Storage virtualisation

Overview.

Virtualisation solutions offer tangible economic and business benefits. They consolidate storage islands from different vendors in the corporate network, automate and simplify storage administration, provide a central logical view of the company's storage resources and enable it to be used efficiently in a targeted manner and at a high level.

Virtualisation: Central administration of all storage resources instead of vendor-specific product islands. Pooling of storage to QoS specifications for availability and performance. Cross-protocol central access (FC, iSCSI, IB, NAS) to the storage pools. Cost savings due to drastically increased net utilisation of existing storage systems. Increase in the I/O performance in the network by optimised caching and load balancing mechanisms. more about virtualisation >>		Automation: Automatic need-based allocation of physical storage resources for all IT applications. Thin provisioning and over provisioning simplifies storage administration. Extensive automated failover and business continuance policies guarantee data access at all times without human interaction. more about automation >>
High availability: Virtualisation allows the elimination of most scheduled and unscheduled downtime due to storage issues. Live migration of data stocks from DAS to SAN and between heterogeneous server and storage systems. Storage capacities increased, moved and expanded during operation without rebooting the application server. Affordable business continuance and disaster recovery functions at local, regional and global level. more about high availability >>		Implementation: The transition to a virtualised infrastructure occurs in a controlled manner and largely without interruption. Lower business and energy costs due to more efficient utilisation of existing systems and automation of routine tasks. Central administration of all and decentralised administration of local storage pools possible in parallel. Simple control of the use of storage resources in the business with optional billing (chargeback). Complete service from planning, via implementation and training through to skilled after-sales support. more about implementation >>

Virtualising storage.

Storage virtualisation is a buzz term at the moment. No self-respecting storage vendor does not have offers for this in his portfolio. The classic approaches here are "fabric-based" virtualisation by appliances in the I/O data path between servers and storage systems and "device-based" virtualisation in which the corresponding services reside in the storage disk array itself. transtec has opted clearly in favour of the fabric-based approach. This is because only in this way can we offer you all the benefits of storage virtualisation which is not specific in terms of vendor or product. A controversial classic here is the issue of in-band v. out-of-band virtualisation.

• In-band virtualisation (data core):
  • Improves the I/O performance by central caching in the virtualisation appliance.
  • Performance also scalable by (N+1) clustering of appliances.
  • Particularly suitable in combination with the right entry and midrange storage systems.
  • Caching is an area of risk for data loss, which has to be safeguarded by HA mirroring.

• Out-of-band virtualisation (FalconStor / Sanrad):
  • Virtualisation appliance is still in the data path, but without caching.
  • Performance largely identical (max. 5-10 percent loss) with the connected storage systems.
  • Particularly suitable in combination with high-performance midrange and enterprise disk arrays.
  • Appliance must also be failsafe, but without a risk of data loss.

• Advantages of fabric-based virtualisation:
  • No longer any unwanted vendor lock-in to individual vendors of storage systems.
  • Multi-vendor central storage pools and storage of data there in accordance with QoS criteria (relevance, availability, performance).
  • Clearly improved utilisation of storage resources by central pooling and thin provisioning.
  • Storage services (mirroring, snapshots, replication etc.) reside in the SAN fabric and can be used across all storage systems and compatibility limits of individual manufacturers.
  • Simple interruption-free migration to new storage systems where maintenance contracts have become too costly or cannot be extended.

Save time. Automate.

The ratio of costs for storage administration to hardware investment has risen from 3:1 in 1992 to more than 6:1 today (source: Storage Networking World). Virtualisation breaks this cycle and so saves money. With virtualisation software as the central interface for all basic storage hardware, the cost of administration and management can be drastically reduced. Generally, only one storage administrator with one assistant is sufficient for 100 terabyte networks.

• Automation:
  • Thin provisioning with autogrow policies allows automatic storage allocation of physical resources depending on the current application demand.
  • Over provisioning simplifies LUN administration by the one-off provision of virtual LUNs of a maximum size to the applications.
  • Thin provisioning significantly increases the net utilisation of storage systems. At introduction, 25 to a maximum of 60 percent of existing storage capacities are usable for the first time.
  • The costs for power and cooling are reduced even further by the lower net demand for hard disk space in the computer centre.

• Storage pooling:
  • Classify your applications by priority and QoS categories (performance, availability, relevance).
  • Virtual storage pools for the various application classes then ensure that your QoS targets are reached.
  • Dynamic quality-of-service policies prioritise the data traffic automatically, based on your business requirements and QoS parameters.
  • Extensive monitoring and performance metrics provide a warning in the event of any performance or physical capacity bottlenecks in the entire network or other risks to your QoS policies.

• Central administration of virtual pools:
  • Consolidated administration, supervision and control of all storage resources in a central graphical user interface.
  • All high-end storage services are centralised in the SAN fabric, no specialist knowledge for individual solutions by individual disk array vendors are now necessary.
  • Substantially reduced demand for scheduled and unscheduled IT operation in the evening or at the weekend due to improved high availability of the virtualised environment.
  • Allows greatly simplified test runs without any adverse effect on productive operation.

High availability. Business continuance.

Just as with server virtualisation using VMware ESX Server, storage virtualisation also provides major benefits in terms of availability and security of application processes. By separating the logical from the physical storage resources, almost all maintenance and configuration work can be carried out at application level on the real storage hardware without downtimes. Moreover, high-end functions in the field of business continuance and disaster recovery are available, which can be implemented non-vendor-specifically regardless of the underlying hardware.

• Snapshot backup:
  • During operation, produce a time-accurate image of your data stock for minute-fast recovery and export as a backup to nearline hard disks.
  • Database agents for Oracle or Microsoft VSS (Virtual Shadow Copy Services) for Exchange / SQL servers ensure the consistency of your snapshots.
  • For your test environments, use snapshots produced as mountable read / write volumes.

• True remote mirroring / replication:
  • DataCore offers, as a single solution, the remote mirroring of your data with true automatic failover / failback to the secondary storage - without any downtime for your applications.
  • Permanent protection of complete sites or computer rooms against failure entirely without downtime in IT applications.
  • In contrast to asynchronous replication, however, no protection against corruption or deletion of the primary data stock.
  • Asynchronous IP replication transfers your data to other locations via LAN / WAN after a time delay.
  • Allows data to be exported for disaster recovery purposes to less costly off-site storage systems.

• CDP & Dedup solutions:
  • We offer TrueCDP solutions for the permanent transaction-precise backup of your data stocks ("SnapMovie") onto secondary storage systems.
  • Data deduplication reduces the data stocks many times over (typically by a ratio of 1:10 or more) and is the ideal partner for VTL backup and replication solutions from 50 terabytes.

An optimum solution for your needs.

Wherever complex solutions need to work trouble-free, you must be able to rely on expert advice and professional support. It was precisely for this purpose that in 2002, we set up our own competence centre and project team. The specialists there can guide you, by direct contact, from the conception through to the implementation of the solution, and then will be your expert contact for any questions arising subsequently. An overview of our services.

• Your challenge.
  Wherever complex solutions need to function smoothly, the ability to rely on expert advice and professional implementation is essential, for example when setting up a storage area network, integrating a high-availability cluster, virtualising a server environment or acquiring a high-performance computing cluster.


• The benefit to you.
  To be able to offer a solution for your special tasks, in 2002 we established our own competence centre. In it, 15 specialists are available to guide you specifically for your needs, on the basis of transtec hardware.


• Our expert knowledge.
  These 15 engineers have specialised in the area of high performance, high availability, storage networks and the virtualisation software VMware®, both under Linux and under Windows®. Thanks to their broad qualifications and ongoing training, each individual is an expert in his field.



• Skilled partners.
  To meet your high standards, our solutions must be tailored precisely to your needs. The key to success here is your direct contact to the relevant specialist. He will be there from conception through to implementation of the solution and will be your skilled partner afterwards for any queries that may arise.



• Ready for use immediately.
  So that you do not lose any time, we integrate the entire hardware in advance in works, carry out an in-depth burn-in and put everything through comprehensive testing. Only the modular components are removed for dispatch. Recommissioning on site thus takes the shortest time possible.



• Top performance.
  The best-possible configuration looks different each time. We help you to make the best possible use of your systems in your environment. At on-site handover, our experts tune the solution to obtain the best performance.



• Our experience.
  Satisfied customers are the best recommendation. The transtec competence centre has, with 250 HPC cluster installations and over 200 HA cluster and storage projects, a broad installation base and many years experience.



• Joint success.
  See for yourself: Our references show you completed customer projects with transtec solutions; we may have already successfully resolved your problem or one similar to it.



• How can we help you?
  Please contact our team of consultants .