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StorInt Briefing
As virtualized server infrastructures become the dominant architectural paradigm for IT
data centers, new challenges emerge in protecting the consolidated infrastructure from
unplanned outages due to component failure, data loss, and site failure. Classic tape
backup methods continue to be employed, but increasingly are being augmented with
new online data protection (DP) methods and tools that simplify data protection, enhance
recovery times, and automate data management processes.
As a premier supplier of server virtualization technology, VMware has been continuously
evolving their architecture to meet the needs for continued infrastructure growth,
ultimately making shared storage a core requirement of the virtualized infrastructure for
expandability and availability. Storage Area Networks (SANs) have been implemented
with VMware to enable key advanced features, such as High Availability (HA),
VMotion, and Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS). In the first waves of
implementation, many data protection processes painfully evolved, at best as manual
processes. This unsatisfactory outcome originated from ITs struggle to preserve preexisting data protection methods, while attempting to meaningfully leverage data
protection technology available at the guest OS, hypervisor, and SAN infrastructure
layers.
Dell EqualLogic PS Series virtualized iSCSI SANs have been a popular storage choice in
VMware-based environments. Customers have been quick to recognize how the PS
Series virtualized SAN architecture complements the VMware infrastructure, providing a
simple, easy-to-use, cost-effective enterprise storage platform that optimizes storage
resource utilization, lowers TCO, and adapts to changing business needs. Today, new
levels of automation and integration between VMware and Dell EqualLogic arrays are
now available to protect the entire virtualized infrastructure.
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Note that this is not specific to SAN but also generally applies to all storage-based snapshot technologies
irrespective of protocol connectivity.
P.O. Box 492|Broomfield, CO 80038-0492|
720-221-7270|www.silvertonconsulting.com
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This is not to be confused with application-consistent. ESX can recover the virtual machine from the
snapshot but additional steps may be required by the guest operating system and/or application to analyze
and recover the guest-based file system and/or data sets. This will be discussed in more detail in the next
section.
P.O. Box 492|Broomfield, CO 80038-0492|
720-221-7270|www.silvertonconsulting.com
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Using similar methods, application-consistent SAN-based snapshots are also achievable with virtual
machines in other operating system environments, dependent on operating system and its underlying
services to quiesce applications and flush file system buffers. For example, Oracle provides tools to
coordinate database transaction processing with SAN-based snapshots across multiple operating system
environments, primarily through user-defined scripts that leverage Oracle- and SAN-based command
interfaces.
4
VMware Infrastructure version 3.5 includes rudimentary support for the VSS framework, leveraging VSS
to quiesce Windows-based applications and/or file systems when taking a VMware snapshot. Thus,
snapshots taken with Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware Edition inherit this capability.
P.O. Box 492|Broomfield, CO 80038-0492|
720-221-7270|www.silvertonconsulting.com
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Conclusion
Protecting VMware virtual server infrastructure can be a multi-faceted, time-consuming
endeavor ranging from backup processes for everyday data protection to replication for
offsite VM disaster recovery (DR). It is paramount that IT managers and administrators
consider the impact of virtualization on their existing processes as well as evaluate the
significant opportunities to enhance their data protection methods that virtualization and
advanced SAN features make available. With the proper tools and planning, IT
organizations can provide comprehensive data protection and disaster recovery strategies
for the entire virtual data center.
Traditionally, VMware implementations often resulted in expensive and complex Fibre
Channel storage area networks (FC SANs) implementations. In contrast, storage
consolidation using Dell EqualLogic PS Series virtualized iSCSI SANs represents an
evolution in storage economics and ease of use. The PS Series provides advanced
storage functionality while still maintaining simplicity. With volumes virtualized across
all available SAN resources rather than a discreet set of physical disk drives, advanced
load balancing automates performance tuning. Equally impressive is the PS Series ability
to seamlessly expand the SAN environment without downtime, as well as migrate data
across and within storage pools non-disruptively. Dells PS Series offerings also support
full system redundancy, multiple RAID levels, automatic system monitoring and other
features to provide a highly available storage subsystem and another important tier of
data protection.
By automating daily management tasks and including advanced features such as
snapshots and replication at no additional cost, the PS Series provides users with
additional time and resources to more effectively design and manage business continuity
within their virtualized server environments. Advanced integration with VMware
environments, including Auto-Snapshot Manager tools and VMware Site Recovery
Manager PS Series adapters, provide application- and hypervisor-aware data protection
and automated disaster recovery workflows to simply and efficiently protect the virtual
data center.
In conclusion, Dells PS Series storage provides a comprehensive scheme of data
protection for VMware-based virtual infrastructures. When combined with tape backup,
an enterprises data and business operations is formidably guarded by multiple concentric
layers of protection based on Dells PS Series virtualized iSCSI SAN infrastructure.
Silverton Consulting, Inc. is a Storage, Strategy & Systems consulting services company,
based in the USA offering products and services to the data storage community.
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