DataCore Software - The one and only Storage Hypervisor

DataCore SANsymphony-V 8.1

The Storage Hypervisor

Alexander Best
September 2011

Datacore at a Glance
Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Specializing in Storage
Line of
Business Virtualization Software for
Storage Area Networks (SANs)

Products SANsymphony™-V storage Virtualizationsoftware

Ownership Privately held since 1998

Customer Global 6000 Enterprises & Small to Midsize Firms, Hosting
Company’s

Distribution VARs, System Integrators & OEMs

Support Worldwide, 24x7x365 from service centers in U.S., U.K. & Japan

Locations Ft. Lauderdale, FL, U.S. (Headquarters)
Munich, Germany (EMEA operations)
Tokyo, Japan (Asia Pacific operations)

2 Copyright © 2011 DataCore Software Corp. – All Rights Reserved.

DataCore is …
 Vision and Passion
► Starts with People driven by Vision and Passion

► Knowing there has to be a better way!

• Infrastructure Software not Storage
• Endures and Evolves as devices ‘come and go’
• Delivering the Economic Benefits of virtualisation to
Storage infrastructures
► Delivering a Compelling, Logical and Inevitable
Business Proposition
• From Pioneers to Mainstream

 This year – DataCore became 13 years old.

4

Virtualisation is Strategic

virtualisation ranks as the No. 1 strategic
technology… not for its ability to virtualise servers, but for its
increasing capability to virtualise just about everything else in a
data center...in storage, for instance, virtualisation allows
users to "to combine different kinds and generations of
storage technology.“

For DataCore Software, "patience" is proving to be its own
reward. Trends in the storage market are driving customer
requirements in a direction that plays to the company's
strengths.”


The BIG Picture of Virtualisation

Before Virtualisation:
Hardware tied resources down. Restrictive and
complex to manage.

But now:
Hypervisors free resources from traditional
constraints. Flexible, scalable and simplified
management


The “Big Problem” of Virtualisation

“SANs stall server virtualisation”
Mark Bowker
 Budget overruns in switching to
shared storage infrastructure
 Unforeseen I/O bottlenecks
appear
 Single points of failure arise

“Storage is where it all breaks down”
Richard Villars


Business Proposition
 Eliminate those unforeseen storage-related problems
that get in the way of your server & desktop
virtualisation plans:
► Major I/O bottlenecks

► Widespread application disruptions

► Unsuitable data protection policies

► Large capital expenditures

How?
 Use software to shape a virtual
shared storage infrastructure
► Leverage existing equipment

► Avoid costly exotic devices

The 3 Dimensions of a Virtualisation Strategy
DesktopDesktop H/W
H/W
Desktop
virtualisation Software

Server virtualisation Software
Server H/W
Server H/W
Server H/W

Storage Hypervisor Software
Storage H/W
Storage H/W
Storage H/W

Hardware  Maintenance  Expansion
 Upgrades  Technology refresh
comes & goes
 Smooth operations
 Consistent performance
 Stable suite of device-independent services

Transition to Fully virtualised Environment
Building 1 Building 2

Cluster

DR
Sites

Adaptive Adaptive
Caching Caching Asynchronous
Replication
Active Active

Synchronous Mirroring

Centralized
Management


Infrastructure-Wide Functions
• Across unlike & incompatible devices
• Without slowdowns or downtime


What’s New in SANsymphony-V R8.1
New Proven New
Ease of Use Capabilities Functionality
• Intuitive, configurable, Device-independent • Integrated CDP
contemporary GUI storage virtualization
• 5x faster asynchronous
• Workflow integration & Virtual tiered disk pooling replication protocol
automation
HA via sync mirroring • Two-click
• Self-guided wizards reverse replication
High-performance caching
• Task-oriented design • Built-in task scheduler
Offsite async replication
• Consolidated stats / • Audit trail of changes
Online snapshots
events across nodes
• Auto port selection
Transparent migration
• Automated support
bundle • Event-driven e-mail
Back-end load balancing notifications
• Simpler licensing Thin provisioned space
structure • Automatic Storage Tiering


SAN-wide Centralized Management
Control / monitor all pooled resources from one console

► Intuitive to set up and operate
► Automates repetitive tasks

► Self-guided wizards for
key workflows
► Comprehensive diagnostics
& troubleshooting tips
► Configurable views of system
behavior and performance
► Role-based, administrative
permissions

Intuitive, Self-Guided Workflow


Click to ‘Quick Serve’: Automates & Optimizes
Capacity, Performance and Data Protection

Simplify Serving
Disks to Hosts

Select Capacity Size
And Click to
Automate:

•Thin Provisions
•Selects Best Paths
•Sets Adaptive Cache
•Load Balances
•Creates Mirrors
•Sets up HA
•Etc…


Virtual Disk Pooling
Consolidate like or unlike disk resources

► Split pool into tiers of different
price/performance/capacity
► Create and assign virtual disks
of desired sizes
► Define access rights
► Explicitly assign virtual disks
to hosts or groups of hosts
► Expand capacity without downtime
► Eliminate stranded disk space


Remove Direct-Attached Drawbacks
DAS
 Eliminate stranded
storage
W brand
6TB # P1  Make available capacity
accessible to most
needy applications
Free
W brand
8TB # G2  Choose disk
characteristics based on
program needs
 Defer additional purchase
X brand until pool nears depletion
11TB # S3 Used


Manage Capacity as a Pool of Disk Space

Tier Cost RAS Speed Density Disk Space (TBs)
W brand W brand
P1 model P3 model
1 Hi Hi Hi Lo
6TB
Used
W brand W brand
G2 model G5 model
2 Med Hi Med Med
8TB
Used
SAN
X brand Z brand
S3 model Q7 model
3 Lo Med Lo Hi
11TB
Used


High-Speed Caching
Speeds up performance

► Accelerates disk I/O response
from existing storage
► Uses x86-64 CPUs and
memory from DataCore
nodes as powerful,
inexpensive “mega caches”
► Anticipates next blocks to
be read, and groups writes
to avoid waiting on disks


Turbo-charged Virtual Disk I/O
Avg. Response (µS)
DataCore L1 Cache <20
Array L2 Cache 250 – 300
Disk Drive 4000 – 6000

CPU CPU
Poll for Output
Input from Cache

High-Speed
Write Level 1 Caching
Up to 1 TB Pre-fetch
cache per Coalesce
DataCore node
Cached Cached Un-cached CPU
CPU Array Array Array

Disk
Subsystems

Load Balancing
Improve response and throughput
Improve response and throughput

► Overcome typical storage-
related bottlenecks
► Spread load on physical
devices using different
channels for different
virtual disks
► Automatically bypasses
failed or offline channels


Thin Provisioning
Allocate just enough space, just-in-time

► Appears to computers as very
large drives (e.g. 2 TB disks)
► Takes up only space actually
being written to
► Dynamically allocates more
disk space when required
► Reduces need to resize LUNs
► Reclaims zeroed out
disk space


Guessing on Allocation Leads to Waste
Disk 1 Disk 2 Disk 3

Free

Few Blocks Actually
Free Disk 1 Written To
Free
Disk 3

Free
Free Disk 2
Disk 2

Capacity consumed
whether used or not!


Waste-Free Thin Provisioning
2TB
Free Virtual + 2.0TB
V Disk 3 Allocation: + 2.0TB
+ 2.0TB
0 2TB
6.0TB
Free
V Disk 2 Actual = 0.4TB
0 2TB
Free
V Disk 1
0
Physical Disk Pool Time to add more
60%
Free Expand as No Device
Needed Dependency
0 0.4TB 1TB

Thin Provisioning Space Reclamation
Recover space from deleted files in virtual volumes
2TB

Free Space previously
V Disk 1 allocated to deleted file
0 2TB

Free
V Disk 1 Fill with zeroes

0
Release zero-filled
space back to free pool

0 Physical Disk Pool

Real Thin
Example: Multi TB Virtual Disk only occupies a few GB


RAID Striping
Better protection & performance

► Circumvents drive failures
► Spreads I/O across
multiple spindles
► Offloads RAID 0 & 1

► Supports popular RAID
devices in pool


Synchronous Mirroring
Real-time I/O replication for High-Availability

► Eliminates storage as
a single point of failure
► Enhances survivability using
physically separate nodes
► Updates two distributed
copies simultaneously
► Mirrored virtual disks behave
as one, multi-ported shared drive
► May be combined with clustered
file shares to achieve HA NAS


Synchronously Mirrored Writes
“Virtual Disk” • Separate Chassis
Client
• Different Location
• Independent Power
• Independent Cooling
1 • Separate UPS
4

2
Active Synchronous Partner
Mirroring
3
5 Cache Cache 6

Mirror (P) Mirror (S)
Node A Node B

Track Health of High Availability Mirrors


Virtual Disk Migration
Transparently move contents from one disk to another

► Allows non-disruptive
hardware disk upgrades
► Clears & reclaims space
occupied by original
► Provides pass-through
access to drives previously
used on other systems


Non-Disruptive Disk Upgrades
Virtual disks remain active
while contents are migrated to
MPIO
a different device
Physical Storage Pool

Old New
Tier 1

Tier 2
Retain or discard
Tier 3 older device


Online Snapshots
Capture point-in-time images without tying up much disk
space or make complete clones
► Recover quickly at disk
speeds to known good state
► Eliminate back-up window

► Provide “live” environment
for analysis, development
& testing
► Save snapshots in lower tier,
thin-provisioned disks
without taking up space on
premium storage devices


Low-impact, Point-in-time Snapshots
Copy Empty when
original contents
Snapshot st write
here on 1 enabled Active program
If unchanged,
read from Source
1
(Earlier point-in-time)

2
E p-i-t Source
3
Current
image
4
• Back-up
• Testing
• Analysis
• Recovery Only changed blocks Source disk
take up space blocks

Continuous Data Protection & Recovery
Return to any point-in-time without taking explicit backups

► Dial back to restore arbitrary
point-in-time within a 48 hour
time frame
► Logs and timestamps all I/Os
to the selected virtual disks
► No need to quiesce or
interrupt applications
► No host agents required

► Easy to turn on and
revert from


Revert to Earlier Image

Active CDP Time-
Stamped
Updates
Cache
Choose time before
problem occurred

11:09am

= 10:22am
9am 10am 11am

Remote Replication
Update distant copies without impacting local performance

► Perfect for disaster recovery
► Only needs a basic IP
connection to secondary site
► Bi-directional (sites can
replicate to each other)
► Asynchronous

► Compressed, multi-stream
transfers for fast performance
& optimum use of bandwidth


Keep Remote Disaster Recovery
Site Updated
DR Site

Recovery
Destination Image

Source

Replicated
Updates
Cache
Snapshot
Queued
Updates
Active
Cache

Central IT site Asynchronous
IP
Copy

Advanced Site Recovery
Expedite central site restoration

► Reverses direction of
replication from the disaster
recovery (DR) site to the
primary datacenter
► Universal coverage for
heterogeneous scenarios
► Same automated process
for virtual & physical systems


Cluster File Shares
New Way of Unified Storage SAN / NAS

► Allows two Hypervisors on
the same physical device

► Universal coverage for
heterogeneous scenarios
Block and File Level

►Highest Availability for
NFS/CIFS and Blocklevel


HIGH AVAILABILITY NAS
/home

NFS/CIFS Cluster
NFS/CIFS

HYPER-V HYPER-V
DATACORE DATACORE

Sync-Mirrored
S2 P2
P1 Disks S1


Automatic Storage Tiering
Making best choice of data placement on your behalf

 Dynamically migrate virtual disk
blocks among different classes
(tiers) of storage
 Best location at the time
determined by:
► Access frequency
► User preferences
 Classify tiers according to price,
performance & capacity
► e.g., SSD, SAS, SATA


Auto Tiering – How it works
 Monitor sustained I/O behavior across groups of disk
blocks (chunks)
 Compare access frequency against average for each tier
 Promote or demote chunks to most suitable tier
Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3

Chunks

Above average Below average
moves up a tier moves down a tier


Auto-Tiering FAQs
 Q: How many storage tiers are supported within a pool?
A: Up to 15; Usually 3 tiers will cover most needs
 Q. How frequently will the algorithms migrate disk chunks
 A: No more than every 2 or 3 hours to prevent thrashing due to short bursts
 Q: How are tier levels assigned to disks in the pool?
A: IT assings disks to tiers according to their perceived
price/performance/capacity tradeoffs
 Q: Can the tier level of disk in the pool be changed?
A: Yes. Anytime, non-disruptively
 Q: Can the Storage Profile of a Virtual Disk be changed?
A: Yes. Anytime, non-disruptively
 Q: Does Auto-Tiering replace the fixed assignment of a virtual disk to
a tier?
A: No. Auto-Tiering complements fixed assignment. You can also override
the automatic migration by pinning a virtual disk to a specific tier


Auto-Tiering FAQs
 Q: Do I have to have identical tiering on both sides of a mirror?
A: No. The storage profiles are dynamic and storage server centric.
 Q. Is tiering cache aware?
 A: Yes. Cached IO also influences data movement among tiers.
 Q: What happens when a tier fills up?
A: The system first tries to fit the data in the next best lower tier.
If all lower tiers are filled up the system tries to fit the data in the next higher
tier. If all tiers are full, the pool is full!
 Q: How does data move actually?
A: Data only moves up a tier on „heat up“. If a chunk cools down, it only
gets moved downwards a tier when a hotter chunks requests space.
 Q: How does data heat up / cool down?
A: Data temperature is determined by dynamically comparing individual
data acces rates to the average data access rates within a given tier class.
 Q: Is read and write treated the same way?
A: No. Read and write does influence temperatures differently.


Auto-Tiering FAQs
 Q: How do I turn off Auto-Tiering?
A: Set a pool to have only 1 tier level.
 Q: Can I schedule tiering operations to fit specific requirements?
A: Yes. This is achived by the build in task engine in conjunction with the
DataCore PowerShell CMDlets.

 Anything else you like to ask?


Further Essential Functions
 Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) provider to
coordinate snapshots with other processes
► Trigger point-in-time copy from
Exchange, SQL Server, SC DPM, & others VSS requesters/writers

 Enhanced Microsoft 2008 cluster and Oracle RAC support
► Extends support for up to 16 nodes sharing a virtual disk

 Redundant synchronous mirroring paths over iSCSI
► Alternate link if one connection between DataCore nodes fails

 Out-of-band initialization for Asynchronous Replication
► Use transportable media to initialize remote destination
► Speed up time to get remote site ready
► Doesn’t consume expensive WAN links

PowerShell Scripting Library
 Script adminstrative & configuration tasks
 Easy-to-learn commands (cmdlets) with intuitive
verb-noun combinations
► Correspond to actions performed via user interface
► Create-DcsVirtualDisk, ...
 Trigger snapshots, replication, notification, etc.
 Integrate SANsymphony-V activities into
other workflows
► Applications

► 3rd party products (hypervisor, backups,
systems management, ...)


Summary
 Comprehensive set of advanced
storage virtualization functions
► Designed to work together & be centrally managed

 Features operate across similar as well as
mutually incompatible storage devices
► Simple, direct-attached disk drives

► Just a bunch of disks (JBODs)

► RAID storage

► Intelligent SAN storage systems

 Supports all the popular disk manufacturers
 Supports all the popular disk interfaces
 Supports all the popular host operating systems
& hypervisors


Addresses the 3 Major Tasks of
Infrastructure-wide Storage Administration

+Adaptive Caching
I/O acceleration
+Load Balancing
Heterogeneous Devices
+Built in Best Practices
Auto –Tuning/Pathing

Protection at 3 Levels:
1. Data Layer Protection
Continuous Data Protection
2. Local Failure Protection
+Thin Provisioning HA / Synchronous Mirroring
Space Efficiency/Reclamation 3. Remote Disaster Protection
+Virtual Tiered Disk Pooling Asynchronous Replication
Heterogeneous Device types

www.datacore.com
Common Sense Tells You
“When you virtualise your servers & desktops,
You’d better virtualise you storage”


DataCore Software - The one and only Storage Hypervisor

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