nl vmug usercon – march 19 2015 flex sen with x240 blade series; ... config – vmx, logs, nvram,...

NL VMUG UserCon – March 19 2015

Goodbye SAN huggersHello Virtual SAN and Virtual

Volumes

vSAN & VVOL Deepdive

We need to transform storage the way we transformed compute

Fast and Simple Provisioning Application-Centric Control Memory

CPU

Memory

CPU

Automated Self-Tuning

5

Customers Face Several Challenges with Storage Today

Device-centric Silos

✖ Static classes of service

✖ Rigid provisioning

✖ Lack of granular control

✖ Frequent data migrations

✖ Time consuming processes

✖ Lack of automation

✖ Slow reaction to request

Complex Processes

VIAdmin

StorageAdmin

App Admin

✖ Not commodity

✖ Low utilization

✖ Overprovisioning

Specialized Expensive HW

6

A New Approach is Needed: Software-Defined Storage

New Control Plane

From Hardware-centric to App-centric

New Data Plane

From Specialized to Industry Standard Hardware

Software-Defined StorageStorage Today

• Policy-driven automation• Common across arrays• Dynamic control

• Server SAN• Flash accelerated• Distributed

7

The hypervisor is best positioned

(1) Gartner Market Trends: x86 Server Virtualization, Worldwide, 2013

Why the Hypervisor:

• Over 70% of x86 server workloads are virtualized1

• It’s inherently app-aware

• Sits directly in the I/O path

• Has global view of underlying storage resources

• It’s hardware agnostic

vSphere

8

VMware Software-Defined Storage – The Control PlaneStorage Policy-Based Management Delivers App-centric Storage Automation

Capacity Performance

Availability Data Services

2 Failures to tolerate

Reserve thick 10 GB Reserve 200 IOPs

Snapshot

Replication

Deduplication

• Intelligent placement

• Fine control of services at VM level

• Automation at scale through policy

• Extensibility to storage arrays through vSphere Virtual Volumes

Storage Policy-Based Mgmt

vSphere

(Virtual) SAN

9

Virtual SAN

VMware® vSphere ® Storage Policy-Based Mgmt

• App-centric storage automation• Common mgmt across heterogeneous arrays

VMware® Virtual SAN™

• Hyper-converged architecture• Data persistence delivered from the hypervisor

The VMware Software-Defined Storage VisionTransforming Storage the Way Server Virtualization Transformed Compute

vSphere

11

VMware Virtual SAN

• Storage scale out architecture built into the hypervisor

• Aggregates locally attached storage from each ESXi host in a cluster

• Dynamic capacity and performance scalability

• Flash optimized storage solution • Fully integrated with vSphere and

interoperable:• vMotion, DRS, HA, VDP, VR …

• VM-centric data operations

+ + + ++ + +

…

+

12

vSphereStorage Policy-Based Mgmt

vSphere

VMware Software-Defined Storage - Data Plane

Virtual SANWhy now?• Greater CPU core

densities• Server-side flash• Flash interfaces standards

(i.e. NVMe)

Benefits• Brings data closer to

compute• Granular elastic scale out• Sever side economics

Hyper-converged

From single x86 platform

COMPUTE STORAGECompute Storage

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Enterprise-Class Scale and Performance

Hosts / Cluster 32 64 64

IOPS / Host 20K 40K 90K

VMs / Host 100 200 200

VMs / Cluster 3200 6400 6400

Max VMDK Size 2TB 62TB 62TB

Virtual SAN5.5

Virtual SAN6.0 Hybrid

Virtual SAN6.0 All-Flash

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Virtual SAN Implementation Details

Virtual SAN requires:– Minimum of 3 hosts in a cluster configuration– All 3 host must contribute storage

– Locally attached devices• Flash based devices (SSD)• Magnetic disks (HDD)• Max of 35 capacity devices per host with 4TB drives in a 64 host cluster that’s almost 9 Petabyte!

– Network connectivity• 10GbE Ethernet (preferred)• 1GbE Ethernet

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Virtual SAN All-Flash

• Flash-based devices used for caching as well as capacity

• Cost-effective all-flash 2-tier model:o Cache is 100% write: using write-intensive,

higher grade flash-based devices

o Persistent storage: can leverage lower cost read-intensive flash-based devices

• Very high IOPS: up to 90K IOPS/Host• Consistent performance with sub-

millisecond latencies

Virtual SAN All-Flash

…

+ + + +

16

Virtual SAN Hybrid

• Software-defined storage built into vSphere• Runs on any standard x86 server• Pools magnetic disks into a shared datastore• Managed through per-VM storage policies• Delivers high performance through flash

acceleration• 2x more IOPS with VSAN Hybrid (6.0)

• Up to 40K IOPS / host• Highly resilient - zero data loss in the event of

hardware failures• Deeply integrated with the VMware stack

Virtual SAN Hybrid

…

+ + + +

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3 ways to deploy Virtual SAN

VMware EVO:RAIL HCIA

• Maximum simplicity• Prebuilt Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

Appliance (HCIA)

• EVO:RAIL Rapid Deployment and Configuration Engine

• Single SKU for hardware, software,and SnS

• Transformational user experience

Virtual SAN built from HCL components

• Maximum choice• Go through HCL to find certified

combination

• Assemble hardware

• Procure many SKUs:• Hardware platform• Hardware SnS• Software + SnS• Possible services

Virtual SANReady Node

• Manufacturer specifies hardware configuration from HCL components

• Hardware is prebuilt; customerinstalls and configures vSphere& Virtual SAN

• Procure:• Hardware platform• Hardware SnS• Software + SnS• Possible services

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HW Considerations - Check the VMware Compatibility Guide

Any Server on the VMware Compatibility

Guide

SAS/SATA/PCIe SSD

SAS/NL-SAS/SATA HDD

SAS/SATA Controllers

vSphere Edition

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Support for Blade-only Direct Attached JBODs

2015 & 2016

Storage Blades

Blade Servers

SAS

Con

nect

ion

• Manage disks in enclosures

• Enables Virtual SAN to scale on blade servers by adding more storage to blade servers with few or no local disks

• Flash acceleration provided on the server or in the subsystem

• Supported on both VSAN 5.5 and 6.0

• Examples: – IBM Flex SEN with x240 Blade Series– Dell FX2 with 12G ControllersDirect Attach Compute:Storage 1:1

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Yes… really simple!Virtual SAN is a cluster level feature similar to:

– vSphere DRS– vSphere HA– Virtual SAN

Deployed, configured and manage from vCenter through the vSphere Web Client– Radically simple

• Configure VMkernel interface for Virtual SAN• Enable Virtual SAN by clicking Turn On

21

Define a policy first…

• Virtual SAN currently surfaces five unique storage capabilities to vCenter Server

What If APIs

22

And if you configured it correctly, things are easy!

All VM provisioning operation include access to VM Storage Policies

23

It is just a datastore like any other, well but then cooler

Virtual SAN understands the capabilities in the VM Storage Policy, VM can be provisioned

24

Number of Failures to Tolerate

Number of failures to tolerate– Defines the number of hosts, disk or network failures a storage object can tolerate. For “n” failures

tolerated, “n+1” copies of the object are created and “2n+1” host contributing storage are required

vsan network

vmdkvmdk witness

esxi-01 esxi-02 esxi-03 esxi-04

~50% of I/O ~50% of I/O

Virtual SAN Policy: “Number of failures to tolerate = 1”

raid-1

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Number of Disk Stripes Per Object

Number of disk stripes per object– The number of HDDs across which each replica of a storage object is distributed. Higher values may

result in better performance.

vsan network

stripe-2b witness

esxi-01 esxi-a02 esxi-03 esxi-04

stripe-1bstripe-1a stripe-2a

raid-0raid-0

VSAN Policy: “Number of failures to tolerate = 1” + “Stripe Width =2”

raid-1

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Configure through Web Client / Host Profiles / RVC Create fault domains to increase availability

Four defined fault domains

FD1 = esxi-01, esxi-02


To protect against one rack failure only 2 replicas are required

Fault Domains, increasing availability through awareness



vsan network

vmdk

esxi-01 esxi-02 esxi-03 esxi-04

raid-1

esxi-05 esxi-06 esxi-07 esxi-08Rack 1 – FD1 Rack 3 – FD3

vmdk

Rack 2 – FD2 Rack 4 – FD4

witness

27

VSAN FS

Performance Snapshots and Clones

• Virtual SAN 6.0 uses new on-disk format (VirstoFS)

• Virtual SAN 5.5 snapshots were based on vmfsSparse

• vsanSparse based snapshots deliver performance comparable to native SAN snapshots.

– vsanSparse takes advantage of the new on-disk format writing and extended caching capabilities to deliver efficient performance.

– Redirect on Write mechanism

snapshots clones

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Virtual SAN 6 Delivers New High Performance Snapshots

• New redirect-on-write snapshot

• Greater snapshot depth (up to 32snapshots per object)

• Minimal performance degradation– As low as 2% from base

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31

% D

egra

datio

n

Snapshot Depth

Snapshot Performance

<2% impact

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Virtual SAN Partners… just to name a few

vSphereStorage Policy-Based Mgmt

Virtual SAN

Storage Policy-Based Mgmt

VMware Software-Defined Storage

Virtual Datastore

30

vSphere Virtual VolumesA More Efficient Operational Model For External Storage

31

vSphere Virtual VolumesManagement & Integration Framework for External Storage

VirtualVolumes

The Basics

• Virtualizes SAN and NAS devices

• Virtual disks are natively represented on arrays

• Enables VM granular storage operations using array-based data services

• Storage Policy-Based Management enables automated consumption at scale

• Supports existing storage I/O protocols (FC, iSCSI, NFS)

• Industry-wide initiative supported by major storage vendors

• Included with vSphere Standard

32

vSphere Virtual Volumes Architecture

vSphereVirtual Volumes

SAN / NAS

Vendor Provider (VASA)

Control Path

Control Path

Storage Policies

Access

Capacity

Published Capabilities

Snapshot

Replication

Deduplication

QoS

Virtual Datastore

Storage Admin

VI Admin

VVOLs

DataPathProtocol Endpoint PE

33

vSphere Virtual Volumes

• Virtual Volumes – Virtual machine objects stored natively on the

array– No Filesystem on-disk formatting required

• There are five types of Virtual Volumes:– CONFIG – vmx, logs, nvram, log files, etc

– DATA – VMDKs

– MEM – Snapshots

– SWAP – Swap files

– Other – Vendor solution specific

vSphere Web Client View

34

Protocol EndpointProtocol Endpoints• Access points that enables communication

between ESXi hosts and storage array systems.– Part of the physical storage fabric– Created by Storage administrators

Scope of Protocol Endpoints• Compatible with all SAN and NAS Protocols:

- iSCSI- NFS v3 - FC- FCoE

• A Protocol Endpoint can support any one of the protocols at a given time

• Existing multi-path policies and NFS topology requirements can be applied to the PE

Why Protocol Endpoints?SAN / NAS

Virtual Datastore

Data PathProtocol Endpoint PE


Storage Container

35

Protocol Endpoints• Today, there are different types of logical management

constructs to store VMDKs/objects:– NFS Mount Points– IP or block based datastores

• Datastores serve two purposes today:– Endpoints – receive SCSI or NFS reads, write

commands– Storage Container – for large number of VMs

metadata and data files

• Differences between Protocol Endpoints and Datastores:– PEs no longer stores VMDKs but it only becomes

the access point– Now you won’t need as many datastores or mount

points as before

• Certain offloading operation will be done via VASA and other will be done using the standard protocol commands

vSphere

storage fabric

PEprotocol endpointSCSI: proxy LUNNFS: mount-point

datastore = protocol endpoint + storage container

storage system

1 VVOL per VMDK

One entity on the fabric

36

Storage Container

vSphere Web Client

Storage Management UI

Datastore

Storage Container

• What does the vSphere Admins see?• Why are we still creating datastores in this

new model?

• What do the Storage Admins see?• How are the storage containers setup?

37

Storage ContainerStorage Containers

• Logical storage constructs for grouping of virtual volumes.

• Typically defined and setup by storage administrators on the array in order to define:

– Storage capacity allocations and restrictions

• Capacity is based on physical storage capacity

• Logically partition or isolate VMs with diverse storage needs and requirement

– Storage policy settings based on data service capabilities

• Minimum one storage container per array

• Maximum depends on the array

vSphere Virtual Volumes

SAN / NAS

Storage Containers

38

vSphere APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA)

What does the vSphere Admin see?

What does the Storage Admin see?

Storage policies

vSphere Web Client

Storage Management UI

Datastore

Storage Container

Storage Capabilities

virtual volumes

virtual machines

39

VASA Provider (VP)

• Software component developed by Storage Array Vendors

• ESX and vCenter Server connect to VASA Provider

• Provides storage awareness services

• Single VASA Provider can manage multiple arrays

• VASA Provider can be implemented within the array’s management server or firmware

• Responsible for creating Virtual Volumes

SAN / NAS

Virtual Datastore

DataPathProtocol Endpoint PE


Storage Container

Vendor Provider (VASA)

Control Path

Control Path

40

Storage Capabilities and VM Storage Policies

• Storage Capabilities – are array based features and data services specifications that capture storage requirements that can be satisfied by a storage arrays advertised as capabilities.

• Storage capabilities define what an array can offer to storage containers as opposed to what the VM requires.

• Arrays Storage Capabilities are advertises to vSphere through the Vendor Provider and VASA APIs

• In vSphere Storage Capabilities are consumed via VM Storage Policy constructs.

• VM Storage Policies is a component of the vSphere Storage Policy-based management framework (SPBM)

SPBM

object manager

virtual disk

Datastore ProfileVM Storage Policy

vSphere VM Storage Policy Management Framework

Storage Capabilities for Storage Array

Access

Capacity

Published CapabilitiesSnapshot

Replication

Deduplication

QoS

Virtual Datastore

41

Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) – VM Policies

42

Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM)

43

Storage Container

vvol

DATA

vvol

CONF

vvol

SWAP

vvol

DATA

vvol

CONF

vvol

SWAP

VM Provisioning Workflow

storage arrays

PE

vSphere Admin1. Create Virtual Machines2. Assign a VM Storage Policy3. Choose a suitable Datastore

Under the Covers

• Provisioning operations are translated into VASA API calls in order to create the individual virtual volumes.

Under the Covers

• Provisioning operations are offloaded to the array for the creation of virtual volumes on the storage container that match the capabilities defined in the VM Storage Policies

offload to array

Virtual Datastore


44

Snapshots• Snapshots are a point in time copy on write

image of a Virtual Volume with a different ID from the original.

• Virtual Volumes snapshots are useful in the contexts of creating:– a quiesced copy for backup or archival

purposes, creating a test and rollback environment for applications, instantly provisioning application images, and so on.

• Two type of snapshots supported:– Managed Snapshot – Managed by ESX.

• A maximum of 32 snapshot are supported for fast clones

– Unmanaged Snapshot – Manage by the storage array.• Maximum snapshot dictated by the storage array

Managed Snapshot - vSphere

Unmanaged Snapshot - Array

45

vSphere Virtual Volumes Supported FeaturesSupported vSphere Features

• SPBM

• Thin Provisioning

• Linked Clones

• Native Snapshots

• Protocols: NFS3, iSCSI, FC, FCoE

• View Storage Accelerator (CBRC)

• vMotion

• SvMotion

• DRS

• XvMotion

• vSphere SDK (VC APIs)

• VDPA/VDP

• View

• vRealize Operations

• vRealize Automation

• Stateless / Host Profiles

Published Capabilities

Snapshot

Replication

Dedupe

Encryption

vSphereStorage Policy-Based Mgmt.

Virtual Volumes

Storage PolicyCapacity

Availability

Performance

Data Protection

Security

PEVASA Provider

PE

46

The Benefits of vSphere Virtual VolumesA More Efficient Operational Model For External Storage

Improves Resource Utilization

• Increase capacity utilization.• Eliminate overprovisioning• Reduce management overhead

• Eliminate inefficient handoffs between VI and Storage Admin

• Faster storage provisioning through automation

• Simplified change management through flexible consumption

• Self-service provisioning via cloud automation tools.

Simplifies Storage Operations

• Leverage native array-based capabilities

• Fine control at the VM level• Dynamic configuration on the fly• Ensure compliance through policy

enforcement using automation

Simplifies Delivery of Service Levels

47

vSphere Virtual Volumes Is An Industry-wide Initiative

Multiple Ready at GA

Unique capabilities

And Many More…

29 Partners in the Program

48

Use Cases and Case Studies

49

Customer Case Study: GDF Suez Energie Nederland

Challenge• Beperkte ruimte in de 3 decentrale DC• Verouderde fysieke servers• Nieuwe oplossing noodzakelijk voor snel rapid deployment

Solution• Virtual SAN geïmplementeerd op HP servers (Rack-mounted & Blades)

Results• Management: ‘SAN’ management in dezelfde interface• Lage kosten: Door efficiënt hergebruik beschikbare middelen optimaal resultaat• Deployment: Snelle deployment voor meetsystemen tbv rotatiesnelheden generatoren

en windmolens

“We kunnen nu tegen aanzienlijke lagere kosten dan bij een ‘traditionele’ SAN oplossing snel en eenvoudig de capaciteit op een energiecentrale uitbreiden. Het is nu niets meer dan een server of extra disks toevoegen” Rene Helweg

Virtualisatie Specialist

Energiebedrijf; productie, onderhoud en distributie van elektriciteit, aardgas en duurzame energie, 147.000 werknemers, 6DC’s in NL

50

Challenge• SAN op uitwijk locatie is EOL• Geen nieuwe leveranciers en extra supportcontracten gewenst• Verouderde inbelfaciliteiten voor externe leveranciers

Solution• Virtual SAN geïmplementeerd op HP servers• VMware Horizon View geïmplementeerd

Results• VDI: VDI op basis van Horizon View & microzonering voor externe leveranciers• Eenvoudig toegang realiseren voor externe leveranciers• Budget-vriendelijk: volwaardige uitwijklocatie voor mission critical systems tegen

lage kosten

“Onze uitwijklocatie kan met een minimale configuratie in de lucht worden gehouden waarbij alleen de meest kritische systemen constant aanwezig zijn op die omgeving. In geval van een calamiteit kunnen we eenvoudig extra disks plaatsen om de overige VMs te deployen.

Rene HelwegVirtualisatie Specialist

Energiebedrijf; productie, onderhoud en distributie van elektriciteit, aardgas en duurzame energie, 147.000 werknemers, 6DC’s in NL

Customer Case Study: GDF Suez Energie Nederland

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nl vmug usercon – march 19 2015 flex sen with x240 blade series; ... config – vmx, logs, nvram,...

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