Ask• How much storage do I have now?• How quickly is it growing?• What are my business objectives?• Is my backup window shrinking?• How many vendor solutions are going into the
mix and can my vendor support them all?• Do all the products work together?• What is the payback period (ROI/TCO) and SLAs?• How much administrative support do I need?
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Traditional Direct-attached Hosts
External SCSI Storage ArrayParallel SCSI connection
LAN
Each server is separately attached to a dedicated SCSI storage array requiring high storage maintenance with difficult scalability and provisioning.
Different vendor platforms cannot share the same external array.
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FC SAN- attached Hosts
FC Storage Array
FC Switches200 to 400
MB/s
Tape Library
Servers with NICs and FC HBA’s
LAN
FC SAN’s offer a dedicated block-level infrastructure independent of the LAN.
Brocade
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Why Virtualization?• Next level of consolidation running on top of
SAN for best performance and automation.• Consolidate multiple physical machines into
“Virtual Machines” on fewer physical servers.• Allows rapid deployment of new applications by
simple right click operation.• Less hardware means:
– Less energy consumption, heat-generated to be cooled, datacenter space occupied and IT staff.
– ROI and TCO are maximized copyright I/O Continuity Group, LLC 29
Server Consolidation• New virtualization solutions gaining popularity
– VMware – Fortune 100 market niche– Virtual Iron – SMB market niche– Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V – July RTM
• Must have “shared storage” SAN in place to optimize key virtualization features:– Live Server migration (move virtual machines on-
the-fly)– Load balancing workloads– High Availability for no downtime
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Physical Servers represent the Before illustration.
“Converter” migrates the physical machines over to Virtual Machines running on ESX in the After illustration.
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Virtualization-Value Proposition• Automation and management• Obtain much higher utilization out of your hardware
assets while building a more robust infrastructure at the same time– If a physical server fails, a “Virtual Machine” moves itself– Once installed, solution runs by itself*– Infrastructure become management-free
• **Requires a properly designed SAN foundation• Initial complexity can be simplified
– One-time migration of physical servers to virtual servers– One vendor organizing all the details.
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Phases of Virtualization Adoption1. Separate software from hardware, with ability to have
multiple copies of a working software configuration that can be cloned.
2. Separate software from the server, with the ability to run more than one isolated application on a physical server (utilization levels).
3. Ability to run software in virtual machines and dynamically move across physical boundaries.
4. Service broken things without interruption of server & dynamic allocation of apps & new capacity.
5. Manage and automate how application goes through disaster recovery.
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SAN + Virtualized Hosts
FC Storage Array
FC Switches200 to 400
MB/s
Tape Library
LAN
FC SAN’s offer a dedicated block-level infrastructure independent of the LAN.
Brocade
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2 to 20 VM’s on each server
Virtualization server Virtualization server Virtualization server
SAN Extensions• FC SANs are limited in their connection
distance to around 500 km.• Disaster recovery sites may exceed FC
distance from your datacenter.• Data replication solutions can bridge the gap
moving data from the storage stack to the standard networking stack.
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WAN connection
Datacenter
Co-Lo
Questions to ask
• How many servers do I currently have and how many do I add every year? (aka server sprawl)
• How much time do IT staff spend setting up new servers with operating system and applications?
• How often do my servers go down?• Is our IT budget shrinking?• How difficult is it to convert a physical machine
to a virtual machine with each option?• What hardware and guest OS’s are supported?
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The Technical Expertise• We are vendor-certified on supported platforms and
hardware, including:
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Vendor Neutral• There are four main benefits to designing SAN’s
independent of any single equipment vendor. • The relative importance of these benefits will change
depending on your priorities and which vendors you choose. The benefits in some cases* are:– Lower costs – Getting the best possible technology – Greater flexibility for future technology
improvements – Non-proprietary and non-exclusivity models– * DOES NOT APPLY TO ALL VENDORS
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Trusted Advisor• I/O Continuity Group will help you:
– Integrate a “no downtime” solution– Demystify technology and jargon– Blend all technologies into one whole strategy– Save costs on equipment, energy and services– Increase your ROI while reducing your TCO
• Once SANs are setup, they run non-disruptively with minimal administration and scale (grow) dynamically.– The question is not IF but WHEN you should
adopt or expand a SAN.
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I/O Continuity Group Process
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Assess
Design
Implement
Train
Manage
1. Assess: New or existing SAN
2. Design: Follow vendor roadmaps
3. Implement: Apply best practices
4. Train: IT staff to provision storage and troubleshoot
5. Manage: Easy-of-use with seamlessly scalable solution
End-to-end Data Center Management
The Engagement Process• The transformation begins with our services
– From simple “starter” SAN solutions – To complex, scalable development and virtualization.
• We make the process easy to understand:– Free pre-assessment– Design based on business objectives– Deploy and integrate entire “best practices” solution – Train IT staff to “confidently” administer and monitor– Maintenance contract for dynamic storage provisioning
• Once deployed we will help you maintain and expand your capacity dynamically over time.
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Visit www.iocontinuitygroup.com
Let us help you and your customers flip the switch!
42copyright I/O Continuity Group, LLC
David Paquette, Technical Analyst
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