If you haven’t already, right now is the time to virtualize your storage environment. If you’re still unsure about virtualization the value of storage virtualization, consider the following advantages:
- Better Storage Utilization – With a virtual storage environment, you can get much better performance out of your disk sub systems by combining all those spindles that were previously dedicated to each server. Second, when you have all those resources combined, you can better allocate your capacity across your environment in addition to benefiting from technologies like dynamic capacity expansion and thin provisioning.
- Easier to Manage Your Storage – When you combine all your storage resources into a virtualized SAN, it is much easier to manage those resources because you now have the benefit of managing your storage resources from one single pane of glass and the great advantage of having just one reporting engine to monitor.
- Improve Your Backup and Recovery Process – Another big benefit to a virtualized SAN is backup and recovery. I have had several customers implement a SAN simply to help fix their backup problems. Most SANS today have Snap Shot technology which allows you to take an almost instantaneous backup of a particular storage resource. These Snap Shots can be scheduled, giving you the ability to recover to just about any particular point and time. Snap shots can also be mounted directly to your backup server, allowing these resources to be backed up directly from the SAN to your backup device. This maximizes the performance of your backup device.
- Provide Higher Availability of Your Data – A virtualized SAN should be deployed in a completely redundant fashion, with multiple host connections, redundant controllers, redundant power supplies and ideally active – active controllers. With that in place, an application running on a particular server is no longer dependent on the availability of that host. If that server experiences a failure, its storage resources can be mounted to another server while that resource is repaired or replaced.
- Data Replication for Business Continuance and Disaster Recovery – Another benefit of SAN technology that has benefited many organizations is replication. When you have all your storage resources in a single pool, it is much easier to replicate that data to another device at another location. Many organizations are even putting their backup device at the DR location, eliminating the need to have backups taken off site on a daily or weekly basis.
- Storage Virtualization Works Hand-in-Hand with Server Virtualization – Storage virtualization also works hand-in-hand with server virtualization. Most organizations today are facing the challenges of server, power, and cooling restrictions in their data centers. With VMWare, Microsoft HyperV, or XenServer, today’s server administrators can take advantage of the processing power of the quad core (or better) processors and low-cost server memory while virtualizing their servers across a cluster of servers. Just like your storage, your server resources can now be completely redundant and load balanced, allowing your applications to run across the entire pool of resources and eliminating the dependency on any single resource.
In short, a virtualized storage and server environment eliminates the dependencies on any single hardware resource, allowing IT departments to deliver better availability to their applications and data.
Have more questions about storage virtualization? Feel free to email me or call me at 440-498-2310.
-John Thome
