As organizations continue to leverage innovative technologies to modernize the data center, the roles of IT administration are beginning to converge, with responsibilities expanding into new domains. Yesterday’s “silo” administrator is quickly becoming today’s “infrastructure administrator,” a next-generation role requiring a broad spectrum of knowledge across multiple IT domains. As part server administrator, virtual environment manager, network engineer, and storage architect, today’s infrastructure administrator needs the skills to build, maintain and manage high performing data center infrastructure solutions. It’s the administrator’s job to create a flexible infrastructure in which capacity can be scaled up or down as business requirements change, while concentrating simultaneously on data center cost optimization. As a leading provider of storage tools for the enterprise, Dell Software has identified nine storage concepts an infrastructure administrator needs to understand to holistically manage the virtual environment.

1. Top 9 Storage Concepts
Every Virtualization
Administrator
Should Understand
Visualize, Analyze and Optimize with Foglight for Virtualization

2. In the old days…
• IT used to be three separate divisions with hard walls
between them
Systems Engineering
Network Engineering
Storage

3. Times Have Changed
• The uptake of virtualization has forced these walls
to come down
• Today’s resources are no longer
“separate but equal” but are
inextricably intertwined

4. Today’s Focus
• Storage is a foundational element in virtual
environments
• Storage also introduces some of the biggest
challenges in virtualization
• With that in mind, let’s discuss nine concepts that
every virtualization administrator should
understand about storage

5. Concept 1: What are VAAI and ODX and why
are they so popular and important?
• VAAI and ODX are increasingly common virtualizationspecific technologies that can introduce significant
storage-related performance gains in the data
center
• VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI)
• A broad set of API “primitives” that storage vendors can implement
to improve overall storage operation performance
• Microsoft’s Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX)
• More limited than VAAI, but provides important performance
benefits

6. Concept 2: What are the best ways to
measure various aspects of the storage
environment?
• Latency
• The time it takes for an entire storage operation to take
place
• Above about 20 ms and you have problems
• IOPS
• The number of Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS)
that storage can support
• Affected by RAID level
• Affected by drive type
• Affected by storage transport
• Monitoring in general is an important activity

7. Concept 3: How do different kinds of hard
drives differ from one another?
• Different kinds of hard drives for different uses
SATA
NL-SAS
SAS

8. Concept 4: What is solid state storage and
why is it important?
• Extraordinarily fast storage
• Relies on the use of cell-based storage media rather
than platters
• SSD challenges
• Single level cell
• Very fast
• Very expensive
• Limited capacity
• Multi level cell
• Quite fast
• Less expensive than SLC
• Better capacity than SLC
• Low capacity
• Cell “death”
• Still much more expensive than
rotational storage

9. Concept 5: What different RAID levels are
available and what is the impact of each?
• RAID 0: Disk striping
• In RAID 0 configuration, data is chunked into individual
blocks and written to each disk simultaneously
• Characteristics
Storage Controller
• 2 or more drives required
• Affords no data protection and as more disks are
added, data loss risk increases
• Very fast since multiple disks are in use at the same
time
A1
• Theoretically, performance improves as more disks
A4
are added
A7
• Maximizes use of storage capacity
Disk 1
A2
A5
A3
A6
A8
A9
Disk 2
Disk 3

10. Concept 5: What different RAID levels are
available and what is the impact of each?
• RAID 1: Disk mirroring
• Data is written twice to separate drives to increase
overall data integrity
Storage Controller
• Characteristics
2 drives required
High level of redundancy
Provides improved read performance
Introduces a 50% capacity “charge” due to need to
A1
write data twice
• Write performance will suffer
A2
A1
A2
A3
A3
Disk 1
Disk 2
•
•
•
•

11. Concept 5: What different RAID levels are
available and what is the impact of each?
• RAID 5: Independent access with rotating parity
• Blocks of data are written across all disks with parity
information is interspersed with the rest of the data
• Characteristics
3 or more drives required
Enjoys very broad support in the storage industry
Tolerates the loss of a single drive
Provides improved read performance
Minimal capacity overhead needed
A1
RAID 5 is considered a dangerous level by many
B1
storage pros due to the long rebuild times
required if a large drive fails
CP
• Performance during a rebuild may be very poor
Disk 1
•
•
•
•
•
•
Storage Controller
A2
BP
AP
B2
C1
C2
Disk 2
Disk 3

12. Concept 5: What different RAID levels are
available and what is the impact of each?
• RAID 6: Independent Data disks with two independent
distributed parity schemes
• Blocks of data are written across all disks with parity
information written twice and interspersed with the rest
of the data
Storage Controller
• Characteristics
• Enjoys good support in the storage industry
• Very high level of protection and considered
essential in situations that would have called
A1
for RAID 5 in the past
B1
• Tolerates the loss of up to two drives in the array
CP1
• Provides improved read performance
• Very poor write performance due to need toDisk 1
write parity multiple times
A2
BP1
AP1
BP2
AP2
B2
CP2
C1
C2
Disk 2
Disk 3
Disk 4

13. Concept 5: What different RAID levels are
available and what is the impact of each?
• RAID 10: Stripe of Mirrors, RAID 1+0, or RAID 1 then RAID
0
• Multiple mirror sets (RAID 1) and striped across those disk
Storage Controller
sets (RAID 0)
• Characteristics
• Can withstand the loss of one disk in
every RAID 1 array
• Provides very good read and write
performance
A1
• High (50%) capacity overhead
A3
• Scalability is limited and expensive A5
Disk 1
RAID 0 Stripe
A1
A2
A2
A3
A5
A4
A6
A4
A6
A4
Disk 2
Disk 3
Disk 4
RAID 1
Mirrored Disk Set
RAID 1
Mirrored Disk Set

14. Concept 5: What different RAID levels are
available and what is the impact of each?
• RAID 50: Striping across a RAID 5 Parity Set
(sometimes called RAID 5+0)
• Striping across individual RAID 5 sets enables the potential
to lose one disk per RAID 5 set
Storage Controller
• Characteristics
• Can withstand the loss of one
disk in every RAID 5 set
• Provides good read and write
performance
A1
• Not supported by all RAID
B1
controllers
CP
• Rebuilds can be very slow and 1
Disk
affect overall storage
performance
RAID 0 Stripe
A2
AP
A3
A4
AP
BP
B2
B3
BP
B4
C1
C2
CP
C3
C4
Disk 2
Disk 3
Disk 1
Disk 2
Disk 3
RAID 5
Parity Disk Set
RAID 5
Parity Disk Set

15. Concept 6: How do enterprise level
storage features play important roles in
virtualization?
Thin Provisioning
Deduplication
Encryption

16. Concept 7: What is Microsoft doing
playing in the storage arena with
Windows Server 2012?
Storage Spaces
TRIM/UNMAP
Deduplication
iSCSI target
Aggregates all
available and
supported storage
into a single pool
of storage
Provides
Thin provisioning
Deduplication
Downsides
can’t use RAID-based
volumes
Can’t use iSCSI-based
volumes
Allows the thin
provisioning
process to reclaim
previously used
space that has since
become unused
This is a
complement to thin
provisioning and
brings the service
to enterprise-class
levels
Microsoft has
added this
enterprise-class
storage feature to
the operating
system. Windows
Server 2012 uses a
post-process
deduplication
method.
Microsoft’s
deduplication
service works on a
file basis by
breaking files down
into small chunks
and running these
chunks through the
deduplication
Enables Windows
Servers to share
storage with other
network systems
Storage Spaces
support
Works with Storage
Spaces-managed
volumes
4K sector disk
support
Brings support for
modern drives to
Windows’ iSCSI
target
SMB 3
An enterprise-class
storage transport
protocol
Includes
enhancements that
improve the
performance,
scalability, and
reliability of SMB
and is now suitable
for use with HyperV 2012, Exchange, and
SQL databases

17. Concept 8: What storage transport
mechanisms are available?
• Different kinds of hard drives for different uses
Direct Attached
iSCSI
Fiber Channel
NAS

18. Concept 9: What kinds of storage arrays
are on today’s market?
Use cases
Best for
Capacity
Best for
Performanc
e
Storage Type
Description
Hard disk-based arrays
These tried and true data center stalwarts have enjoyed
decades of success in the data center, but because they are
mechanical devices, are prone to failure. Further, their ability
to scale to acceptable levels of performance can be expensive
and challenging.
File storage,
archiving, SMB and
midmarket general
purpose
Excellent
Poor
Hybrid storage arrays
These relative newcomers to the storage market blend the
best of both the legacy hard disk and modern solid state
storage worlds into an extremely effective blend of capacity
and performance. In short, hybrid vendor leverage solid state
disks to accelerate the performance of hard disks, thus
breathing new life into an aging technology while keeping
performance costs very reasonable.
VDI, most mainstream
workloads, Exchange,
databases,
virtualization
Very Good
Very Good
VDI, analytics, big data
Poor
Excellent
Acceleration, VDI, big
data, general
purpose,
virtualization
Poor
Excellent
All flash storage
arrays
Server-side flash
When it comes to raw performance, solid state/flash-based
storage arrays are the speed demons of the storage industry.
There exist a number of arrays out there that boast all flash
storage and vendors tout the ability to push 1 million IOPS with
a single array. However, these storage arrays remain
prohibitively expensive.
Server side flash consists of PCI-e cards that pack hundreds of
gigabytes or even terabytes of storage. These cards can be used
as a massive cache in front of existing storage devices or they
can be used as primary storage themselves.

19. Gain control with Analytics, Advice, & Automation
Storage Management
Find and Prevent Performance Issues in storage
infrastructure
• Understand where an I/O bottleneck exists within the data
path
• Set alerts for issues and bottlenecks to be warned
proactively
• Organize issues based on priority and infrastructure area
Understand Connection from Application to Disk
• Visualize the topology of infrastructure components in the
data path
• Understand the status of each component in the storage
infrastructure
• Understand the impact of storage maintenance or array
issues to the applications
Gain Visibility Into Storage Infrastructure
• Present findings on storage component status and topology
• Export troubleshooting reports and information
• Generate custom reports and create tailored dashboards
bringing together data from the application to the disk
19
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oglight-for-storage-management/
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20. Thank you for your participation
More conversations on line
Michele Ballinger
@ballingertweets
Visit us on the Web:
www.software.dell.com
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