VMware Virtual SAN Managing Storage with Virtual SAN Policies

Rawlinson Rivera, VCDX Principal Architect | Storage and Availability

The Software-Defined Data Center

Transform storage by aligning it with app demands

Management tools give way to automation

Transform Storage The Way Virtualization Transformed Compute

vSphere

Virtualize Storage •  Abstract and aggregate into flexible

VM-centric pools of capacity

Automate •  Automate the deliver of storage

service levels across all storage tiers

All-SSD Hybrid

X86 servers

Customers Face Several Challenges with Storage Today

Device-centric Silos

✖  Static classes of service

✖  Rigid provisioning

✖  Lack of granular control

✖  Frequent data migrations

✖  Time consuming processes

✖  Lack of automation

✖  Slow reaction to request

Complex Processes

VI Admin

Storage Admin

App Admin

✖  Not commodity

✖  Low utilization

✖  Overprovisioning

Specialized Expensive HW

Virtual SAN

Virtual SAN Puts The App In Charge

Simpler and Automated Storage Management Through Application-centric Approach

Today

1. Pre-define storage configurations

2. Pre-allocate static bins

3. Expose pre-allocated bins

4. Select appropriate bin

5. Consume from pre-allocated bin

1. Define storage policy

2. Apply policy at VM creation

Virtual SAN Shared Datastore

Resource and data service are automatically provisioned and maintained.

✖  Overprovisioning (Better safe than sorry!)

✖  Wasted resources, wasted time ✖  Frequent data migrations

!  No overprovisioning !  Less resources, less time !  Easy to change

Today

A New Approach is Needed: Software-Defined Storage

New Control Plane

From Hardware-centric to App-centric

New Data Plane

From Specialized to Industry Standard Hardware

Software-Defined Storage Storage Today

•  Policy-driven automation •  Common across arrays •  Dynamic control

•  Server SAN •  Flash accelerated •  Distributed

Storage Policy-Based Mgmt.

Control Plane

Data Plane

Storage Policy Based Mgmt. Virtual Volumes

VVOL-enabled SAN / NAS

AP

Is

Control Plane

Data Plane

What’s New In The vSphere 6.0 Release

……

Virtual SAN 6.0

!  All-Flash architecture

!  2x greater scalability

!  4x greater with All-

Flash; 2x performance

with Hybrid

!  Virtual SAN Snapshots

and Clones

Radically Simple Hypervisor-Converged Storage for VMs

vSphere Virtual Volumes

!  Virtualizes SAN/NAS

devices

!  Uses native array

capabilities

!  VM-level operations

!  Included with vSphere

Management & Integration Framework for External Storage

HDD SSD HDD SSD HDD SSD

Virtual SAN

Hypervisor-converged SDS Stack

External Storage App-Centric Automation

Virtual SAN Simplifies And Automates Storage Management

Per VM Storage Service Levels From a Single Self-tuning Datastore

Storage Policy-Based Management

Virtual SAN Shared Datastore

vSphere + Virtual SAN

SLAs

Software Automates Control of Service Levels

No more LUNs/Volumes!

Policies Set Based on Application Needs

Capacity

Performance

Availability

Per VM Storage Policies

Storage Policy-Based Management:

vSphere Storage Policy-Based Mgmt

Virtual SAN

Capacity

Performance Availability

2 Failures to tolerate

Object Space Reservation 10 GB

Flash Read Cache 10 %

•  Intelligent storage placement at scale

• Dynamic adjustments in real time

• Automated policy enforcement

App-centric Control Plane That Across Storage Tiers

Storage Capabilities and VM Storage Policies

•  Storage Capabilities – are array based features and data services specifications that capture storage requirements that can be satisfied by a storage arrays advertised as capabilities.

•  Storage capabilities define what an array can offer to storage containers as opposed to what the VM requires.

•  Arrays Storage Capabilities are advertises to vSphere through the Vendor Provider and VASA APIs

•  In vSphere Storage Capabilities are consumed via VM Storage Policy constructs.

SPBM  

object manager

virtual disk

Datastore  Profile  VM Storage Policy

vSphere VM Storage Policy Management Framework

Storage Capabilities for Storage Array

Access

Capacity

Published Capabilities Snapshot

Replication

Deduplication

QoS

Virtual Datastore

Storage Policy-based Management Framework

•  Virtual SAN leverages a storage policy framework in conjunction with VASA API’s to expose storage characteristics to vCenter.

•  SPBM is a storage policy framework built into vSphere that enables VM-centric policy driven provisioning. –  Storage Capabilities

•  Underlying storage and its capabilities are surfaces to vCenter.

–  Virtual Machine Storage Requirements •  Requirements can only be used against available capabilities.

–  VM Storage Policies •  VM Storage Policies is a component of the vSphere Storage Policy-based management framework (SPBM) •  Construct that stores virtual machine’s storage provisioning requirements based on storage capabilities.

Storage  Policy  Wizard  

SPBM  

object

VSAN object manager

virtual disk

VSAN objects may be (1) mirrored across hosts & (2) striped across disks/hosts to meet VM storage profile policies

Datastore  Profile  

Virtual SAN SPBM Object Provisioning Mechanism

VM Storage Policies

•  VM Storage Policies are accessible from vSphere Web Client Home screen.

Virtual SAN Capabilities

•  Virtual SAN currently surfaces five unique storage capabilities to vCenter.

Virtual SAN Capabilities

•  Virtual SAN storage capabilities values

Virtual Machine Provisioning Operations

•  All VM provisioning operation include access to VM Storage Policies

Virtual Machine Provisioning Operations

•  If the Virtual SAN Datastore understands the capabilities in the VM Storage Policy, it will be displayed as a matching resource.

Virtual Machine Provisioning Operations

–  If the VSAN Datastore can satisfy the VM Storage Policy, the VM Summary tab will display the VM as compliant.

–  If not, due to failures, or the force provisioning

capability, the VM will be shown as non-compliant.

Virtual Machine Policy Management

•  Modify VM performance, capacity, and availability requirements without downtime.

Virtual SAN Usability Improvements

•  What-if-APIs (Scenarios)

•  Adding functionality to visualize Virtual SAN datastore resource utilization when a VM Storage Policy is created or edited.

– Creating Policies – Reapplying a Policy

Default Storage Policies

•  A Virtual SAN Default Profile is automatically created in SPBM when VSAN is enabled on a cluster. –  Default Profiles are utilized by any VM created without an explicit SPBM profile assigned. –  vSphere admins to designate a preferred VM Storage Policy as the preferred default policy for the Virtual SAN

cluster.

•  vCenter can manage multiple vsanDatastores with different sets of requirements.

•  Each vsanDatastore can have a different default profile assigned.

Default Storage Policies

vSphere + Virtual SAN

Hard disks Hard disks SSD SSD Hard disks SSD

…vSphere + Virtual SAN

Hard disks Hard disks SSD SSD Hard disks SSD

…

vCenter Server

VSAN default policy

BCA default policy

Number of Failures to Tolerate

•  Number of failures to tolerate –  Defines the number of hosts, disk or network failures a storage object can tolerate. For “n” failures

tolerated, “n+1” copies of the object are created and “2n+1” host contributing storage are required.

vsan network

vmdk vmdk witness

esxi-01 esxi-02 esxi-03 esxi-04

~50% of I/O ~50% of I/O

Virtual SAN Policy: “Number of failures to tolerate = 1”

raid-1

Number of Disk Stripes Per Object

•  Number of disk stripes per object –  The number of HDDs across which each replica of a storage object is distributed. Higher values

may result in better performance.

vsan network

stripe-2b witness

esxi-01 esxi-02 esxi-03 esxi-04

stripe-1b stripe-1a stripe-2a

raid-0 raid-0

VSAN Policy: “Number of failures to tolerate = 1” + “Stripe Width =2”

raid-1

Virtual SAN Storage Capabilities

•  Force provisioning –  if yes, the object will be provisioned even is the policy specified in the storage policy is not

satisfiable with the resources currently available.

•  Flash read cache reservation (%) –  Flash capacity reserved as read cache for the storage object. Specified as a percentage of logical

size of the object.

•  Object space reservation (%) –  Percentage of the logical size of the storage object that will be reserved (thick provisioned) upon

VM provisioning. The rest of the storage object is thin provisioned.

Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM)

The Next Generation Data Center Operating Model from VMware Policy Driven: Software-Defined Storage Agility with Control

vSphere

Enabling Self-service Consumption

Storage Policy Based Mgmt. Storage Policy Based Mgmt. Storage Policy Based Mgmt.

Virtual Volumes

Storage

VMFS

…

HDD SSD

…

HDD SSD HDD SSD

Virtual SAN

Virtual Datastore

SAN NAS

Cloud And Management Automation vRealize Automation Center

OpenStack

SAN NAS

!!!

Rawlinson Rivera @PunchingClouds

#

THANK YOU

Recommended Next Steps

•  VMware Virtual SAN Online Hands-on Lab

•  Keep up with the latest VMware activity http://blogs.vmware.com/smb

•  Learn why customers choose VMware www.vmware.com/go/customers

•  Invest in your future - VMware Training and Certification On-Demand courses - www.vmware.com/go/VSAN-On-Demand