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    Storage Virtualization / Hyperconvergence Technologies - Best Use Case?

    IT Discussion
    maxta pernix storage atlantis
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    • scottalanmillerS
      scottalanmiller @NetworkNerd
      last edited by

      @NetworkNerd said:

      After seeing some storage virtualization vendors at Spiceworld like Infinio and Maxta, it makes me wonder how applicable / valuable those types of technologies would be to the SMB.

      Infinio is just a cache. It assumes that you still have external storage. It is designed to accelerate your SAN or NAS to make it work even better. Which is a great idea. It does this by using system RAM and CPU which, in turn, means that you lose those resources for your VMs. It's a great idea but not without tradeoffs and it does nothing to change the need for storage, just makes it possible for existing storage to work better. And it works best in a large pool of virtualization servers, not lone ones (or else the entire cache is only <8GB.)

      http://www.infinio.com/product/how-it-works

      Using Infinio eats up two vCPUs and 8GB of RAM on each host. So consider that when looking at the big picture. If you have a single virtualization platform you will lose a tiny bit of CPU performance and 8GB of RAM. If you started with 64GB, your platform just dropped to 56GB. Not exactly a trivial shrinkage. That's between one and eight typical VMs that you can't run because you are adding this cache - per host.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • NetworkNerdN
        NetworkNerd
        last edited by

        I remember Maxta and Pernix as well as Atlantis saying they do storage reclamation and dedupe. But I think each has it's own virtual appliance that runs on each host to be able to do this.

        scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • NetworkNerdN
          NetworkNerd
          last edited by

          Infinio sounded cool but will only work for NAS or SAN from what I remember - no local storage or DAS (at least not right now).

          scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • scottalanmillerS
            scottalanmiller @NetworkNerd
            last edited by

            @NetworkNerd said:

            Infinio sounded cool but will only work for NAS or SAN from what I remember - no local storage or DAS (at least not right now).

            DAS should work, I would be pretty surprised if it had any means of detecting when something was DAS or SAN since the only difference is if there is a switch hooked up.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • scottalanmillerS
              scottalanmiller @NetworkNerd
              last edited by

              @NetworkNerd said:

              I remember Maxta and Pernix as well as Atlantis saying they do storage reclamation and dedupe. But I think each has it's own virtual appliance that runs on each host to be able to do this.

              That's pretty much what they would have to do, which is how VSA worked. It's about the only available approach when working in that way.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • NetworkNerdN
                NetworkNerd
                last edited by

                I thought the VSA had to be setup a certain way from the beginning but was near impossible to add to the cluster later (because a certain amount of storage on each host was to protect against another host failing) whereas these software solutions would be able to install in an existing environment non-intrusively and allow you to add hosts / more storage at any time.

                scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • scottalanmillerS
                  scottalanmiller @NetworkNerd
                  last edited by

                  @NetworkNerd said:

                  I thought the VSA had to be setup a certain way from the beginning but was near impossible to add to the cluster later (because a certain amount of storage on each host was to protect against another host failing) whereas these software solutions would be able to install in an existing environment non-intrusively and allow you to add hosts / more storage at any time.

                  Yes, but they are all VMs.

                  DashrenderD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • DashrenderD
                    Dashrender @scottalanmiller
                    last edited by

                    @scottalanmiller said:

                    @NetworkNerd said:

                    I thought the VSA had to be setup a certain way from the beginning but was near impossible to add to the cluster later (because a certain amount of storage on each host was to protect against another host failing) whereas these software solutions would be able to install in an existing environment non-intrusively and allow you to add hosts / more storage at any time.

                    Yes, but they are all VMs.

                    I think NetworkNerd is saying that you can't (his and my understanding) add VSA after the fact because the underlying disk that ESXi is using is already partitioned off, so there won't be any free space, or most likely not enough, to implement VSA after the fact?

                    I didn't know VSA used a VM on each host to do it's job. How does it control the disk beneath the other VMs?

                    scottalanmillerS NetworkNerdN 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • scottalanmillerS
                      scottalanmiller @Dashrender
                      last edited by

                      @Dashrender said:

                      I didn't know VSA used a VM on each host to do it's job. How does it control the disk beneath the other VMs?

                      You can build your own VSA to see how it works. You can do it with Linux or BSD quite easily. You build a virtual NAS (which is what VSA means) and use DRBD (Linux) or HAST (BSD) to make the cluster work. You share the storage to the local machine via NFS. Now you have a VM that can provide storage for the other VMs locally.

                      NetworkNerdN 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • NetworkNerdN
                        NetworkNerd @Dashrender
                        last edited by

                        @Dashrender said:

                        @scottalanmiller said:

                        @NetworkNerd said:

                        I thought the VSA had to be setup a certain way from the beginning but was near impossible to add to the cluster later (because a certain amount of storage on each host was to protect against another host failing) whereas these software solutions would be able to install in an existing environment non-intrusively and allow you to add hosts / more storage at any time.

                        Yes, but they are all VMs.

                        I think NetworkNerd is saying that you can't (his and my understanding) add VSA after the fact because the underlying disk that ESXi is using is already partitioned off, so there won't be any free space, or most likely not enough, to implement VSA after the fact?

                        I didn't know VSA used a VM on each host to do it's job. How does it control the disk beneath the other VMs?

                        Yep - that's exactly what I meant.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • NetworkNerdN
                          NetworkNerd @scottalanmiller
                          last edited by

                          @scottalanmiller said:

                          @Dashrender said:

                          I didn't know VSA used a VM on each host to do it's job. How does it control the disk beneath the other VMs?

                          You can build your own VSA to see how it works. You can do it with Linux or BSD quite easily. You build a virtual NAS (which is what VSA means) and use DRBD (Linux) or HAST (BSD) to make the cluster work. You share the storage to the local machine via NFS. Now you have a VM that can provide storage for the other VMs locally.

                          Quite easily to SAM is not so easy to the person who is semi-familiar with Linux.

                          coliverC art_of_shredA 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 3
                          • coliverC
                            coliver @NetworkNerd
                            last edited by

                            @NetworkNerd said:

                            @scottalanmiller said:

                            @Dashrender said:

                            I didn't know VSA used a VM on each host to do it's job. How does it control the disk beneath the other VMs?

                            You can build your own VSA to see how it works. You can do it with Linux or BSD quite easily. You build a virtual NAS (which is what VSA means) and use DRBD (Linux) or HAST (BSD) to make the cluster work. You share the storage to the local machine via NFS. Now you have a VM that can provide storage for the other VMs locally.

                            Quite easily to SAM is not so easy to the person who is semi-familiar with Linux.

                            It does sound like a cool project to try out to get more familiar with those technologies though. If I find some spare hardware I may dig into it to test it out.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • art_of_shredA
                              art_of_shred Banned @NetworkNerd
                              last edited by

                              @NetworkNerd said:

                              @scottalanmiller said:

                              @Dashrender said:

                              I didn't know VSA used a VM on each host to do it's job. How does it control the disk beneath the other VMs?

                              You can build your own VSA to see how it works. You can do it with Linux or BSD quite easily. You build a virtual NAS (which is what VSA means) and use DRBD (Linux) or HAST (BSD) to make the cluster work. You share the storage to the local machine via NFS. Now you have a VM that can provide storage for the other VMs locally.

                              Quite easily to SAM is not so easy to the person who is semi-familiar with Linux.

                              Something SAM needs to be reminded of occasionally.

                              NetworkNerdN 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                              • NetworkNerdN
                                NetworkNerd @art_of_shred
                                last edited by

                                @art_of_shred said:

                                @NetworkNerd said:

                                @scottalanmiller said:

                                @Dashrender said:

                                I didn't know VSA used a VM on each host to do it's job. How does it control the disk beneath the other VMs?

                                You can build your own VSA to see how it works. You can do it with Linux or BSD quite easily. You build a virtual NAS (which is what VSA means) and use DRBD (Linux) or HAST (BSD) to make the cluster work. You share the storage to the local machine via NFS. Now you have a VM that can provide storage for the other VMs locally.

                                Quite easily to SAM is not so easy to the person who is semi-familiar with Linux.

                                Something SAM needs to be reminded of occasionally.

                                That's why you are here, Art - to slap him around a bit. 🙂

                                art_of_shredA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • art_of_shredA
                                  art_of_shred Banned @NetworkNerd
                                  last edited by

                                  @NetworkNerd said:

                                  @art_of_shred said:

                                  @NetworkNerd said:

                                  @scottalanmiller said:

                                  @Dashrender said:

                                  I didn't know VSA used a VM on each host to do it's job. How does it control the disk beneath the other VMs?

                                  You can build your own VSA to see how it works. You can do it with Linux or BSD quite easily. You build a virtual NAS (which is what VSA means) and use DRBD (Linux) or HAST (BSD) to make the cluster work. You share the storage to the local machine via NFS. Now you have a VM that can provide storage for the other VMs locally.

                                  Quite easily to SAM is not so easy to the person who is semi-familiar with Linux.

                                  Something SAM needs to be reminded of occasionally.

                                  That's why you are here, Art - to slap him around a bit. 🙂

                                  Well, I'm here to chew bubble gum and slap people ...and I'm all out of bubble gum.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                  • StrongBadS
                                    StrongBad
                                    last edited by

                                    Someone has to chew the gum around here.

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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