VMworld 2013 Sachin Manpathak, VMware Mustafa Uysal, VMware Sunil Muralidhar, VMware Learn more about VMworld and register at http://www.vmworld.com/index.jspa?src=socmed-vmworld-slideshare

1. Storage DRS: Deep Dive and Best Practices to Suit
Your Storage Environments
Sachin Manpathak, VMware
Mustafa Uysal, VMware
Sunil Muralidhar, VMware
STO5636
#STO5636

2. 22
Disclaimer
 This session may contain product features that are
currently under development.
 This session/overview of the new technology represents
no commitment from VMware to deliver these features in
any generally available product.
 Features are subject to change, and must not be included in
contracts, purchase orders, or sales agreements of any kind.
 Technical feasibility and market demand will affect final delivery.
 Pricing and packaging for any new technologies or features
discussed or presented have not been determined.

3. 33
VMware Vision: Software Defined Storage
Software Defined Storage
Software-Defined Storage Vision
Enable new storage tiers
Enable DAS & server flash for shared
storage along with enterprise SAN/NAS
Enable tight integration with storage
ecosystem
Tighter integrations with broad storage
ecosystem through APIs
Deliver policy-based automated storage
management
Automatically enforce per-VM SLAs for all
apps across different types of storage
“Gold”
Array(s)
“Silver”
Array(s)
Distributed
Storage
Hard
disks
SSD Hard
disks
SSD
Availability = 99.99%
DR RTO = 1
“Gold” SLA
Availability = 99%
Throughput = 1000 R/s, 20 W/s
Latency = 95% under 5 ms
DR RPO = 1’, RTO = 10’
Back up = hourly
Capacity res = 100%
Web Server
Database Server
Availability =
99.99%
DR RTO = 1 hour
Max Laten
“Silver” SLA
Availability = 99%
Throughput = 100 R/s,10 W/s
Latency = 90% under 10 ms
DR RPO = 60’, RTO = 360’
Back up = weekly
Security = encryption
ReduceStorageCostandComplexity
App Server
Roadmap

4. 44
Software-Defined Storage: Summary Roadmap
vSphere storage
features
Storage IO Control,
Storage vMotion,
Storage DRS,
Profile Driven Storage
Enable New
Storage Tiers
Policy-based storage
management
Virtual Volumes
VM-aware data
management with
enterprise storage
arrays
Tight integration with
storage systems
Policy-based storage
management
For local storage
vSphere Storage
Appliance
Low cost, simple shared
storage for small
deployments
Virtual SAN
Policy-driven storage for
cloud-scale deployments
Virtual Flash
Virtual SAN
Data services
Virtual Flash
Write-back caching
Policy-based storage
management
For external storage
H2 2013 / H1 2014 RoadmapToday
Roadmap

5. 55
Outline
 Introduction
 Anatomy of Storage DRS
 Best Practices and Deployment Scenarios
 Preview from Storage DRS Labs
 Summary
Survey: http://bit.ly/siocsdrs

6. 66
 Ease of Storage Management
 Initial Placement
 Out of Space Avoidance
 IO Load Balancing
 Virtual Disk Affinity (Anti-Affinity)
 Datastore Maintenance Mode
 Add Datastore
Brief Introduction to Storage DRS
Datastore
Cluster
Storage vMotion
•••

7. 77
Storage DRS details
 VMworld talks
 Storage DRS Whitepapers
 VMware Technical Journal (2012)
“Storage DRS: Automated Management of
Storage Devices in a Virtualized Datacenter”

8. 88
Outline
 Introduction
 Anatomy of Storage DRS
 Best Practices and Deployment Scenarios
 Preview from Storage DRS Labs
 Summary

9. 99
Storage DRS Recommendations
 Recommendation: best datastore for a virtual disks in a VM
 VM requirements, virtual disk type, capacity, IO load, rules
 Datastore capabilities, capacity, performance, connectivity
 Predicted resource usage

10. 1010
What Really Happened?
 Simulated placement of virtual disks to datastores
• Space utilization, IO latency, CPU and memory
 Rank is based on cluster wide metrics after placement
• All resources contribute to balance metric

11. 1111
Thin Provisioned VMDKs
 Space entitlement = Allocated + ƒ(Idle)
 Explicit control for the degree of space over-commitment
• Initial placement also uses the same controls
 Online model to predict space usage growth over time
Datastore A Datastore B
VMDK VMDK
Big VMDK
Allocated space
Provisioned space
“Idle” space
10 100
Headroom
30

12. 1212
Datastore Cluster Fragmentation
 Enough room at cluster level
 Big VMDK does not fit to any of the datastores
 Pre-requisite migrations to make room for the Big VMDK
 All dependent actions executed before placement
Datastore A Datastore B Datastore C
VMDK VMDK VMDK
Big VMDK

13. 1313
Linked Clones
 Storage DRS supports linked clones
 Initial placement and load balancing
 vSphere vCloud Director (VCD)
1 TB
20GB 70GB
40GB
Datastore
10GB
VM1
VM2
VM3

14. 1414
1 TB 1 TB 500 GB
20GB 70GB
40GB
10GB
Datastore A Datastore B Datastore C
10GB
VM1
VM2
VM3 VM5
30GB
VM4 VM6
10GB
Linked Clones
10GB
VM1
500 GB
VM6
10GB10GB
VM1
1 TB1 TB
10GB
VM5
30GB
VM4

15. 1515
Recommendations, continued…

16. 1616
Why is a Recommendation Generated?
 Storage DRS runs periodically for resource management
 Storage DRS threshold violation in a datastore
• Not enough free space
• I/O latency was high for an extended period of time
 One of the affinity rules are broken
• A rule changed or a new rule added
 Storage DRS estimates the benefits exceed the costs
• Cluster resources are balanced across multiple metrics

17. 1717
Outline
 Introduction
 Anatomy of Storage DRS
 Best Practices and Deployment Scenarios
 Preview from Storage DRS Labs
 Summary

18. 1818
Datastore Cluster Best Practices
 Identical storage profiles
Silver Disk Pool Gold Disk Pool
Data
store1
Data
store2
Data
store3
Data
store4
Cluster-A (Tier2 VMs) Cluster-B (Tier1 VMs)
 Similar datastore performance
 May not be identical
 Similar capabilities
 Data management
 Backup
Stay Tuned
for Labs
Section
✔
Cluster1: Wide Perf
Variation
Cluster2: Similar
Datastores

19. 1919
Datastore and Host Connectivity
 Maximum possible host and datastore connectivity
 Improves DRS and Storage DRS performance
Partially Connected Datastore Cluster Fully Connected Datastore Cluster
 More datastores in cluster  better space and I/O balance
 Larger datastore size  better space balance
DRS Cluster DRS Cluster

20. 2020
Deployment with Shared Disk Pools
 Common scenario
• Recommended by vendors
• Improves IO performance
Common Diskpool
Logical LUNs
share disks
Storage DRS discovers correlations
 VASA or automatic detection
Storage DRS respects correlations
 IO Load balancing
 Rule enforcement
⤬VM IO Performance correlated
• VMs reside on different LUNs
High I/O
High Latency

21. 2121
Deployment with Thin Provisioned LUNs
 Storage array feature
 Add capacity on demand
Configured 9TB
Backing 3TB
Configured 9TB
Backing 6TB
Lun-1 on 08/29/13 Lun-1 on 10/29/13
Data
⤬Problem:
⤬ Backing space can run out
⤬ LUN has spare capacity!
Configured 9TB
Lun-1 on 08/29/13
Backed by Disks
Configured 9TB
Lun-1 on 09/29/13
Storage Array signals condition using VASA
Storage DRS stops placing VMs on such LUN
Stay
Tuned
for Labs
Section

22. 2222
Deployment with Auto-Tiered Arrays
 Multiple storage tiers
 VM data across tiers
 Tier use changes with workload Capacity Tier
Performance Tier
Logical LUN of Auto-tier Array
 Storage DRS IOPS prediction
• Maybe inaccurate
 Storage DRS is valuable in
auto-tier array deployments!
Automatic initial placement
Space load balancing
Rule enforcement
Maintenance mode
Storage IO Control
 IO priority

23. 2323
Deployment with Deduplication
 Provides space efficiency
 Dedupe pool can span across
multiple LUNs
Dedupe
Storage DRS uses free space in LUN
Stay Tuned
for Labs
Section
⤬Problem: LUN appears to
store more data than capacity!
Total Virtual Disk
Size: 4TB
LUN Capacity:
1TB

24. 2424
Summary: Storage Array Feature Compatibility
Feature Compatibility
Shared diskpool backing LUNs YES
LUN Thin Provisioning YES
LUN Auto-tiering YES
Space Deduplication YES

25. 2525
Outline
 Introduction
 Anatomy of Storage DRS
 Best Practices and Deployment Scenarios
 Preview from Storage DRS Labs
 Summary

26. 2626
Preview from the Storage DRS Labs
 Evolve Storage DRS with vSphere storage solutions
 Evolve Storage DRS with storage innovations
 I/O reservation support
 Fine grain controls

27. 2727
vSphere SRM: Array-based Replication
 Storage DRS identifies replicated datastores
 All recommendations are in sync with replication policies:
• Automated moves within the same consistency group
• Manual moves for all VMs residing on replicated datastores
 Accounting of replication overhead due to Storage vMotion

28. 2828
vSphere Replication (VR)
 Storage DRS discovers VR-replicas in datastores
 Storage DRS understands space usage of replica disks
 Storage coordinates moves with VR
• Space balancing
• Maintenance mode

29. 2929
vSphere Storage Policy based Management
 Current: datastores with same
storage profile
Silver Disk Pool Gold Disk Pool
Data
store1
Data
store2
Data
store3
Data
store4
Cluster-1 (Tier2 VMs) Cluster-2 (Tier1 VMs)
 Future: datastores with
any storage profile
Silver Disk Pool Gold Disk Pool
Data
store1
Data
store2
Data
store3
Data
store4
Cluster-1 (Tier1 + Tier2 VMs)

30. 3030
Support for IO Reservations
 Per VM Resource Controls
• Reservation, Limit, Shares
 Enforced at datastores
 Enforced at datastore clusters
 Storage DRS initial placement
 Storage DRS load balancing
 IO Capacity estimation
• Reference workload
SIOC SIOC
R=100IOPs R=150 IOPs
Storage DRS
R=300 IOPs
C=400 IOPs C=1500 IOPs

31. 3131
Tighter Integration with Storage Arrays
1. Discover storage capabilities using VASA
• E.g. LUNs with auto-tiering/dedupe/thin provisioning
• Indicate LUNs with common diskpool.
2. Intelligent decisions in Storage DRS
• Proactively manage backing capacity for thin provisioning
• Keep deduplicated VMs together
• Don’t interfere with auto-tier I/O optimizations
• Storage DRS fixes I/O overload conditions

32. 3232
Fine Grain Controls
All aspects of Storage DRS
can be controlled to suit your
environments

33. 3333
Summary
 Easier Storage Management
 Effective initial placement
 Out-of-space avoidance and load balancing
 Many exciting features in pipeline!

34. THANK YOU
Survey: http://bit.ly/siocsdrs

36. Storage DRS: Deep Dive and Best Practices to Suit
Your Storage Environments
Sachin Manpathak, VMware
Mustafa Uysal, VMware
STO5636
#STO5636