VMworld is quickly approaching, and this year’s agenda is packed with software-defined storage sessions, booth demos, and hands-on labs – from Virtual SAN to Virtual Volumes. Attend VMworld 2015 to learn how you can simplify your IT infrastructure and lower storage costs in the below sessions.
New & Noteworthy
Learn the latest VSAN technical trends, customer successes, and the future of virtualized storage at these must-see sessions.
From the early days of VMware, it became clear that dealing with storage in efficient and scalable ways were key requirements for the success of virtualization in enterprise environments. Indeed, the storage stack of ESXi, including VMFS, played a key role in the proliferation of virtualization in data centers, where data is stored and managed by high-end disk arrays. Based on those foundations of storage virtualization, over the years, VMware introduced a range of availability and data management solutions ranging from HA, DRS and FT to Disaster Recovery and Data Protection. Moreover, VMware encouraged and supported a vast ecosystem of partners who innovated on the vSphere platform. See for example, the VADP ecosystem and more recently Virtual Volumes and VAIO I/O Filters.
The storage industry is undergoing rapid structural change that’s not been seen in decades.
My best soundbite is that storage is in the process of collapsing. Once a standalone topic, storage is clearly pulling away from our familiar model of external storage arrays, and disappearing into the fabric of servers and hypervisors.
While we all like to talk about disruptive industry changes, this one perhaps is the ultimate disruption: it impacts every aspect of storage: the core technology, the consumption model, the integration model as well as the operational model.
As a result, most everything we’ve come to know about storage changes going forward. For most people, what you think you know isn’t how it’s going to be before too long.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these “collapses” going on with storage today. Continue reading
Virtual SAN 6.0 introduced new changes to the structural components of its architecture. One of those changes is a new on-disk format which delivers better performance and capability enhancements. One of those new capabilities allows vSphere Admins to perform in-place rolling upgrades from Virtual SAN 5.5 to Virtual SAN 6.0 without introducing any application downtime.
Upgrading an existing Virtual SAN 5.5 cluster to Virtual SAN 6.0 is performed in multiple phases and it requires the re-formating of the of all of the magnetic disks that are being used in a Virtual SAN cluster. The upgrade is defined as a one-time procedure that is performed from RVC command line utility with a single command.
This phase of the upgrade is all components are upgraded to the vSphere 6.0 release. All vCenter Servers and ESXi hosts and all infrastructure related components need to be upgraded to version their respective and corresponding 6.0 software release. Any of the vSphere supported procedures for the individual components is supported.
This phase is where the previous on-disk format (VMFS-L) is replaced on all of the magnetic disk devices with the new on-disk format (VSAN FS). The disk format conversion procedures will reformat the disk groups and upgrade all of the objects to the new version 2. Virtual SAN 6.0 provides supports for both the previous on-disk format of Virtual SAN 5.5 (VMFS-L) as well as its new native on-disk format (VSAN FS).
While both on-disk formats are supported, it is highly recommended to upgrade the Virtual SAN cluster to the new on-disk format in order to take advantage of the performance and new available features. The disk format conversion is performed sequentially performed in a Virtual SAN cluster where the upgrade takes place one disk group per host at a time. The workflow illustrated below is repeated for all disk groups on each host before the process moves onto another host that is a member of the cluster.
By now, you’ve more than likely heard something about Software-Defined Storage. With every mention of the term, you may be wondering, “What does it mean for me?”
Wonder no longer!
The VMware Software-Defined Storage approach enables a fundamentally more efficient operational model, driving transformation through the hypervisor, bring to storage the same operational efficiency that server virtualization brought to compute. Software-Defined Storage will enable you to better handle some of the most pressing challenges storage systems face today.
During this webcast, Mauricio Barra, Senior Product Marketing Manager at VMware, will discuss the VMware Software-Defined Storage vision, the role of the hypervisor in transforming storage, as well as key architectural components of VMware Software-Defined Storage.
If you are looking to understand how Software-Defined Storage, along with the enhanced VMware Virtual SAN 6 and new VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes, can benefit your organization, now is your chance.
Register today and take the next step toward making Software-Defined Storage a reality.
Be sure to subscribe to the Virtual SAN blog or follow our social channels at @vmwarevsan and Facebook.com/vmwarevsan for the latest updates.
For more information about VMware Virtual SAN, visit http://www.vmware.com/products/virtual-san.
VMware’s 2015 Partner Exchange is now just about one week away, and it’s shaping up to be a great one!
In storage and availability we’ll have a lot to talk about across the board: Some sessions will offer deeper examinations of our current products, others will give you a great exploration of some of the newer things VMware has to showcase.
I’ve made a list of some of the sessions put on by those of us in the storage and availability product team; it’s a good cross section from product marketing, product managers, and technical marketing people such as myself. Outside of the engineers who actually write the code, these are the people closest to the products you use, so sign up and hear something new. There are also sessions from our highly experienced field sales and technical teams — the experts at understanding how these products address customer requirements and explaining their value to our customers.
I’m personally doing a technical session with my colleague Rawlinson on Virtual SAN (STO4275) and looking forward to it quite a bit.
Lastly, don’t be shy to come say hello after the sessions. We love to hear your thoughts, if we’ve got time between activities…
There’ s a lot of buzz and excitement around Software-Defined Storage (SDS) and hyper-converged storage solutions. Particularly around VMware’s recently introduced product: VMware Virtual SAN.
VMware Virtual SAN is seeing tremendous traction in the market since its release. After only two full quarters of availability, we already have many hundreds of customers happily running a variety of applications on Virtual SAN, from VDI to test & development to production applications and databases. Virtual SAN customers love the product’s simplicity and integration with the VMware stack.
But along with increased awareness and traction, we are also seeing an increasing level of confusion in the market on the key differences between Virtual SAN and other SDS products. Particularly, we have been receiving a great deal of questions from our customers and partners about differences between Virtual SAN and EMC ScaleIO. They are asking us about where Virtual SAN should be used, where ScaleIO should be used, and whether there’s any real difference between the two.
This type of confusion is unfortunate because VMware Virtual SAN and ScaleIO follow two fundamentally different approaches to SDS.
The confusion between VMware Virtual SAN and ScaleIO is partially fueled by recent press articles, which claim full integration of ScaleIO into vSphere’s ESX kernel. This claim is not accurate. There are no plans to port the core ScaleIO product in the ESX kernel or integrate it with the rest of the vSphere stack.
More specifically, ScaleIO consist of two components: a) a block storage server that is the core of the ScaleIO product and which serves block storage to its clients through the ScaleIO protocol; b) a client which connects to the server and allows VMs and applications to access storage on ScaleIO clusters. This model is very similar to an iSCSI target server serving data to iSCSI initiators. EMC has written an ESX kernel driver that implements a ScaleIO client module. It ‘talks’ the ScaleIO protocol and accesses the ScaleIO server(s). It exposes storage to VMs running in vSphere in a way similar to iSCSI volumes. This ScaleIO driver has been written using public kernel APIs that are available to any VMware partner who develops kernel drivers in ESX. The ScaleIO server is not being ported in or integrated with vSphere and the ESX kernel. The ScaleIO server runs on Linux servers, either on bare metal or as a virtual appliance.
This architectural model allows ScaleIO to be a great SDS solution for heterogeneous platforms.
In the case of bare metal deployments VM I/O goes through the in-kernel driver and onto the external ScaleIO cluster over an IP network as it is the case with other storage arrays. In the virtual appliance case, a VM I/O operation traverses the ESX storage stack through the virtual appliance.
In contrast, VSAN and all its components are natively integrated with vSphere. The key functional components of VSAN, including its “server” functionality, run in the ESX kernel. This fundamental difference in architecture allows VSAN to be optimized for vSphere VMs in an unparalleled way. VSAN is also integrated directly with the ESX control plane, vCenter and vSphere APIs to provide a simple and effective management experience. Together, these integrations provide important benefits to vSphere customers:
VMware Virtual SAN’s architectural model allows it to be the best storage solution for hyper-converged vSphere environments and for vSphere VMs. It does not address non-vSphere storage needs today.
So what does it mean in terms of where each solution should be used? In practice things are never black or white as we would like them to be, but at a high level there are some key aspects that we can keep in mind when comparing:
The picture below should help clarify what these two products are positioned for:
Rowing crews move in sync to keep their craft moving at a steady pace – but that synchronous movement would not exist without an investment in the right hardware and the right training. For businesses, that means not only investing in the right rowers, but also in the right tools to enable athletes. And for a long time those tools, namely storage for midmarket organizations, have either been too expensive, too resource heavy or too complex.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Midmarket teams should be able to afford the right equipment without worry so they can focus on more important tasks. That’s why we’re thrilled to discover Gartner Research included VMware Virtual SAN in their recent report, “Predicts 2015: Midmarket CIOs Must Shed IT Debt to Invest in Strategic IT Initiatives.”
The report investigates how CIOs can best invest resources to give IT teams the simplified tools they need while staying on budget. Often, this excludes “best of breed” solutions. Gartner suggests midsize businesses seek out integrated systems that combine server, storage and network components in a package suitable for their needs instead.
For many, Virtual SAN, VMware’s policy-driven storage product design for vSphere environments, is that solution. Its ease of use, performance, scalability and low total cost of ownership helps to avoid significant upfront investments. And, with its VM-level storage policies, Virtual SAN automatically and dynamically matches requirements with underlying storage resources. Meaning less time manually managing storage tasks and more time focusing on important tasks.
According to Gartner’s predictions, roughly 40% of midsize enterprises will replace all data center services and storage with integrated systems by 2018. We certainly would like to see, and be at the forefront, of that transition.
VMware Virtual SAN stands apart from the competition not just because of its ability to deliver simple software defined shared storage, but also because of its integrated partner ecosystem. More than 40 Virtual SAN Ready Nodes can be purchased from our system vendor partners.
We’re thrilled to have been a part of software defined storage in 2014, and we can’t wait to push the envelope further in 2015.
Be sure to subscribe to the Virtual SAN blog or follow our social channels at @vmwarevsan and Facebook.com/vmwarevsan for the latest updates.
For more information about VMware Virtual SAN, visit http://www.vmware.com/products/virtual-san.
Get your notepads and pens ready, because we’re co-hosting a webinar with Nexenta, on November 19, at 8 a.m. PST detailing our complete, software-defined, hyper-convergence infrastructure offering. Join this webinar to learn how Virtual SAN and file services will fit in your environment, what Software-Defined Storage has to offer your organization and how your business can benefit. 
VMware’s own Rawlinson Rivera, Senior Technical Marketing Architect, will co-host the webinar with Nexenta’s Michael Letschin, Director, Product Management, Solutions. During this webinar, we’ll discuss:
Register for this webinar and learn how to build on your VMware Virtual SAN instance with Nexenta!
For more updates on VMware Virtual SAN and Software-Defined Storage, be sure to follow us on Twitter at @VMwareVSAN and ‘like’ us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/vmwarevsan!