For more than 6 months, we have heard a lot about VMware Virtual SAN solutions that have been making waves in the industry through the Software Defined Storage platform. But what exactly is it, and why should you use Virtual SAN instead of traditional data storage? If you observe the data storage industry, there hasn’t been much change in the last 10-15 years.
The Impact of Cloud Technology
In reality, we have dual controller subsystems with disks, RAID arrays, hot spares, and cache. Technologies such as SSD and auto-tiering have been developed to make storage faster, and technologies such as provisioning, duplication, and compression have been developed to make storage performance more efficient. In fact, these only extend the usefulness of an outdated architecture. Even more modern hybrids or flash arrays are outdated architectures with faster disks.
The influence of “cloud” technology means that people are now accustomed to systems that extend a distributed model to ensure data protection (e.g., multiple copies in different locations). So it is only natural that cloud-based architectures will eventually find their way into mainstream data storage.
VMware Virtual SAN & hyper-converged compute systems share common characteristics with cloud architecture, where parity-based RAID is no longer used as a data redundancy method, and even distributed data protection models affect data availability/resilience, performance, and durability. This architecture is substantially more reliable than traditional data storage, mainly due to the simplification of data availability (with complex RAID algorithms), as well as its physical distribution, which eliminates the inherent weaknesses of traditional data storage.
I still remember a number of dual controller or RAID double disk failures that I have dealt with in my career. These were failures that should not have happened but were common. That is why the legacy architecture of “designed not to fail” seems to be becoming obsolete and why a new “designed for failure” architecture is needed.
Conventional VMware Virtual System or Using a New System?
When considering your future data storage platform, you must decide whether to stick with a conventional system or use a new one. Conventional systems are well known, including their advantages and disadvantages. Organizations that choose to use conventional systems purchase hot spare disks or use non-parity/double parity RAID.
Working with several shortcomings will result in low efficiency and trigger financial imbalances. Meanwhile, using a new system based on commodity hardware (disks, SSDs) configured in a distributed duplication model, where multiple copies of data are transparently separated into physical/independent nodes. This “shared nothing” architecture is not vulnerable to failure in one node, or even two nodes, as the data is distributed across many nodes.
VMware Virtual SAN uses this architecture model and integrates it with the VMware hypervisor, providing a data storage platform that has been optimized to run on virtual servers. Due to its highly integrated nature, Virtual SAN provides VM-centric capabilities that conventional data storage platforms cannot offer, such as per-VM replication or per-VM snapshots. Also, because Virtual SAN runs within the hypervisor, it reduces technical team involvement compared to virtual applications often found in hyper-converged computing solutions.
When looking at Virtual SAN from an economic perspective, there are many variables to consider, including ensuring availability, performance, and features such as traditional data storage services, or exploiting new capabilities by enabling Virtual SAN to enhance data storage services.
As a rule of thumb, providing an environment such as data storage with Virtual SAN will save 30-40% in CAPEX, or alternatively, by spending the same amount of capital as expected on traditional data storage services, but with Virtual SAN providing far better capabilities.
Approach Used by VMware Virtual SAN
Operationally, Virtual SAN uses a “less is best” approach, which means that by eliminating traditional RAID arrays, LUNs, and data storage mapping, it significantly reduces the need for data storage specialists. Instead, VMware administrators can provision VMs directly in the VMware hypervisor, performing a single provisioning task within VMware and the Virtual SAN platform.
Furthermore, by moving important data protection features such as Snapshots and Replication from the LUN level to the VM level, it provides a more granular and controllable approach. This can reduce expenses for managing multiple LUNs with different capabilities, and also reduce the amount of “empty” capacity in each LUN.
Ultimately, to have a data storage platform that can adapt to “demand” tailored to changes in data storage usage models (organic growth + project growth), in terms of performance and capacity, reducing the risk of wasted purchases. Wasted purchases occur because companies need to reduce initial capital expenditure, so conventional data storage purchases are only as much as the company thinks is necessary.
If business growth exceeds expectations, the data storage platform must be replaced before its effective period ends (depreciation cycle). With Virtual SAN, the scale-out model is designed for growth, resilience, capacity, and performance that are independent of each other. Additional capacity is adjusted with larger drives, additional performance is adjusted with SSDs, and additional resilience is adjusted with nodes. Additions or reductions are linear, without additional costs or degradation resulting from the scale-out model.
Using Cloud Computing Models to Replace Traditional Models
In conclusion, with the current Cloud Computing model, supported by a pay-as-you-grow payment model, traditional data storage architecture will find it difficult to remain in use. Technologies such as VMware Virtual SAN offer significant differentiation, as they can align much better with business consumption or financial models. This is what makes VMware Virtual SAN the right and logical choice for current and future generation computing platforms.
By: Neil Cresswell (CEO of IndonesianCloud), Mahfud Azhary (Consulting & Engineering Director)
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