VMware has exploded in popularity. Businesses eager to take advantage of the convenience and efficiency of server virtualization are racing to embrace VMware’s vSphere solutions at breakneck speed. The only trouble is, as everyone knows, sometimes breakneck speed can end in a sudden, violent stop when limitations are reached. Like a racing dog that suddenly reaches the end of its tether and gets yanked back by the force of its own velocity, larger SMBs that are on the brink of major expansion into all-out enterprise corporation territory are putting their necks at risk because of lopsided expansion.
The reason for this lopsided expansion comes by way of a huge imbalance that exists between the scalability of VMware software and the limited scalability of common Network Attached Storage (NAS) solutions in wide use. Inevitably, this inequity results in bottlenecks that rear their ugly heads when those aforementioned limits are reached, causing things to slow to a grinding halt; or to a near crawl, at best. Fortunately, there are solutions to this problem that can be achieved through more highly scalable NAS solutions.
With unstructured data being the most rapidly growing data segment, there’s a huge push to find workable SMB NAS solutions that will reduce out of control file server sprawl and head off the arrival of the aforementioned and universally dreaded Network Attached Storage bottleneck.
SMB NAS Solutions
In order to better help SMBs understand the performance offered by enterprise NAS, we’ve created the following list of characteristics needed to match the high scalability of VMware vSphere environments. Businesses that are nearing the end of their proverbial tether should take a long, hard look at the NAS technologies available to them, and ensure that any choice they make includes each of the following.
- Storage Consolidation Capabilities – The ability to facilitate the consolidation of multiple DAS and NAS systems into one unit is vital. This allows the system to deliver optimum utilization and simplicity in administration by storing all data in a centrally managed pool. But that’s not all that effective and far reaching consolidation can produce. One of the most easily forgotten yet critically important by-products of the consolidation of storage comes by way of what some might call “the green effect”: the fewer the number of physical arrays, the less power is required to operate and cool them, and thus the more beneficial the environmental impact. Not to mention the enormous cost savings that can come as a result of making these significant energy cutbacks.
- The Inclusion of Intelligent Tiered Storage – Tiered storage is one of the most economical ways of storing enterprise data and is an invaluable element of enterprise NAS units. As data ages and loses its day to day relevancy, it can be transferred from more expensive storage arrays like SAS and Fibre Channel to low-cost SATA, and eventually offloaded to permanent archive via VTL or a content archiving platform (like HCP). A NAS unit with intelligent tiered storage can detect what data to move to lower and less expensive tiers by virtue of the fact that it’s not accessed as frequently. Seek SMB NAS units that include intuitive “policy management” software which allow tiering rules to be created easily and quickly.
- Simplified Management through Easy to Provision Storage – The NAS should have a simple to operate interface that puts into the hands of IT the power to easily set up thin provisioning and establish unique parameters for automated backups, just as it allows for the programming of automatic data tiering. The addition of capacity should also be entirely non-disruptive for both VMs, VMDKs and their applications, and a suitable NAS solution should allow IT admins to add additional storage quickly and without hassle.
- Snapshot-based Backup, Recovery and File Cloning – Today’s NAS systems provide some form of snapshots to backup and recovery of data files. These are typically called readable snapshots. The best of solutions also provide a feature called “file cloning” or writable snapshots. In vSphere environments with many virtual servers, often each of the VMs have a basic OS and application image tied to them. The same occurs in VDI environments with many virtual clients. In both of these situations, it’s very desirable to have a single physical instance of the VM image stored as opposed to having multiple copies of unchanged data filling your storage devices. This not only simplifies management, but also saves disk space.
Additional Criteria
In addition to those characteristics explored in detail above, there are other criteria that should be in place to enable a seamless leap from midsized NAS performance to enterprise NAS capabilities.
- Must be VM software approved, indicating that it’s both VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V ready
- Should have multiple 10GbE connectivity, enabling rapid throughput
- Must be equipped to support NFS, CIFS and iSCSI protocols
- Should provide scalable performance and capacity through the addition of more controllers to boost I/O throughput
- Has to support centralized management
Where to start when seeking a Midrange NAS Solution
The acquisition of the BlueArc NAS platform by Hitachi Data Systems effectively merges into a single package all of the required characteristics that can enable the rapid scalability needed to keep up with the scalability of VMware vSphere. The Hitachi NAS platform delivers up to 8PB usable capacity and as many as 100,000 IOPS per node, and is a robust midrange solution with a significant boost delivered by BlueArc’s SiliconFS architecture and heritage as a provider of enterprise NAS solutions.
The SMB-Plus Exclusivity Factor of Midrange and Enterprise NAS Technology
It’s important to note that the Hitachi NAS Platform, like all enterprise NAS systems, is far from consumer-level equipment, and nothing that any consumer should attempt to integrate into their home network. Doing so would be a bit like equipping a commuter car with a rocket propulsion system—in other words, major overkill. Marked by its price tag and its superior level of performance, the Hitachi/BlueArc NAS may not even be suitable for some Start-Ups. Where it provides unmatched value in the market is to those medium sized businesses that are on the brink of breaking through to enterprise level dimensions where highly scalable NAS and NAS gateways are both commonplace and necessary.
|
![NAS Platform 3080 Storage System [Powered by BlueArc]](images/products/hds_3000.gif "NAS Platform 3080 Storage System [Powered by BlueArc]")
