Storage virtualization Products | SANmelody | Go Virtual
Anchors Away! DataCore Storage Virtualization and SAN Solutions Run “Hardware-Free” on Virtual Machines
Storage Solutions Join Business Applications in the Movement to “Run Virtual”
Read the complete announcement…
Running DataCore Software storage virtualization solutions on a Virtual Machine (VM)
Introduction:
DataCore Software has announced support for implementing its storage virtualization and SAN management solutions as "virtual servers." These DataCore™ solutions will run on many different server virtualization platforms, such as those from VMware, Xensource and Microsoft. The implications of creating a DataCore virtual SAN storage server on a virtual server, sometimes referred to as a "virtual machine" or "VM," are meaningful in terms of savings through consolidation and in the new opportunities it affords for practical collaboration between the DataCore and the server virtualization platform vendors. Even more significant is what this represents to the continuing evolution of the market away from fixed, single purpose, hardware-based storage solutions to flexible, hardware-independent, software-based storage solutions and infrastructures.
The innovation of running a DataCore storage virtualization server on a virtual machine is subject to the same resource considerations present whenever running any application on a virtual machine is contemplated. DataCore believes that the implementation of DataCore storage virtualization on virtual servers has a number of practical applications in the large number of businesses and other environments in which there is a need to stretch IT budgets. It reduces cost and other barriers that have hampered server virtualization deployment, and radically simplifies SAN infrastructures and shared storage for VMs.
High Level Recommendations:
Performance and Sizing Considerations:
It is critical to understand that the I/O in a virtual server environment is shared among all VMs and, therefore, it is essential that the underlying hardware platforms and storage hardware are capable of delivering the needed performance and CPU horsepower to meet the overall needs of running VMs and storage services. The analysis required is similar to sizing platform requirements for database servers, mail servers, virtual server platforms or any other multi-user based system. Simply put, overall performance will depend on the underlying hardware platform and the workload. In highly intensive I/O storage environments, we recommend implementing DataCore storage virtualization on a dedicated physical server.
High-Availability: While it may be common sense, we think it worthwhile to caution that achieving high availability with DataCore storage servers requires that each storage server be installed on a separate physical server (1 instance needs to run on one virtual server platform and 1 instance on the other). Running the DataCore storage servers on virtual machines located on a single physical server creates a single point of failure, negating high availability.
Testing and Development; Product Evaluation: DataCore storage servers on VMs can be an ideal solution for test labs and development groups. In these environments, users can easily set up complete virtual environments including servers and SAN storage in minutes. Implementing DataCore storage servers on VMs is also very beneficial to the rapid deployment of proofs of concept (POCs) demonstrating the advantages of DataCore storage virtualization in server virtualization environments.
Overview:
"The DataCore storage server itself can now be a virtual machine that runs on top of a virtual machine server! In other words, the same machine that creates virtual machines can also act as a storage server for all those virtual machines, adding yet another level of consolidation."
DataCore SANmelody™ storage servers, which deliver virtual storage to physical servers and virtual machines, can be installed on and serve storage from virtual machines created by virtual server platforms, such as those from VMware, Citrix and Microsoft. Installing SANmelody software on a virtual machine running Windows will enable the VM to take on the personality of a storage server subsystem and serve iSCSI-based virtual storage to other VM's or physical machines over Ethernet networks. In configuring the VM that will host SANmelody, one should properly assign and size cpu, memory and disk resources in order to meet the needs of the VM for SANmelody. SANmelody will manage and virtualize those disk resources and serve virtual volumes created from those resources for use over the network.
Other Considerations
Hardware / Infrastructure requirements:
Aside from the usage recommendations set forth above, there are no new special requirements in order to run SANmelody on a VM. However, it is good practice in any SANmelody implementation to 'upsize' the underlying hardware platforms to account for future workload growth. See SANmelody's standard prerequisites list.
Below are some other recommendations and best practices:
- Run dedicated private networks (e.g., Ethernet) for optimal iSCSI disk I/O
- Use as many connections or NICs as the virtual machine server platform has installed. Dedicate the NICs exclusively to the VM's being used with SANmelody.
- Currently, iSCSI only is supported in VM implementations, because virtual Fibre Channel is not yet available. Virtual HBA solutions from Emulex and QLogic are currently in beta. Availability information will be updated in the future.
- Allocate as much memory to the SANmelody VM as you would a physical server running SANmelody.
- VMware ESX note: Don't use the memory ballooning feature which allows identical memory contents of the virtual machines to be stored in one physical memory address. (Allows memory consolidation / over subscription.)
- We recommend dedicating at least one CPU to the VM running SANmelody. No more than two dedicated CPUs are needed.
- Either file system or raw disks are supported as disk resources for DataCore to manage.
- - Raw disks vs. file system is a trade-off of speed vs. ease of management
- - Raw disks will be much faster, because there is no File System penalty
- - File System is easier to manage
- With VMware you can use either Raw or File System disks
- With Xensource you can only use File System
Notes for VMware ESX VMotion Features
NOTE: If you VMotion the VM running DataCore, stop the I/O (by stopping the SANmelody service) prior to doing so.
Additional Best Practices:
- Partnering of storage servers for high availability is supported.
- - The partnering needs to be across two (independent hardware systems) Virtual Machine servers to achieve high availability. Running 2 instances on the same virtual server makes the virtual server a single point of failure and therefore negates the high availability aspects.
- - Dedicated virtual NIC ports recommended for DataCore management communication, iSCSI Target and iSCSI mirrors and storage assure highest performance and availability
- - Shared purpose NICs are supported but not best practice.
Additional information on this subject will be forthcoming in future DataCore Technical FAQs.
Restrictions may apply, please see support website for further information
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