Tag: data infrastructure

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RTO Context Matters

RTO Context Matters

With RTO context matters similar to many things in and around Information Technology (IT) among other industries. Various three (or more) letter acronyms (TLAs) have different meanings based on their context. An example of a TLA is RTO which has different meanings. For  instance, RTO can mean:

    • Return To Office
    • Recovery Time Objective
    • Ready To Operate
    • Return To Operations
    • Among others…

From the data protection and cyber resilience context, RTO has traditionally been thought of as a Recovery Time Objective or the amount of time that something should be able to be restored, recovered, rebuilt, reset, or returned to service, aka being usable. Another way of looking at Recovery Time Objective is the goal or requirement that something is ready to operate, enabling an organization and its IT services apps, data, and information to return to operations.

Data Infrastructures and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO)
Figure 1 Data Infrastructures and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO)

RTO Recovery Time Object Context

Where context is needed is not just simply what RTO is being discussed, e.g., recovery time objective; also, what is the scope of the recovery time objective? Is it all-inclusive for a specific component, layer, or focus point? A holistic RTO is when everything in the stack, vertical up and down all layers of hardware, software, services, and, if applicable, also horizontal across different systems, platforms, and locations, is usable. For example, when a user can access an app from various places, and everything is functioning, perhaps not at full or regular speed, it is functioning.

Data Infrastructures and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) layers
Figure 2 Various Threats and Data Infrastructure Layers

Recovery Time Objective Focus

On the other hand, component RTO refers to a specific focus area, point, or location in the stack (figure 2). For example, a lower-level server, network, storage device, physical or virtual machine, container, file system, database repository, or application is restored or returned to readiness and operation. The individual components may be restored to operating; however, what about the sum of all the parts that make up the holistic solution or service the user sees and expects to be in working condition?

Additional Resources Where to learn more

The following links are additional resources to learn more about Recovery Time Objectives (RTO)  and related data infrastructures, tradecraft, and metrics that matter topics.

Various excerpts from Chapter 9 Software Defined Data Infrastructure book
Modernizing Data Protection (Blog Post)
Data Protection Diaries (Blog Post)
Availability and Accessibility (Article)

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), are found in my Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press) by Greg Schulz

What this all means

RTO context matters, not only for which RTO but also if it refers to a holistic compound aggregate scope or that of a component. While component RTOs are essential, so is the holistic focus of when things are usable.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Nine time Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management and Azure Storage, along with previous ten-time VMware vExpert. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of UnlimitedIO LLC.

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Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN from Cloud to On-Prem

What is Azure Elastic SAN

Azure Elastic SAN (AES) is a new (now GA) Azure Cloud native storage service that provides scalable, resilient, easy management with rapid provisioning, high performance, and cost-effective storage. AES (figure 1) supports many workloads and computing resources. Workloads that benefit from AES include tier 1 and tier 2, such as Mission Critical, Database, and VDI, among others traditionally relying upon consolidated Storage Area Network (SAN) shared storage.

Compute resources that can use AES, including bare metal (BM) physical machines (PM), virtual machines (VM), and containers, among others, using iSCSI for access. AES is accessible by computing resources and services within the Azure Cloud in various regions (check Azure Website for specific region availability) and from on-prem core and edge locations using iSCSI. The AES management experience and value proposition are similar to traditional hardware or software-defined shared SAN storage combined with Azure cloud-based management capabilities.

Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN from cloud to on-prem server storageioblog
Figure 1 General Concept and Use of Azure Elastic SAN (AES)

While Microsoft Azure describes AES as a cloud-native storage solution, that does not mean that AES is only for containers and other cloud-native apps or DevOPS. Rather, AES has been built for and is native to the cloud (e.g., software-defined) that can be accessed by various compute and other resources (e.g., VMs, Containers, AKS, etc) using iSCSI.

How Azure Elastic SAN differs from other Azure Storage

AES differs from traditional Azure block storage (e.g., Azure Disks) in that the storage is independent of the host compute server (e.g., BM, PM, VM, containers). With AES, similar to a conventional software-defined or hardware-based shared SAN solution, storage is disaggregated from host servers for sharing and management using iSCSI for connectivity. By comparison, AES differs from traditional Azure VM-based storage typically associated with a given virtual machine in a DAS (Direct Attached Storage) type configuration. Likewise, similar to conventional on-prem environments, there is a mix of DAS and SAN, including some host servers that leverage both.

AES supports Azure VM, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), cloud-native, edge, and on-prem computing (BM, VM, etc.) via iSCSI. Support for Azure VMware Solution (AVS) is in preview; check the Microsoft Azure website for updates and new feature functionality enhancements.

Does this mean everything is moving to AES? Similar to traditional SANs, there are roles and needs for various storage options, including DAS, shared block, file, and object, among storage offerings. Likewise, Microsoft and Azure have expanded their storage offerings to include AES, DAS (azure disks, including Ultra, premium, and standard, among other options), append, block, and page blobs (objects), and files, including Azure file sync, tables, and Data Box, among other storage services.

Azure Elastic Storage Feature Highlights

AES feature highlights include, among others:

    • Management via Azure Portal and associated tools
    • Azure cloud-based shared scalable bock storage
    • Scalable capacity, low latency, and high performance (IOPs and throughput)
    • Space capacity-optimized without the need for data reduction
    • Accessible from within Azure cloud and from on-prem using iSCSI
    • Supports Azure compute  (VMs, Containers/AKS, Azure VMware Solution)
    • On-prem access via iSCSI from PM/BM, VM, and containers
    • Variable number of volumes and volume size per volume group
    • Flexible easy to use Azure cloud-based management
    • Encryption and network private endpoint security
    • Local (LRS) and Zone (ZRS) with replication resiliency
    • Volume snapshots and cluster support

Who is Azure Elastic SAN for

AES is for those who need cost-effective, shared, resilient, high capacity, high performance (IOPS, Bandwidth), and low latency block storage within Azure and from on-prem access. Others who can benefit from AES include those who need shared block storage for clustering app workloads, server and storage consolidation, and hybrid and migration. Another consideration is for those familiar with traditional hardware and software-defined SANs to facilitate hybrid and migration strategies.

How Azure Elastic SAN works

Azure Elastic SAN is a software-defined (cloud native if you prefer) block storage offering that presents a virtual SAN accessible within Azure Cloud and to on-prem core and edge locations currently via iSCSI. Using iSCSI, Azure VMs, Clusters, Containers, Azure VMware Solution among other compute and services, and on-prem BM/PM, VM, and containers, among others, can access AES storage volumes.

From the Azure Portal or associated tools (Azure CLI or PowerShell), create an AES SAN, giving it a 3 to 24-character name and specify storage capacity (base units with performance and any additional space capacity). Next, create a Volume Group, assigning it to a specific subscription and resource group (new or existing), then specify which Azure Region to use, type of redundancy (LRS or GRS), and Zone to use. LRS provides local redundancy, while ZRS provides enhanced zone resiliency, with highspeed synchronous resiliency without setting up multiple SAN systems and their associated replication configurations along with networking considerations (e.g., Azure takes care of that for you within their service).

The next step is to create volumes by specifying the volume name, volume group to use, volume size in GB, maximum IOPs, and bandwidth. Once you have made your AES volume group and volumes, you can create private endpoints, change security and access controls, and access the volumes from Azure or on-prem resources using iSCSI. Note that AES currently needs to be LRS (not ZRS) for clustered shared storage and that Key management includes using your keys with Azure key vault.

Using Azure Elastic SAN

Using AES is straightforward, and there are good easy to follow guides from Microsoft Azure, including the following:

The following images show what AES looks like from the Azure Portal, as well as from an Azure Windows Server VM and an onprem physical machine (e.g., Windows 10 laptop).

Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN from cloud to on-prem server storageioblog
Figure 2 AES Azure Portal Big Picture

Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN from cloud to on-prem server storageioblog
Figure 3 AES Volume Groups Portal View

Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN from cloud to on-prem server storageioblog
Figure 4  AES Volumes Portal View

Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN from cloud to on-prem server storageioblog
Figure 5 AES Volume Snapshot Views

Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN from cloud to on-prem server storageioblog
Figure 6 AES Connected Volume Portal View

Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN from cloud to on-prem server storageioblog
Figure 7 AES Volume iSCSI view from on-prem Windows Laptop

Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN from cloud to on-prem server storageioblog
Figure 8 AES iSCSI Volume attached to Azure VM

Azure Elastic SAN Cost Pricing

The cost of AES is elastic, depending on whether you scale capacity with performance (e.g., base unit) or add more space capacity. If you need more performance, add base unit capacity, increasing IOPS, bandwidth, and space. In other words, base capacity includes storage space and performance, which you can grow in various increments. Remember that AES storage resources get shared across volumes within a volume group.

Azure Elastic SAN is billed hourly based on a monthly per-capacity base unit rate, with a minimum of 1TB  provisioned capacity with minimum performance (e.g., 5,000 IOPs, 200MBps bandwidth). The base unit rate varies by region and type of redundancy, aka resiliency. For example, at the time of this writing, looking at US East, the Local Redundant Storage (LRS) base unit rate is 1TB with 5,000 IOPs and 200MBps bandwidth, costing $81.92 per unit per month.

The above example breaks down to a rate of $0.08 per GB per month, or $0.000110 per GB per hour (assumes 730 hours per month). An example of simply adding storage capacity without increasing base unit (e.g., performance) for US East is $61.44 per month. That works out to $0.06 per GB per month (no additional provisioned IOPs or Bandwidth) or $0.000083 per GB per hour.

Note that there are extra fees for Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS). Learn more about Azure Elastic SAN pricing here, as well as via a cost calculator here.

Azure Elastic SAN Performance

Performance for Azure Elastic SAN includes IOPs, Bandwidth, and Latency. AES IOPs get increased in increments of 5,000 per base TB. Thus, an AES with a base of 10TB would have 50,000 IOPs distributed (shared) across all of its volumes (e.g., volumes are not restricted). For example, if the base TB is increased from 10TB to 20TB, then the IOPs would increase from 50,000 to 100,000 IOPs.

On the other hand, if the base capacity (10TB) is not increased, only the storage capacity would increase from 10TB to 20TB, and the AES would have more capacity but still only have the 50,000 IOPs. AES bandwidth throughput increased by 200MBps per TB. For example, a 5TB AES would have 5 x 200MBps (1,000 MBps) throughput bandwidth shared across the volume groups volumes.

Note that while the performance gets shared across volumes, individual volume performance is determined by its capacity with a maximum of 80,000 IOPs and up to 1,024 MBps. Thus, to reach 80,000 IOPS and 1,024 MBps, an AES volume would have to be at least 107GB in space capacity. Also, note that the aggregate performance of all volumes cannot exceed the total of the AES. If you need more performance, then create another AES.

Will all VMs or compute resources see performance improvements with AES? Traditional Azure Disks associated with VMs have per-disk performance resource limits, including IOPs and Bandwidth. Likewise, VMs have storage limits based on their instance type and size, including the number of disks (HDD or SSD), performance (IOPS and bandwidth), and the number of CPUs and memory.

What this means is that an AES volume could have more performance than what a given VM is limited to. Refer to your VM instance sizing and configuration to determine its IOP and bandwidth limits; if needed, explore changing the size of your VM instance to leverage the performance of Azure Elastic SAN storage.

Additional Resources Where to learn more

The following links are additional resources to learn about Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN and related data infrastructures and tradecraft topics.

Azure AKS Storage Concepts 
Azure Elastic SAN (AES) Documentation and Deployment Guides
Azure Elastic SAN Microsoft Blog
Azure Elastic SAN Overview
Azure Elastic SAN Performance topics
Azure Elastic SAN Pricing calculator
Azure Products by Region (see where AES is currently available)
Azure Storage Offerings 
Azure Virtual Machine (VM) sizes
Azure Virtual Machine (VM) types
Azure Elastic SAN General Pricing
Azure Storage redundancy 
Azure Service Level Agreements (SLA) 
StorageIOBlog.com Data Box Family 
StorageIOBlog.com Data Box Review
StorageIOBlog.com Data Box Test Drive 
StorageIOblog.com Microsoft Hyper-V Alive Enhanced with Win Server 2025
StorageIOblog.com If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?
StorageIOblog.com NVMe Primer (or refresh)
RTO Context Matters (Blog Post)

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), are found in my Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press) by Greg Schulz

What this all means

Azure Elastic SAN (AES) is a new and now generally available shared block storage offering that is accessible using iSCSI from within Azure Cloud and on-prem environments. Even with iSCSI, AES is relatively easy to set up and use for shared storage, mainly if you are used to or currently working with hardware or software-defined SAN storage solutions.

With NVMe over TCP fabrics gaining industry and customer traction, I’m hoping for Microsoft to adding that in the future. Currently, AES supports LRS and ZRS for redundancy, and an excellent future enhancement would be to add Geo Redundant Storage (GRS) capabilities for those who need it.

I like the option of elastic shared storage regarding performance, availability, capacity, and economic costs (PACE). Suppose you understand the value proposition of evolving from dedicated DAS to shared SAN (independent of the underlying fabric network); or are currently using some form of on-prem shared block storage. In that case, you will find AES familiar and easy to use. Granted, AES is not a solution for everything as there are roles for other block storage, including DAS such as Azure disks and VMs within Azure, along with on-prem DAS, as well as file, object, and blobs, tables, among others.

Wrap up

The notion that all cloud storage must be objects or blobs is tied those who only need, provide, or prefer those solutions. The reality is that everything is not the same. Thus, there is a need for various storage mediums, devices, tiers, access, and types of services. Microsoft and Azure have done an excellent job of providing. I like what Microsoft Azure is doing with Azure Elastic SAN.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Nine time Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of UnlimitedIO LLC.

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Microsoft Hyper-V Is Alive Enhanced With Windows Server 2025

Yes, you read that correctly, Microsoft Hyper-V is alive and enhanced with Windows Server 2025, formerly Windows Server v.Next server. Note that  Windows Server 2025 preview build is just a preview available for download testing as of this time.

What about Myth Hyper-V is discontinued?

Despite recent FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), misinformation, and fake news, Microsoft Hyper-V is not dead. Nor has Hyper-V been discontinued, as some claim. Some Hyper-V FUD is tied to customers and partners of VMware following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware looking for alternatives. More on Broadcom and VMware here, here, here, here, and here.

As a result of Broadcom’s VMware acquisition and challenges for partners and customers (see links above), organizations are doing due diligence, looking for replacement or alternatives. In addition, some vendors are leveraging the current VMware challenges to try and position themselves as the best hypervisor virtualization safe harbor for customers. Thus some vendors, their partners, influencers and amplifiers are using FUD to keep prospects from looking at or considering Hyper-V.

Virtual FUD (vFUD)

First, let’s shut down some Virtual FUD (vFUD). As mentioned above, some are claiming that Microsoft has discontinued Hyper-V. Specifically, the vFUD centers on Microsoft terminating a specific license SKU (e.g., the free Hyper-V Server 2019 SKU). For those unfamiliar with the discontinued SKU (Hyper-V Server 2019), it’s a headless (no desktop GUI) version of Windows Server  running Hyper-V VMs, nothing more, nothing less.

Does that mean the Hyper-V technology is discontinued? No.

Does that mean Windows Server and Hyper-V are discontinued? No.

Microsoft is terminating a particular stripped-down Windows Server version SKU (e.g. Hyper-V Server 2019) and not the underlying technology, including Windows Server and Hyper-V.

To repeat, a specific SKU or distribution (Hyper-V Server 2019) has been discontinued not Hyper-V. Meanwhile, other distributions of Windows Server with Hyper-V continue to be supported and enhanced, including the upcoming Windows Server 2025 and Server 2022, among others.

On the other hand, there is also some old vFUD going back many years, or a decade, when some last experienced using, trying, or looking at Hyper-V. For example, the last look at Hyper-V might been in the Server 2016 or before era.

If you are a vendor or influencer throwing vFUD around, at least get some new vFUD and use it in new ways. Better yet, up your game and marketing so you don’t rely on old vFUD. Likewise, if you are a vendor partner and have not extended your software or service support for Hyper-V, now is a good time to do so.

Watch out for falling into the vFUD trap thinking Hyper-V is dead and thus miss out on new revenue streams. At a minimum, take a look at current and upcoming enhancements for Hyper-V doing your due diligence instead of working off of old vFUD.

Where is Hyper-V being used?

From on-site (aka on-premises, on-premises, on-prem) and edge on Windows Servers standalone and clustered, to Azure Stack HCI. From Azure, and other Microsoft platforms or services to Windows Desktops, as well as home labs, among many other scenarios.

Do I use Hyper-V? Yes, when I  retired from the vExpert program after ten years. I moved all of my workloads from VMware environment to Hyper-V including *nix, containers and Windows VMs, on-site and on Azure Cloud.

How Hyper-V Is Alive Enhanced With Windows Server 2025

Is Hyper-V Alive Enhanced With Windows Server 2025?  Yup.

Formerly known as Windows Server v.Next, Microsoft announced the Windows Server 2025 preview build on January 26, 2024 (you can get the bits here). Note that Microsoft uses Windows Server v.Next as a generic placeholder for next-generation Windows Server technology.

A reminder that the cadence of Windows Server Long Term Serving Channels (LTSC) versions has been about three years (2012R2, 2016, 2019, 2022, now 2025), along with interim updates.

What’s enhanced with Hyper-V and Windows Server 2025

    • Hot patching of running server (requires Azure Arc management) with almost instant implementations and no reboot for physical, virtual, and cloud-based Windows Servers.
    • Scaling of even more compute processors and RAM for VMs.
    • Server Storage I/O performance updates, including NVMe optimizations.
    • Active Directory (AD) improvements for scaling, security, and performance.
    • There are enhancements to storage replica and clustering capabilities.
    • Hyper-V GPU partition and pools, including migration of VMs using GPUs.

More Enhancements for Hyper-V and Windows Server 2025

Active Directory (AD)

Enhanced performance using all CPUs in a process group up to 64 cores to support scaling and faster processing. LDAP for TLS 1.3, Kerberos support for AES SHA 256 / 384, new AD functional levels, local KDC, improved replication priority, NTLM retirement, local Kerberos, and other security hardening. In addition, 64-bit Long value IDs (LIDs) are supported along with a new database schema using 32K pages vs the previous 8K pages. You will need to upgrade forest-wide across domain controllers to leverage the new larger page sizes (at least Server 2016 or later). Note that there is also backward compatibility using 8K pages until all ADs are upgraded.

Storage, HA, and Clustering

Windows Server continues to offer flexible options for storage how you want or need to use it, from traditional direct attached storage (DAS) to Storage Area Networks (SAN), to Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) software-defined, including NVMe, NVMe over Fabrics (NVMeoF), SAS, Fibre Channel, iSCSI along with file attached storage. Some other storage and HA enhancements include Storage Replica performance for logging and compression and stretch S2D multi-site optimization.

Failover Cluster enhancements include AD-less clusters, cert-based VM live migration for the edge, cluster-aware updating reliability, and performance improvements. ReFS enhancements include dedupe and compression optimizations.

Other NVMe enhancements include optimization to boost performance while reducing CPU overhead, for example, going from 1.1M IOPS to 1.86M IOPS, and then with a new native NVMe driver (to be added), from 1.1M IOPs to 2.1M IOPs. These performance optimizations will be interesting to look at closer, including baseline configuration, number and type of devices used, and other considerations.

Compute, Hyper-V, and Containers

Microsoft has added and enhanced various Compute, Hyper-V, and Container functionality with Server 2025, including supporting larger configurations and more flexibility with GPUs. There are app compatibility improvements for containers that will be interesting to see and hear more details about besides just Nano (the ultra slimmed-down Windows container).

Hyper-V

Microsoft extensively uses Hyper-V technology across different platforms, including Azure, Windows Servers, and Desktops. In addition, Hyper-V is commonly found across various customer and partner deployments on Windows Servers, Desktops, Azure Stack HCI, running on other clouds, and virtualization (nested). While Microsoft effectively leverages Hyper-V and continues to enhance it, its marketing has not effectively told and amplified the business benefit and value, including where and how Hyper-V is deployed.

Hyper-V with Server 2025 includes discrete device assignment to VM (e.g., resources dedicated to VMs). However, dedicating a device like a GPU to a VM prevents resource sharing, failover cluster, or live migration. On the other hand, Server 2025 Hyper-V supports GPU-P (GPU Partitioning), enabling GPU(s) to be shared across multiple VMs. GPUs can be partitioned and assigned to VMs, with GPUs and GPU partitioning enabled across various hosts.

In addition to partitioning, GPUs can be placed into GPU pools for HA. Live migration and cluster failover (requires PCIe SR-IOV), AMD Lilan or later, Intel Sapphire Rapids, among other requirements, can be done. Another enhancement is Dynamic Processor Compatibility, which allows mixed processor generations to be used across VMs and then masks out functionalities that are not common across processors. Other enhancements include optimized UEFI, secure boot, TPM , and hot add and removal of NICs.

Networking

Network ATC provides intent-based deployments where you specify desired outcomes or states, and the configuration is optimized for what you want to do. Network HUD enables always-on monitoring and network remediation. Software Defined Network (SDN) optimization for transparent multi-site L2 and L3 connectivity and improved SDN gateway performance enhancements.

SMB over QUIC leverages TLS 1.3 security to streamline local, mobile, and remote networking while enhancing security with configuration from the server or client. In addition, there is an option to turn off SMB NTLM at the SMB level, along with controls on which versions of SMB to allow or refuse. Also being added is a brute force attack limiter that slows down SMB authentication attacks.

Management, Upgrades, General user Experience

The upgrade process moving forward with Windows Server 2025 is intended to be seamless and less disruptive. These enhancements include hot patching and flighting (e.g., LTSC Windows server upgrades similar to how you get regular updates). For hybrid management, an easier-to-use wizard to enable Azure Arc is planned. For flexibility, if present, WiFi networking and Bluetooth devices are automatically enabled with Windows Server 2025 focused on edge and remote deployment scenarios.

Also new is an optional subscription-based licensing model for Windows Server 2025 while retaining the existing perpetual use. Let me repeat that so as not to create new vFUD, you can still license Windows Server (and thus Hyper-V) using traditional perpetual models and SKUs.

Additional Resources Where to learn more

The following links are additional resources to learn about Windows Server, Server 2025, Hyper-V, and related data infrastructures and tradecraft topics.

What’s New in Windows Server v.Next video from Microsoft Ignite (11/17/23)
Microsoft Windows Server 2025 Whats New
Microsoft Windows Server 2025 Preview Build Download
Microsoft Windows Server 2025 Preview Build Download (site)
Microsoft Evaluation Center (various downloads for trial)
Microsoft Eval Center Windows Server 2022 download
Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows Information
Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows Server Information
Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows Desktop (e.g., Win10)
Microsoft Windows Server Release Information
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019
Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines Trial
Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN
If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?
NVMe Primer (or refresh), The NVMe Place.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), are found in my Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Hyper-V is very much alive, and being enhanced. Hyper-V is being used from Microsoft Azure to Windows Server and other platforms at scale, and in smaller environments.

If you are looking for alternatives to VMware or simply exploring virtualization options, do your due diligence and check out Hyper-V. Hyper-V may or may not be what you want; however, is it what you need? Looking at Hyper-V now and upcoming enhancements also positions you when asked by management if you have done your due  diligence vs relying on vFUD.

Do a quick Proof of Concept, spin up a lab, and check out currently available Hyper-V. For example, on Server 2022 or 2025 preview, to get a feel for what is there to meet your needs and wants. Download the bits and get some hands on time with Hyper-V and Windows Server 2025.

Wrap up

Hyper-V is alive and enhanced with Windows Server 2025 and other releases.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Nine time Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of UnlimitedIO LLC.

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ToE NVMeoF TCP Performance Line Boost Performance Reduce Costs

The ToE NVMeoF TCP Performance Line Boost Performance Reduce Costs

ToE NVMeoF TCP Performance Line Boost Performance Reduce Costs.

Yes, you read that correct; leverage TCP offload Engines (TOE) to boost the performance of TCP-based NVMeoF (e.g., NVMe over Fabrics) while reducing costs. Keep in mind that there is a difference between cutting costs (something that causes or moves problems and complexities elsewhere) and reducing and removing costs (e.g., finding, fixing, removing complexities).

Reducing or cutting costs can be easy by simply removing items for lower-priced items and introducing performance bottlenecks or some other compromise. Likewise, boosting performance can be addressed by throwing (deploying) more hardware (and or software) at the problem resulting in higher costs or some other compromise.

On the other hand, as mentioned above, finding, fixing, removing the complexity and overhead results in cost savings while doing the same work or enabling more work done via the same costs, maximizing hardware, software, and network costs. In other words, a better return on investment (ROI) and a lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

Software Defined Storage and Networks Need Hardware

With the continued shift towards software-defined data centers, software-defined data infrastructures, software-defined storage, software-defined networking, and software-defined everything, those all need something in common, and that is hardware-based compute processing.

In the case of software-defined storage, including standalone, shared fabric or networked-based, converged infrastructure (CI) or hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) deployment models, there is the need for CPU compute, memory, and I/O, in addition to storage devices. This means that the software to create, manage, and perform storage tasks needs to run on a server’s CPU, along with I/O networking software stacks.

However, it should be evident that sometimes the obvious needs to be restarted, which is that software-defined anything requires hardware somewhere in the solution stack. Likewise, depending on how the software is implemented, it may require more hardware resources, including server compute, memory, I/O, and network and storage capabilities.

Keep in mind that networking stacks, including upper and lower-level protocols and interfaces, leverage software to implement their functionality. Therefore, the value proposition of using standard networks such as Ethernet and TCP is the ability to leverage lower-cost network interface cards (or chips), also known as NICs combined with server-based software stacks.

On the one hand, costs can be reduced by using less expensive NICs and using the generally available server CPU compute capabilities to run the TCP and other networking stack software. On systems with a lower application or other software performance demands, this can work out ok. However, for workloads and systems using software-defined storage and other applications that compete for server resources (CPU, memory, I/O), this can result in performance bottlenecks and problems.

Many Server Storage I/O Networking Bottlenecks Are CPU Problems

There is a classic saying that the best I/O is the one that you do not have to do. Likewise, the second-best I/O is the one with the most negligible overhead (and cost) as well as best performance. Another saying is that many application, database, server, and storage I/O problems are actually due to CPU bottlenecks. Fast storage devices need fast applications on fast servers with fast networks. This means finding and removing blockages, including offloading server CPU from performing network I/O processing using TOEs.

Wait a minute, isn’t the value proposition of using software-defined storage or networking to use low-cost general-purpose servers instead of more expensive hardware devices? With some caveats, Yup understands how much server CPU us being used to run the software-defined storage and software stacks and handle upper-level functionality. To support higher performance or larger workloads can be putting in more extensive (scale-up) and more (scale-out) servers and their increased connectivity and management overhead.

This is where the TOEs come into play by leveraging the best of both worlds to run software-defined storage (and networking) stacks, and other software and applications on general-purpose compute servers. The benefit is the TCP network I/O processing gets offloaded from the server CPU to the TOE, thereby freeing up the server CPU to do more work or enabling a smaller, lower-cost CPU to be used.

After all, many servers, storage, and I/O networking problems are often server CPU problems. An example of this is running the TCP networking software stack using CPU cycles on a host server that competes with the other software and applications. In addition, as an application does more I/O, for example, issuing reads and write requests to network and fabric-based storage, the server’s CPUs are also becoming busier with more overhead of running the lower-layer TCP and networking stack.

The result is server resources (CPU, memory) are running at higher utilization; however, there is more overhead. Higher resource utilization with low or no overhead, low latency, and high productivity are good things resulting in lower cost per work done. On the other hand, high CPU utilization, server operating system or kernel mode overhead, poor latency, and low productivity are not good things resulting in host per work done.

This means there is a loss of productivity as more time is spent waiting, and the cost to do a unit of work, for example, an I/O or transaction, increases (there is more overhead). Thus, offload engines (chips, cards, adapters) come into play to shift some software processing from the server CPU to a specialized processor. The result is lower server CPU overhead leaving more server resources for the main application or software-defined storage (and networking) while boosting performance and lowering overall costs.

Graphics, Compute, Network, TCP Offload Engines

Offload engines are not new, they have been around for a while, and in some cases, more common than some realize going by different names. For example, graphical Processing Units (GPUs) are used for offloading graphic and compute-intensive tasks to special chips and adapter cards. Other examples of offload processors include networks such as TCP Offload Engine (TOE), compression, and storage processing, among others.

The basic premise of offload engines is to move or shift processing of specific functions from having their software running on a general-purpose server CPU to a specialized processor (ASIC, FPGA, adapter, or mezzanine card). By moving the processing of functions to the offload or unique processing device, performance can be boosted while freeing up a server’s primary processor (CPU) to do other useful (and productive) work.

There is a cost associated with leveraging offloads and specialized processors; however, the business benefit should be offset by reducing primary server compute expenses or doing more work with available resources and driving network bandwidth line rates performance. The above should result in a net TCO reduction and boost your ROI for a given system or bill of material, including hardware, software, networking, and management.

Cloud File Data Storage Consolidation and Economic Comparison Model

Fast Storage Needs Fast Servers and I/O Networks

Ethernet network TOEs became popular in the industry back in the early 2000s, focusing on networked storage and storage networks that relied on TCP (e.g., iSCSI).

Fast forward to today, and there is continued use of networked (ok, fabric) storage over various interfaces, including Ethernet supporting different protocols. One of those protocols is NVMe in NVMe over Fabrics (NVMeoF) using TCP and underlying Ethernet-based networks for accessing fast Solid State Devices (SSDs).

Chelsio Communications T6 TOE for NVMeoF

An example of server storage I/O network TOEs, including those to support NVMeoF, are those from Chelsio Communications, such as the T6 25/100Gb devices. Chelsio announced today server storage I/O benchmark proof points for TCP based NVMe over Fabric (NVMeoF) TOE accelerated performance. StorageIO had the opportunity to look at the performance-boosting ability and CPU savings benefit of the Chelsio T6 prior to todays announcement.

After reviewing and validating the Chelsio proof points, test methodology, and results, it is clear that the T6 TOE enabled solution boosts server storage I/O performance while reducing host server CPU usage. The Chelsio T6 solution combined with Storage Performance Development Kit (SPDK) software, provides local-like performance of network fabric distributed NVMe (using TCP based NVMeoF) attached SSD storage while reducing host server CPU consumption.

“Boosting application performance, efficiency, and effectiveness of server CPUs are key priorities for legacy and software defined datacenter environments,” said Greg Schulz, Sr. Analyst Server Storage. “The Chelsio NVMe over Fabrics 100GbE NVMe/TCP (TOE) demonstration provides solid proof of how high-performance NVMe SSDs can help datacenters boost performance and productivity, while getting the best return on investment of datacenter infrastructure assets, not to mention optimize cost-of-ownership at the same time. It’s like getting a three for one bonus value from your server CPUs, your network, and your application perform better, now that’s a trifecta!”

You can read more about the technical and business benefits of the Chelsio T6 TOE enabled solution along with associated proof points (benchmarks) in the PDF white paper found here and their Press Release here. Note that the best measure, benchmark, proof point, or test is your application and workload, so contact Chelsio to arrange an evaluation of the T6 using your workload, software, and platform.

Where to learn more

Learn more about TOE, server, compute, GPU, ASIC, FPGA, storage, I/O networking, TCP, data infrastructure and software defined and related topics, trends, techniques, tools via the following links:

Chelsio Communications T6 Performance Press Release (PDF)
Chelsio Communications T6 TOE White Paper (PDF)
Application Data Value Characteristics Everything Is Not the Same
PACE your Infrastructure decision-making, it’s about application requirements
Data Infrastructure Server Storage I/O Tradecraft Trends
Data Infrastructure Overview, Its What’s Inside of Data Centers
Data Infrastructure Management (Insight and Strategies)
Hyper-V and Windows Server 2025 Enhancements

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

The large superscalar web services and other large environments leverage offload engines and specialized processing technologies (chips, ASICs, FPGAs, GPUs, adapters) to boost performance while reducing server compute costs or getting more value out of a given server platform. If it works for the large superscalars, it can also work for your environment or your software-defined platform.

The benefits are reducing the number and cost of your software-defined platform bill of materials (BoM). Another benefit is to free up server CPU cycles to run your storage or network or other software to get more performance and work done. Yet another benefit is the ability to further stretch your software license investments, getting more work done per software license unit.

Have a look at the Chelsio Communications T6 line of TOE for NVMeoF and other workloads to boost performance, reduce CPU usage and lower costs. See for yourself The TOE NVMeoF TCP Performance Line Boost Performance Reduce Costs benefit.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers GS

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, previous 10 time VMware vExpert. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), Data Infrastructure Management (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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ROI From Use Of Global Control Plane For Expanding VDI Environments

ROI From Use Of Global Control Plane For Cloud VDI Environments

ROI From Use Of Global Control Plane For Expanding VDI Environments

The following is a new Industry Trends Perspective White Paper Report titled ROI From Use Of Global Control Plane For Expanding VDI Environments.

ROI From Use Of Global Control Plane For Expanding VDI Environments

This new StorageIO report looks at ROI From Use Of Global Control Plane For Expanding VDI environments. Using a Pro-Forma analysis this report provides a financial economic model comparison with Return on Investment (ROI) cost savings analysis for managing cloud based virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) environments.

Cloud File Data Storage Consolidation and Economic Comparison Model

IT data infrastructure resource (servers, storage, I/O network, hardware, software, services) decision-making involves evaluating and comparing technical attributes (speeds, feeds, features) of a solution or service. Another aspect of data infrastructure resource decision-making involves assessing how a solution or service will support and enable a given application workload, along with associated management costs from a Performance, Availability, Capacity, and Economic (PACE) perspective.

Keep in mind that all application workloads have some amount of PACE resource requirements that may be high, low or various permutations, along with associated management costs. Performance, Availability (including data protection along with security) as well as Capacity are addressed via technical speeds, feeds, functionality along with workload suitability analysis.

Management costs are a function of initial and recurring tasks to support a given function or service such as VDI. The cost of management includes staff salary, along with amount of time needed to perform various tasks. The E in PACE resource decision-making is about the Economic analysis of various costs associated with different solution approaches.

ROI From Use Of Global Control Plane For Expanding VDI Environments

The above image is an example from the White Paper Report titled ROI From Use Of Global Control Plane For Expanding VDI Environments.

In the example shown above, 36 month OpEx cost (and time) savings are shown using traditional cloud based VDI management tools, technologies and techniques vs. a modern cloud platform integrated global control plane solution. Leveraging a cloud platform integrated global control plane solution such as NetApp VDS among others, management costs can be reduced for initial and recurring tasks from $2,587,394 to $968,041 for 1,001 users.

In addition to the cost savings shown above, note the reduction in management hours of 21,653 over 36 months which could be used for doing other work, or reducing your OpEx spend. Of course your savings will vary based on what tasks, time per task, admin cost among other considerations.

The shift from Capital Expenditures (e.g. CapEx) IT data infrastructure spending to Operational Expenditures (e.g. OpEx) focus particular with IT clouds has resulted in increased OpEx budget demands. Increased spending is more than simply moving IT spend from the CapEx to OpEx columns in budgets. OpEx increases are a cumulation of increased cloud services and data infrastructure spend, along with management (initial and recurring) costs.

The good news is that there are OpEx opportunities to reduce, or, stretch your IT budget to do more while boosting productivity, performance, and effectiveness without compromise. By looking at how to use new technologies in new ways, including leverage cloud platform integrated global control planes for management of VDI (and other functions), initial and recurring OpEx management costs can be reduced.

Read more in this Server StorageIO Industry Trends  Report here.

Where to learn more

Learn more about ROI From Use Of Global Control Plane For Expanding VDI Environments, Clouds and Data Infrastructure related trends, tools, technologies and topics via the following links:

Application Data Value Characteristics Everything Is Not the Same
PACE your Infrastructure decision-making, it’s about application requirements
Cloud conversations: confidence, certainty, and confidentiality
Industry adoption vs. industry deployment, is there a difference?
Ten tips to reduce your cloud compute storage costs 
Don’t Stop Learning Expand Your Skills Experiences Everyday 
ToE NVMeoF TCP Performance Reduce Costs
Data Infrastructure Server Storage I/O Tradecraft Trends
Data Infrastructure Overview, Its What’s Inside of Data Centers
Data Infrastructure Management (Insight and Strategies)
Data Protection Diaries (Archive, Backup, BC, BR, DR, HA, Security)
NetApp VDS with Global Control Plane Cloud VDI Management

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

In addition, looking at your IT data infrastructure cloud spend can also help you to boost the effectiveness, productivity and return on investment while reducing your OpEx spend, or doing more with it. Leveraging financial pro-forma analysis as a tool in conjunction with your technology feature function, speeds, feeds comparisons enables informed decision making.

When comparing and making data infrastructure resource decisions, consider the application workload PACE characteristics. Shift or expand your focus from simply looking at costs from a efficiency utilization perspective to also include performance, productivity, and effectiveness of your IT OpEx spending.

Keep in mind that PACE means Performance (productivity), Availability (data protection), Capacity and Economics. This includes making decisions from a technical feature, functionality (speeds and feeds) capacity as well as how the solution supports your application workload. Leverage resources including tools to perform analysis including ROI From Use Of Global Control Plane For Expanding VDI Environments approaches.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers GS

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, previous 10 time VMware vExpert. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), Data Infrastructure Management (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Dell Technology World 2018 Announcement Summary

Dell Technology World 2018 Announcement Summary

Dell Technology World 2018 Announcement Summary
This is part one of a five-part series about Dell Technology World 2018 announcement summary. Last week (April 30-May 3) I traveled to Las Vegas Nevada (LAS) to attend Dell Technology World 2018 (e.g., DTW 2018) as a guest of Dell (that is a disclosure btw). There were several announcements along with plenty of other activity from sessions, meetings, hallway and event networking taking place at Dell Technology World DTW 2018.

Major data infrastructure technology announcements include:

  • PowerMax all-flash array (AFA) solid state device (SSD) NVMe storage system
  • PowerEdge four-socket 2U and 4U rack servers
  • XtremIO X2 AFA SSD storage system updates
  • PowerEdge MX preview of future composable servers
  • Desktop and thin client along with other VDI updates
  • Cloud and networking enhancements

Besides the above, additional data infrastructure related announcements were made in association with Dell Technology family members including VMware along with other partners, as well as customer awards. Other updates and announcements were tied to business updates from Dell Technology, Dell Technical Capital (venture capital), and, Dell Financial Services.

Dell Technology World Buzzword Bingo Lineup

Some of the buzzword bingo terms, topics, acronyms from Dell Technology World 2018 included AFA, AI, Autonomous, Azure, Bare Metal, Big Data, Blockchain, CI, Cloud, Composable, Compression, Containers, Core, Data Analytics, Dedupe, Dell, DFS (Dell Financial Services), DFR (Data Footprint Reduction), Distributed Ledger, DL, Durability, Fabric, FPGA, GDPR, Gen-Z, GPU, HCI, HDD, HPC, Hybrid, IOP, Kubernetes, Latency, MaaS (Metal as a Service), ML, NFV, NSX, NVMe, NVMeoF, PACE (Performance Availability Capacity Economics), PCIe, Pivotal, PMEM, RAID, RPO, RTO, SAS, SATA, SC, SCM, SDDC, SDS, Socket, SSD, Stamp, TBW (Terabytes Written per day), VDI, venture capital, VMware and VR among others.

Dell Technology World 2018 Venue
Dell Technology World DTW 2018 Event and Venue

Dell Technology World 2018 was located at the combined Palazzo and Venetian hotels along with adjacent Sands Expo center kicking off Monday, April 30th and wrapping up May 4th.

The theme for Dell Technology World DTW 2018 was make it real, which in some ways was interesting given the focus on virtual including virtual reality (VR), software-defined data center (SDDC) virtualization, data infrastructure topics, along with artificial intelligence (AI).

Virtual Sky Dell Technology World 2018
Make it real – Venetian Palazzo St. Mark’s Square on the way to Sands Expo Center

There was plenty of AI, VR, SDDC along with other technologies, tools as well as some fun stuff to do including VR games.

Dell Technology World 2018 Commons Area
Dell Technology World Village Area near Key Note and Expo Halls

Dell Technology World 2018 Commons Area Drones
Dell Technology World Drone Flying Area

During a break from some meetings, I used a few minutes to fly a drone using VR which was interesting. I Have been operating drones (See some videos here) visually without dependence on first-person view (FPV) or relying on extensive autonomous operations instead flying heads up by hand for several years. Needless to say, the VR was interesting, granted encountered a bit of vertigo that I had to get used to.

Dell Technology World 2018 Commons Area Virtual Village
More views of the Dell Technology World Village and Commons Area with VR activity

Dell Technology World 2018 Commons Area Virtual Village
Dell Technology World Village and VR area

Dell Technology World 2018 Commons Area Virtual Village
Dell Technology World Bean Bag Area

Dell Technology World 2018 Announcement Summary

Ok, nuff with the AI, ML, DL, VR fun, time to move on to the business and technology topics of Dell Technologies World 2018.

What was announced at Dell Technology World 2018 included among others:

Dell Technology World 2018 PowerMax
Dell PowerMax Front View

Subsequent posts in this series take a deeper look at the various announcements as well as what they mean.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Dell Technology World 2018 and related topics via the following links:

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

On the surface it may appear that there was not much announced at Dell Technology World 2018 particular compared to some of the recent Dell EMC Worlds and EMC Worlds. However turns out that there was a lot announced, granted without some of the entertainment and circus like atmosphere of previous events. Continue reading here Part II Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Details in this series, along with Part III here, Part IV here (including PowerEdge MX composable infrastructure leveraging Gen-Z) and Part V (servers and converged) here.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Part II Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Details

Part II Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Details

Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Summary
This is Part II Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Details that is part of a five-post series (view part I here, part III here, part IV here and part V here). Last week (April 30-May 3) I traveled to Las Vegas Nevada (LAS) to attend Dell Technology World 2018 (e.g., DTW 2018) as a guest of Dell (that is a disclosure btw).

Dell Technology World 2018 Venue
Dell Technology World DTW 2018 Event and Venue

What was announced at Dell Technology World 2018 included among others:

Dell Technology World 2018 PowerMax
Dell PowerMax Front View

Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Details

Dell Technologies data infrastructure related announcements included new solutions competencies and expanded services deployment competencies with partners to boost deal size and revenues. An Internet of Things (IoT) solution competency was added with others planned including High-Performance Computing (HPC) / Super Computing (SC), Data Analytics, Business Applications and Security related topics. Dell Financial Services flexible consumption models announced at Dell EMC World 2017 provide flexible financing options for both partners as well as their clients.

Flexible Dell Financial Services cloud-like consumption model (e.g., pay for what you use) enhancements include reduced entry points for the Flex on Demand solutions across the Dell EMC storage portfolio. For example, Flex on Demand velocity pricing models for Dell EMC Unity All-Flash Array (AFA) solid state device (SSD) storage solution, and XtremIO X2 AFA systems with price points of less than USD 1,000.00 per month. The benefit is that Dell partners have a financial vehicle to help their midrange customers run consumption-based financing for all-flash storage without custom configurations resulting in faster deployment opportunities.

In other partner updates, Dell Technologies is enhancing the incentive program Dell EMC MyRewards program to help drive new business. Dell EMC MyRewards Program is an opt-in, points-based reward program for solution provider sales reps and systems engineers. MyRewards program is slated to replace the existing Partner Advantage and Sell & Earn programs with bigger and better promotions (up to 3x bonus payout, simplified global claiming).

What this means for partners is the ability to earn more while offering their clients new solutions with flexible financing and consumption-based pricing among other options. Other partner enhancements include update demo program, Proof of Concept (POC) program, and IT transformation campaigns.

Powering up the Modern Data Center and Future of Work

Powering up the modern data center along with future of work, part of the make it real theme of Dell Technologies world 2018 includes data infrastructure server, storage, I/O networking hardware, software and service solutions. These data infrastructure solutions include NVMe based storage, Converged Infrastructure (CI), hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), software-defined data center (SDDC), VMware based multi-clouds, along with modular infrastructure resources.

In addition to server and storage data infrastructure resources form desktop to data center, Dell also has a focus of enabling traditional as well as emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) as well as analytics applications. Besides providing data infrastructure resources to support AI, ML, DL, IoT and other applications along with their workloads, Dell is leveraging AI technology in some of their products for example PowerMax.

Other Dell Technologies announcements include Virtustream cloud risk management and compliance, along with Epic and SAP Digital Health healthcare software solutions. In addition to Virtustream, Dell Technologies cloud-related announcements also include VMware NSX network Virtual Cloud Network with Microsoft Azure support along with security enhancements. Refer here to recent April VMware vSphere, vCenter, vSAN, vRealize and other Virtual announcements as well as here for March VMware cloud updates.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Dell Technology World 2018 and related topics via the following links:

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

The above set of announcements span business to technology along with partner activity. Continue reading here (Part III Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcement Details) of this series, and part I (general summary) here, along with Part IV (PowerEdge MX Composable) here and part V here.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Part III Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcement Details

Part III Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcement Details

Part III Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcement Details

This is Part III Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcement Details that is part of a five-post series (view part I here, part II here, part IV (PowerEdge MX Composable) here and part V here). Last week (April 30-May 3) I traveled to Las Vegas Nevada (LAS) to attend Dell Technology World 2018 (e.g., DTW 2018) as a guest of Dell (that is a disclosure btw).

Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcements Include:

  • PowerMax – Enterprise class tier 0 and tier 1 all-flash array (AFA)
  • XtremIO X2 – Native replication and new entry-level pricing

Dell Technology World 2018 PowerMax back view
Back view of Dell PowerMax

Dell PowerMax Something Old, Something New, Something Fast Near You Soon

PowerMax is the new companion to VMAX. Positioned for traditional tier 0 and tier 1 enterprise-class applications and workloads, PowerMax is optimized for dense server virtualization and SDDC, SAP, Oracle, SQL Server along with other low-latency, high-performance database activity. Different target workloads include Mainframe as well as Open Systems, AI, ML, DL, Big Data, as well as consolidation.

The Dell PowerMax is an all-flash array (AFA) architecture with an end to end NVMe along with built-in AI and ML technology. Building on the architecture of Dell EMC VMAX (some models still available) with new faster processors, full end to end NVMe ready (e.g., front-end server attachment, back-end devices).

The AI and ML features of PowerMax PowerMaxOS include an engine (software) that learns and makes autonomous storage management decisions, as well as implementations including tiering. Other AI and ML enabled operations include performance optimizations based on I/O pattern recognition.

Other features of PowerMax besides increased speeds, feeds, performance includes data footprint reduction (DFR) inline deduplication along with enhanced compression. The DFR benefits include up to 5:1 data reduction for space efficiency, without performance impact to boost performance effectiveness. The DFR along with improved 2x rack density, along with up to 40% power savings (your results may vary) based on Dell claims to enable an impressive amount of performance, availability, capacity, economics (e.g., PACE) in a given number of cubic feet (or meters).

There are two PowerMax models including 2000 (scales from 1 to 2 redundant controllers) and 8000 (scales from 1 to 8 redundant controller nodes). Note that controller nodes are Intel Xeon multi-socket, multi-core processors enabling scale-up and scale-out performance, availability, and capacity. Competitors of the PowerMax include AFA solutions from HPE 3PAR, NetApp, and Pure Storage among others.

Dell Technology World 2018 PowerMax Front View
Front view of Dell PowerMax

Besides resiliency, data services along with data protection, Dell is claiming PowerMax is 2x faster than their nearest high-end storage system competitors with up to 150GB/sec (e.g., 1,200Gbps) of bandwidth, as well as up to 10 million IOPS with 50% lower latency compared to previous VMAX.

PowerMax is also a full end to end NVMe ready (both back-end and front-end). Back-end includes NVMe drives, devices, shelves, and enclosures) as well as front-end (future NVMe over Fabrics, e.g., NVMeoF). Being NVMeoF ready enables PowerMax to support future front-end server network connectivity options to traditional SAN Fibre Channel (FC), iSCSI among others.

PowerMax is also ready for new, emerging high speed, low-latency storage class memory (SCM).  SCM is the next generation of persistent memories (PMEM) having performance closer to traditional DRAM while persistence of flash SSD. Examples of SCM technologies entering the market include Intel Optane based on 3D XPoint, along with others such as those from Everspin among others.

IBM Z Zed Mainframe at Dell Technology World 2018
An IBM “Zed” Mainframe (in case you have never seen one)

Based on the performance claims, the Dell PowerMax has an interesting if not potentially industry leading power, performance, availability, capacity, economic footprint per cubic foot (or meter). It will be interesting to see some third-party validation or audits of Dell claims. Likewise, I look forward to seeing some real-world applied workloads of Dell PowerMax vs. other storage systems. Here are some additional perspectives Via SearchStorage: Dell EMC all-flash PowerMax replaces VMAX, injects NVMe


Dell PowerMax Visual Studio (Image via Dell.com)

To help with customer decision making, Dell has created an interactive VMAX and PowerMax configuration studio that you can use to try out as well as learn about different options here. View more Dell PowerMax speeds, feeds, slots, watts, features and functions here (PDF).

Dell Technology World 2018 XtremIO X2

XtremIO X2

Dell XtremIO X2 and XIOS 6.1 operating system (software-defined storage) enhanced with native replication across wide area networks (WAN). The new WAN replication is metadata-aware native to the XtremIO X2 that implements data footprint reduction (DFR) technology reducing the amount of data sent over network connections. The benefit is more data moved in a given amount of time along with better data protection requiring less time (and network) by only moving unique changed data.

Dell Technology World 2018 XtremIO X2 back view
Back View of XtremIO X2

Dell EMC claims to reduce WAN network bandwidth by up to 75% utilizing the new native XtremIO X2 native asynchronous replication. Also, Dell says XtremIO X2 requires up to 38% less storage space at disaster recovery and business resiliency locations while maintaining predictable recovery point objectives (RPO) of 30 seconds. Another XtremIO X2 announcement is a new entry model for customers at up to 55% lower cost than previous product generations. View more information about Dell XtremIO X2 here, along with speeds feeds here, here, as well as here.

What about Dell Midrange Storage Unity and SC?

Here are some perspectives Via SearchStorage: Dell EMC midrange storage keeps its overlapping arrays.

Dell Bulk and Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS)

One of the questions I had going into Dell Technology World 2018 was what is the status of ECS (and its predecessors Atmos as well as Centera) bulk object storage is given lack of messaging and news around it. Specifically, my concern was that if ECS is the platform for storing and managing data to be preserved for the future, what is the current status, state as well as future of ECS.

In conversations with the Dell ECS folks, ECS which has encompassed Centera functionality and it (ECS) is very much alive, stay tuned for more updates. Also, note that Centera has been EOL. However, its feature functionality has been absorbed by ECS meaning that data preserved can now be managed by ECS. While I can not divulge the details of some meeting discussions, I can say that I am comfortable (for now) with the future directions of ECS along with the data it manages, stay tuned for updates.

Dell Data Protection

What about Data Protection? Security was mentioned in several different contexts during Dell Technology World 2018, as was a strong physical security presence seen at the Palazzo and Sands venues. Likewise, there was a data protection presence at Dell Technologies World 2018 in the expo hall, as well as with various sessions.

What was heard was mainly around data protection management tools, hybrid, as well as data protection appliances and data domain-based solutions. Perhaps we will hear more from Dell Technologies World in the future about data protection related topics.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Dell Technology World 2018 and related topics via the following links:

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

If there was any doubt about would Dell keep EMC storage progressing forward, the above announcements help to show some examples of what they are doing. On the other hand, lets stay tuned to see what news and updates appear in the future pertaining to mid-range storage (e.g. Unity and SC) as well as Isilon, ScaleIO, Data Protection platforms as well as software among other technologies.

Continue reading part IV (PowerEdge MX Composable and Gen-Z) here in this series, as well as part I here, part II here, part IV (PowerEdge MX Composable) here, and, part V here.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Part IV Dell Technology World 2018 PowerEdge MX Gen-Z Composable Infrastructure

Part IV Dell Technology World 2018 PowerEdge MX Gen-Z Composable Infrastructure

Part IV Dell Technology World 2018 PowerEdge MX Gen-Z Composable Infrastructure
This is Part IV Dell Technology World 2018 PowerEdge MX Gen-Z Composable Infrastructure that is part of a five-post series (view part I here, part II here, part III here and part V here). Last week (April 30-May 3) I traveled to Las Vegas Nevada (LAS) to attend Dell Technology World 2018 (e.g., DTW 2018) as a guest of Dell (that is a disclosure btw).

Introducing PowerEdge MX Composable Infrastructure (the other CI)

Dell announced at Dell Technology World 2018 a preview of the new PowerEdge MX (kinetic) family of data infrastructure resource servers. PowerEdge MX is being developed to meet the needs of resource-centric data infrastructures that require scalability, as well as performance availability, capacity, economic (PACE) flexibility for diverse workloads. Read more about Dell PowerEdge MX, Gen-Z and composable infrastructures (the other CI) here.

Some of the workloads being targeted by PowerEdge MX include large-scale dense SDDC virtualization (and containers), private (or public clouds by service providers). Other workloads include AI, ML, DL, data analytics, HPC, SC, big data, in-memory database, software-defined storage (SDS), software-defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV) among others.

The new PowerEdge MX previewed will be announced later in 2018 featuring a flexible, decomposable, as well as composable architecture that enables resources to be disaggregated and reassigned or aggregated to meet particular needs (e.g., defined or composed). Instead of traditional software defined virtualization carving up servers in smaller virtual machines or containers to meet workload needs, PowerEdge MX is part of a next-generation approach to enable server resources to be leveraged at a finer granularity.

For example, today an entire server including all of its sockets, cores, memory, PCIe devices among other resources get allocated and defined for use. A server gets defined for use by an operating system when bare metal (or Metal as a Service) or a hypervisor. PowerEdge MX (and other platforms expected to enter the market) have a finer granularity where with a proper upper layer (or higher altitude) software resources can be allocated and defined to meet different needs.

What this means is the potential to allocate resources to a given server with more granularity and flexibility, as well as combine multiple server’s resources to create what appears to be a more massive server. There are vendors in the market who have been working on and enabling this type of approach for several years ranging from ScaleMP to startup Liqid and Tidal among others. However, at the heart of the Dell PowerEdge MX is the new emerging Gen-Z technology.

If you are not familiar with Gen-Z, add it to your buzzword bingo lineup and learn about it as it is coming your way. A brief overview of Gen-Z consortium and Gen-Z material and primer information here. A common question is if Gen-Z is a replacement for PCIe which for now is that they will coexist and complement each other. Another common question is if Gen-Z will replace Ethernet and InfiniBand and the answer is for now they complement each other. Another question is if Gen-Z will replace Intel Quick Path and another CPU device and memory interconnects and the answer is potentially, and in my opinion, watch to see how long Intel drags its feet.

Note that composability is another way of saying defined without saying defined, something to pay attention too as well as have some vendor fun with. Also, note that Dell is referent to PowerEdge MX and Kinetic architecture which is not the same as the Seagate Kinetic Ethernet-based object key value accessed drive initiative from a few years ago (learn more about Seagate Kinetic here). Learn more about Gen-Z and what Dell is doing here.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Dell Technology World 2018 and related topics via the following links:

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Dell has provided a glimpse of what they are working on pertaining composable infrastructure, the other CI, as well as Gen-Z and related next generation of servers with PowerEdge MX as well as Kinetic. Stay tuned for more about Gen-Z and composable infrastructures. Continue reading Part V (servers converged) in this series here, as well as part I here, part II here and part III here.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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April 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

April 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

Server StorageIO data infrastructure Update Newsletter

Volume 18, Issue 4 (April 2018) Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the April 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter.

In cased you missed it, the March 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter can be viewed here (HTML and PDF).

In this issue themes include life beyond world backup day, focus on recovery, restoration and resiliency, as well as getting ready for GDPR. Also covered in this issue are themes of NVMe along with NVMe over Fabric (NVMeoF), Storage Class Memories (SCM) and related technologies covered in the March 2018 newsletter. Recent VMware public, private and hybrid cloud along with vSphere v6.7 are covered as well as other topics including:

Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure update newsletter.

Cheers GS

Server StorageIO Commentary in the news, tips and articles

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via SearchStorage: Comments on Dell EMC storage strategy talk buzzes Dell Tech World
Via GizModo: Comments Can a Loud Noise Really Bring Down a Data Center?
Via StateTech: Comments IT Ingenuity Lets State and Local Agencies Do More with Less
Via StateTech: Comments State and Local Agencies See Power in the VDI, HCI Combination
Via StateTech: Comments How Local Governments Can Meet the Demands of IoT Networking
Via IronMountain: Comments Hybrid cloud deployment demands a change in security mindset
Via IronMountain: Hybrid 4 3 2 1 Data Protection
Via IronMountain InfoGoto: The growing Trend of Secondary Data Storage
Via IronMountain InfoGoto: World Backup Day Best Practices For a Hybrid Approach
Via BizTech: Why Hybrid (SSD and HDD) Storage Might Be Fit for SMB environments

View more Server, Storage and I/O trends and perspectives comments here.

Server StorageIOblog Data Infrastructure Posts

Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter version 6.7 SDDC Update Summary
VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter v6.7 SDDC details
VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter Server Storage I/O Enhancements
Have you heard about the new CLOUD Act data regulation?
Data Protection Recovery Life Post World Backup Day Pre GDPR
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Insiders Preview
March 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter
Application Data Value Characteristics Everything Is Not The Same
Application Data Availability 4 3 2 1 Data Protection
VMware continues cloud construction with March announcements
World Backup Day 2018 Data Protection Readiness Reminder
Use Intel Optane NVMe U.2 SFF 8639 SSD drive in PCIe slot
Data Infrastructure Resource Links cloud data protection tradecraft trends
IT transformation Serverless Life Beyond DevOps Podcast
Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Topics Tools Techniques Technologies Tips
AWS Announces New S3 Cloud Storage Security Encryption Features
Introducing Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL Overview #blogtober
Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch

View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

April 25, 2018 – Webinar – SDDC and Data Protection Discussion

April 24, 2018 – Webinar – AWS and on-site, on-premises hybrid data protection

March 27, 2018 – Webinar – Veeams Road to GDPR compliance The 5 Lessons Learned

Feb 28, 2018 – Webinar – Benefits of Moving Hyper-V Disaster Recovery to the Cloud

See more webinars and activities on the Server StorageIO Events page here.

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

Various useful links and resources:

Data Infrastructure Recommend Reading and watching list
Microsoft TechNet – Various Microsoft related from Azure to Docker to Windows
storageio.com/links – Various industry links (over 1,000 with more to be added soon)
objectstoragecenter.com – Cloud and object storage topics, tips and news items
OpenStack.org – Various OpenStack related items
storageio.com/downloads – Various presentations and other download material
storageio.com/protect – Various data protection items and topics
thenvmeplace.com – Focus on NVMe trends and technologies
thessdplace.com – NVM and Solid State Disk topics, tips and techniques
storageio.com/converge – Various CI, HCI and related SDS topics
storageio.com/performance – Various server, storage and I/O benchmark and tools
VMware Technical Network – Various VMware related items

Connect and Converse With Us

Storage IO RSS storageio linkedin storageio facebook Server StorageIO on twitter @StorageIO   Google+  Server StorageIO email storageio youtube  storageio instagram

Subscribe to Newsletter – Newsletter Archives – StorageIO.com – StorageIOblog.com

What this all means and wrap-up

Data Infrastructures are what exist inside of physical and cloud data centers that in turn support applications that transform data into information. Clouds continue to be a popular topic as well as deployment platform for and of data infrastructures. VMware has made several announcements in support of their public, private and hybrid cloud environments. A fundamental role of data infrastructures is to protect, preserve, secure and serve information via server, storage, I/O network hardware, software as well as services.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter version 6.7 SDDC Update Summary

VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter version 6.7 SDDC Update Summary

VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter version 6.7 SDDC Update Summary

VMware announced last week vSphere vSAN vCenter version 6.7 among other updates for their software-defined data center (SDDC) and software-defined infrastructure (SDI) solutions. The new April v6.7 announcement updates followed those from this past March when VMware announced cloud enhancements with partner AWS (more on that announcement here).

VMware vSphere 6.7
VMware vSphere Web Client with vSphere 6.7

For those looking for a more extended version with a closer look and analysis of what VMware announced click here for part two and part three here.

What VMware announced is general availability (GA) meaning you can now download from here the bits (e.g., software) that include:

  • ESXi aka vSphere 6.7 hypervisor build 8169922
  • vCenter Server 6.7 build 8217866
  • vCenter Server Appliance 6.7 build 8217866
  • vSAN 6.7 and other related SDDC management tools
  • vSphere Operations Management (vROps) 6.7
  • Increased the speeds, feeds and other configuration maximum limits

For those not sure or need a refresher, vCenter Server is the software for extended management across multiple vSphere ESXi hypervisors that run on a Windows platform.

Major themes of the VMware April announcement is around increased scalability along with performance enhancements, ease of use, security, as well as extended application support. As part of the v6.7 improvements, VMware is focusing on simplifying, as well as accelerating software-defined data infrastructure along with other SDDC lifecycle operation activities.

Extended application support includes for traditional demanding enterprise IT, along with High-Performance Compute (HPC), Big Data, Little Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL), as well as other emerging workloads. Part of supporting demanding workloads includes enhanced support for Graphical Processing Units (GPU) such as those from Nvidia among others.

What Happened to vSphere 6.6?

A question that comes up is that there is a vSphere 6.5 (and its smaller point releases) and now vSphere 6.7 (along with vCenter, vSAN among others). What happened to vSphere 6.6? Good question and not sure what the real or virtual answer from VMware is or would be. My take is that this is a good opportunity for VMware to align their versions of principal components (e.g., vSphere/ESXi, vCenter, vSAN) to a standard or unified numbering scheme.

Where to learn more

Learn more about VMware vSphere, vCenter, vSAN and related software-defined data center (SDDC); software-defined data infrastructures (SDDI) topics via the following links:

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means and wrap-up

Overall the VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter version 6.7 enhancements are a good evolution of their core technologies for enabling hybrid, converged software-defined data infrastructures and software-defined data centers. Continue reading more about  VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter version 6.7 SDDC Update Summary here in part II (focus on management, vCenter plus security) and part III here (focus on server storage I/O and deployment) of this three-part series.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter v6.7 SDDC details

VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter v6.7 SDDC details

VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter v6.7 SDDC details

VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter v6.7 SDDC details of announcement summary focus on vCenter, Security, and management. This is part two (part one here) of a three-part (part III here) series looking at VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter v6.7 SDDC details of announcement summary.

Last week VMware announced vSphere vSAN vCenter v6.7 updates as part of enhancing their software-defined data center (SDDC) and software-defined infrastructure (SDI) solutions core components. This is an expanded post as a companion to the Server StorageIO summary piece here. These April updates followed those from this past March when VMware announced cloud enhancements with partner AWS (more on that announcement here).

VMware vSphere 6.7
VMware vSphere Web Client with vSphere 6.7

What VMware announced is generally available (GA) meaning you can now download from here the bits (e.g., software) that include:

  • ESXi aka vSphere 6.7 hypervisor build 8169922
  • vCenter Server 6.7 build 8217866
  • vCenter Server Appliance 6.7 build 8217866
  • vSAN 6.7 and other related SDDC management tools
  • vSphere Operations Management (vROps) 6.7

For those not sure or need a refresher, vCenter Server is the software for extended management across multiple vSphere ESXi hypervisors that run on a Windows platform.

Major themes of the VMware April announcements are focused around:

  • Increased enterprise and hybrid cloud scalability
  • Resiliency, availability, durable and secure
  • Performance, efficiency and elastic
  • Intuitive, simplified management at scale
  • Expanded support for demanding application workloads

Expanded application support includes for traditional demanding enterprise IT, along with High-Performance Compute (HPC), Big Data, Little Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL), as well as other emerging workloads. Part of supporting demanding workloads includes enhanced support for Graphical Processing Units (GPU)such as those from Nvidia among others.

What was announced

As mentioned above and in other posts in this series, VMware announced new versions of their ESXi hypervisor vSphere v6.7, as well as virtual SAN (vSAN) v6.7, virtual Center (vCenter),  v6.7 among other related tools. One of the themes of this announcement by VMware includes hybrid SDDC spanning on-site, on-premises (or on-premisess if you prefer) to the public cloud. Other topics involve increasing scalability, along with stability as well as ease of management along with security, performance updates.

As part of the v6.7 enhancements, VMware is focusing on simplifying, as well as accelerating software-defined data infrastructure along with other SDDC lifecycle operation activities. Additional themes and features focus on server, storage, I/O resource enablement, as well as application extensibility support.

vSphere ESXi hypervisor

With v6.7 ESXi host maintenance times improved with single reboot vs. previous multiple boots for some upgrades, as well as quick boot. Quick boot enables restarting the ESXi hypervisor without rebooting the physical machine skipping time-consuming hardware initialization.

Enhanced HTML5 based vSphere client GUI (along with API and CLI) with increased feature function parity compared to predecessor versions and other VMware tools. Increased functionality includes NSX, vSAN and VMware Upgrade Management (VUM) capabilities among others. In other words, not only are new technologies support, functions you may have in the past resisted using the web-based interfaces due to extensibility are being addressed with this release.

vCenter Server and vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA)

VMware has announced that moving forward the hosted (e.g., running on a Windows server platform) version is being depreciated. What this means is that it is time for those not already doing so to migrate to the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA). As a refresher, VCSA is a turnkey software-defined virtual appliance that includes vCenter Server software running on VMware Photon Linux operating system as a virtual machine. VMware vCenter.

As part of the update, the enhanced vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) supports new efficient, effective API management along with multiple vCenters as well as performance improvements. VMware cites 2x faster vCenter operations per second, 3x reduction in memory usage along with 3x quicker Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) related activities across powered on VMs).

What this means is that VCSA is a self-contained virtual appliance that can be configured for very large, large, medium and small environments in various configurations. With v6.7 vCenter Server Appliance emphasis on scaling, as well as performance along with security and ease of use features, VCSA is better positioned to support large enterprise deployments along with hybrid cloud. VCSA v6.7 is more than just a UI enhancement with v6.5 shown below followed by an image of v6.7 UI.

VMware vSphere 6.5
VMware vCenter Appliance v6.5 main UI

VMware vSphere 6.7
VMware vCenter Appliance v6.7 main UI

Besides UI enhancements (along with API and CLI) for vCenter, other updates include more robust data protection (aka backup) capability for the vCenter Server environment. In the prior v6.5 version there was a fundamental capability to specify a destination for sending vCenter configuration information to for backup data protection (See image below).

vCenter 6.5 backup
VMware vCenter Appliance 6.5 backup

Note that the VCSA backup only provides data protection for the vCenter Appliance, its configuration, settings along with data collected of the VMware hosts (and VMs) being managed. VCSA backup does not provide data protection of the individual VMware hosts or VMs which is accomplished via other data protection techniques, tools and technologies.

In v6.7 vCenter now has enhanced capabilities (shown below) for enabling data protection of configuration, settings, performance and other metrics. What this means is that with improved UI it is now possible to setup backup schedules as part of enabling automation for data protection of vCenter servers.

vCenter 6.7 backup
VMware VCSA v6.7 enhanced UI and data protection aka backup

The following shows some of the configuration sizing options as part of VCSA deployment. Note that the vCPU, Memory, and Storage are for the VCSA itself to support a given number of VMware hosts (e.g., physical machines) as well as guest virtual machines (VM).

 

VCSA

VCSA

VCSA

VM

 

Size

vCPU

Memory

Storage

Hosts

VMs

Tiny

2

10GB

300GB

10

100

Small

4

16GB

340GB

100

1000

Medium

8GB

24

525GB

400

4000

Large

16

32GB

740GB

1000

10000

Extra Large

24

48GB

1180GB

2000

35000

vCenter 6.7 sizing and number of the physical machine (e.g., VM hosts) and virtual machines supported

Keep in mind that in addition to the above individual VCSA configuration limits, multiple vCenters can be grouped including linked mode spanning onsite, on-premisess (on-prem if you prefer) as well as the cloud. VMware vCenter server hybrid linked mode enables seamless visibility and insight across on-site, on-premises (or on-premisess if you prefer) as well as public clouds such as AWS among others.

In other words, vCenter with hybrid linked mode enables you to have situational awareness and avoid flying blind in and among clouds. As part of hybrid vCenter environment support, cross-cloud (public, private) hot and cold migration including clone as well as vMotion across mixed VMware version provisioning is supported. Using linked mode multiple roles, permissions, tags, policies can be managed across different groups (e.g., unified management) as well as locations.

VMware and vSphere Security

Security is a big push for VMware with this release including Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 along with Virtual TPM 2.0 for protecting both the hypervisors and guest operating systems. Data encryption was introduced in vSphere 6.5 and is enhanced with increased management simplicities along with protection of data at rest and in flight (while in motion).

In other words, encrypted vMotion across different vCenter instances and versions are supported, as well as across hybrid environments (e.g., on-premises and public cloud). Other security enhancements include tighter collaboration and integration with Microsoft for Windows VMs, as well as vSAN, NSX and vRealize for a secure software-defined data infrastructure aka SDDC. For example, VMware has enhanced support for Microsoft Virtualization Based Security (VBS) including credential Guard where vSphere is providing a secure virtual hardware platform.

Additional VMware 6.7 security enhancements include Multiple SYSLOG targets, FIPS 140-2 Validated modules. Note that there is a difference between FIPS certified and FIPS validated, of which VMware vCenter and ESXi leverage two modules (VM Kernel Cryptographic, and OpenSSL) are currently validated. VMware is not playing games like some vendors when it comes to disclosing FIPS 140-2 validated vs. certified. Other VMware security enhancements include

Note, when a vendor mentions FIPS 140-2 and imply or says certified, ask them if they indeed are certified. Any vendor who is actually FIPS 140-2 certified should not get upset if you press them politely. Instead, they should thank you for asking. Otoh, if a vendor gives you a used car salesperson style dance or get upset, ask them why so sensitive, or, perhaps, what are they ashamed of or hiding, just saying. Learn more here.

vRealize Operations Manager (vROps)

vRealize Operations Manager (vROps) v6.7 dashboard for vSphere client plugin provides an overview of cluster view and alerts of both vCenter and vSAN. What this means is that you will want to upgrade vROps to v6.7. The vROps benefit being dashboards for optimal performance, capacity, troubleshooting, and management configuration.

Where to learn more

Learn more about VMware vSphere, vCenter, vSAN and related software-defined data center (SDDC); software-defined data infrastructures (SDDI) topics via the following links:

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means and wrap-up

VMware continues to enhance their core SDDC data infrastructure resources to support new and emerging, as well as legacy enterprise applications at scale. VMware enhancements include management, security along with other updates to support the demanding needs of various applications and workloads, along with supporting application developers.

Some examples of demanding workloads include among others AL, Big Data, Machine Learning, In memory and high-performance compute (HPC) among other resource-intensive new workloads, as well as existing applications. This includes enhanced support for Nvidia physical and virtual Graphical Processing Units (GPU) that are used in support for compute-intensive graphics, as well as non-graphic processing (e.g., AI, ML) workloads.

With the v6.7 announcements, VMware is providing proof points that they are continuing to invest in their core SDDC enabling technologies. VMware is also demonstrating the evolution of vSphere ESXi hypervisor along with associated management tools for hybrid environments with ease of use management at scale, along with security.  View more about VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter v6.7 SDDC details in part three of this three-part series here ((focus on server storage I/O, deployment information and analysis).

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter Server Storage I/O Enhancements

VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter Server Storage I/O Enhancements

VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter Server Storage I/O Enhancements

This is part three of a three-part series looking at last weeks v6.7 VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter Server Storage I/O Enhancements. The focus of this post is on server, storage, I/O along with deployment and other wrap up items. In case you missed them, read part one here, and part two here.

VMware as part of updates to, vSAN and vCenter introduced several server storage I/O enhancements some of which have already been mentioned.

VMware vSphere 6.7
VMware vSphere Web Client with vSphere 6.7

Server Storage I/O enhancements for vSphere, vSAN, and vCenter include:

  • Native 4K (4kn) block sector size for HDD and SSD devices
  • Intel Volume Management Device (VMD) for NVMe flash SSD
  • Support for Persistent Memory (PMEM) aka Storage Class Memory (SCM)
  • SCSI UNMAP (similar to TRIM) for SSD space reclamation
  • XCOPY and VAAI enhancements
  • VMFS-5 is now default file system
  • VMFS-6 SESparse vSphere snapshot space reclamation
  • VVOL supporting SCSI-3 persistent reservations and IPv6
  • Reduce dependences on RDMs with VVOL enhancements
  • Software-based Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) initiator
  • Para Virtualized RDMA (PV-RDMA)
  • Various speeds and feeds enhancements

VMware vSphere 6.7 also adds native 4KN sector size (e.g., 4096 block size) in addition to traditional native and emulated 512-byte sectors for HDD as well as SSD. The larger block size means performance improvements along with better storage allocation for applications, particularly for large capacity devices. Other server storage I/O updates include RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) enabled Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) as well as Intel VMD for NVMe. Learn more about NVMe here.

Other storage-related enhancements include SCSI UNMAP (e.g., SCSI equivalent of SSD TRIM) with the selectable priority of none or low for SSD space reclamation. Also enhanced are SESparse of vSphere snapshot virtual disk space reclamation (for VMFS-6). VMware XCOPY (Extended Copy) now works with vendor-specific VMware API for Array Integration (VAAI) primitives along with SCSI T10 standard used for cloning, zeroing and copy offload to storage systems. Virtual Volumes (VVOL) have been enhanced to support IPv6 and SCSI-3 persistent reservations to help reduce dependency or use of RDMs.

VMware configuration maximums (e.g., speeds and feeds) including server storage I/O enhancements including boosting from 512 to 1024 LUNs per host. Other speeds and feeds improvements include going from 2048 to 4096  server storage I/O paths per host, PVSCSI adapters now support up to 256 disks vs. 64 (virtual disks or Raw Device Mapped aka RDM). Also note that VMFS-3 is now the end of life (EOL) and will be automatically upgraded to VMFS-5 during the upgrade to vSphere 6.7, while the default datastore type is VMFS-6.

Additional server storage I/O enhancements include RoCE for RDMA enabling low latency server to server memory-based data movement access, along with Para-virtualized RDMA (PV-RDMA) on Linux guest OS. ESXi has been enhanced with iSER (iSCSI Extension for RDMA) leveraging faster server I/O interconnects and CPU offload. Another server storage I/O enhancement is Software based Fibre Channel over Ethernet (e.g., SW-FCoE) initiator using loss less Ethernet fabrics.

Note as a reminder or refresher that VMware also has para (e.g., virtualization-optimized) drivers for Ethernet and other networks, NVMe as well as SCSI in addition to standard devices. For example, you can access from a VM an NVMe backed datastore using standard VMware SATA, SCSI Controller, LSI Logic SAS, LSI Logic Parallel, VMware Paravirtual, native NVMe driver (virtual machine type 6.5 or higher) for better performance. Likewise, instead of using the standard SAS and SCSI VM devices, the VMware para-virtualized

Besides the previously mentioned items, other enhancements including for vSAN include support for logical clusters such as Oracle RAC, Microsoft SQL Server Availability Groups, Microsoft Exchange Data Availability Groups as well as Windows Server Failover Clusters (WSFC) using vSAN iSCSI service. Note that as a proof point of continued vSAN deployment customer adoption, VMware is claiming 10,000 deployments. For performance, vSAN enhancement also includes updates for adaptive placement, adaptive resync, as well as faster cache destage. The benefit of quicker destage is that cache can be drained or written to disk to eliminate or prevent I/O bottlenecks.

As part of supporting expanding, more demanding enterprise among other workloads, vSAN enhancements also include resiliency updates, physical resource and configuration checks, health and monitoring checks. Other vSAN improvements include streamlined workflows, converged management views across vCenter as well as vRealize tools. Read more from VMware about server storage I/O enhancements to vSphere, vSAN, and vCenter here.

VMware Server Storage I/O Memory Matters

VMware is also joining others with support for evolving persistent memory (PMEM) leveraging so-called storage class memories (SCM). Note, some refer to SCM as persistent memory as PM, however, context needs to be used as PM also means Physical Machine, Physical Memory, Primary Memory among others. With the new PMEM support for server memory, VMware is laying the foundation for guest operating systems as well as applications to leverage the technology.

For example, Microsoft with Windows Server 2016 supports SCMs as a block addressable storage medium and file system, as well as for Direct Access (e.g., DAX). What this means is that fast file systems can be backed by persistent faster than traditional SSD storage, as well as applications such as SQL Server that support DAX can do direct persistent I/O.

As a refresher, Non-Volatile DIMM enable server memory by combing traditional DRAM with some persistent storage class memory. By combing DRAM and storage class memory (SCM) also known as PMEM servers can use the RAM as a fast read/write memory, with the data destaged to persistent memory. Examples of SCM include Micron 3D Xpoint also known as Intel Optane along with others such as Everspin NVDIMM among others (available from Dell, HPE among others. Learn more SSD and storage class memories (SCM) along with PMEM here, as well as NVMe here.

Deployment, be prepared before you grab the bits and install the software

For those of you who want or need to download the bits here is a link to VMware software download. However, before racing off to install the new software in your production (or perhaps even lab), do your homework. Read the important information from VMware before upgrading to vSphere here (e.g., KB53704) as well as release notes, and review VMware’s best practices for upgrading to vCenter here.

Some of the things to be aware of including upgrade order and dependencies, as well as make sure you have good current backups of your vSphere ESXi configuration, vCenter appliance. In addition to viewing the vSphere ESXi and vCenter 6.7 release notes here, also.

There are some hardware compatibility items you need to be aware of, both for this as well as future versions. Check out the VMware hardware (and software) compatibility list (HCL), along with partner product interoperability matrices, as well as release notes. Pay attention to devices depreciated and no longer supported in ESXi 6.7 (e.g., VMware KB52583) as well as those that may not work in future releases to avoid surprises.

Where to learn more

Learn more about VMware vSphere, vCenter, vSAN and related software-defined data center (SDDC); software-defined data infrastructures (SDDI) topics via the following links:

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means and wrap-up

In case you missed them, read part one here and click here for part two of this series.

Some will say what’s the big deal why all the noise, coverage and discussion for a point release?

My view is that this is a big evolutionary package of upgrade enhancements and new features, even if a so-called point release (e.g., going from 6.5 to 6.7). Some vendors might have done this type of updates as a significant, e.g., version 6.x to 7.x upgrade to make more noise, get increased coverage or merely enhance the appearance of software maturity (e.g., V1.x to V2.x to V3.x, and so forth).

In the case of VMware, what some might refer to point release that is smaller, are the ones such as vSphere 6.5.0 to 6.5.x among others. Thus, there is a lot in this package of updates from VMware and good to see continued enhancements.

I also think that VMware is getting challenges from different fronts including Microsoft as well as cloud partners among others which is good. The reason I believe that it is okay VMware is being challenged is given their history; they tend to step up their game playing harder as well as stronger with the competition.

VMware is continuing to invest and extend its core SDDC technologies to meet the expanding demands of various organizations, from small to ultra large enterprises. What this means is that VMware is addressing ease of use for smaller, as well as removing complexity to enable simplified scaling from on-site (or on-premises and on-prem if you prefer) to the public cloud.

Overall the VMware Announced version 6.7 of vSphere vSAN vCenter SDDC core components are a useful extension of their existing technology. VMware Announced release 6.7 of vSphere vSAN vCenter SDDC core components enhancements enable customers more flexibility, scalability, resiliency, and security to meet their various needs.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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AWS Cloud Application Data Protection Webinar

AWS Cloud Application Data Protection Webinar

AWS Cloud Application Data Protection Webinar trends

AWS Cloud Application Data Protection Webinar
Date: Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 11:00am PT / 2:00pm ET

Only YOU can prevent data loss for on-premises, Amazon Web Service (AWS) based cloud, and hybrid applications.

Join me in this free AWS Cloud Application Data Protection Webinar (registration required) sponsored by Veeam produced by Redmond Magazine as we explore issues, trends, tools, best practices and techniques for enabling data protection with AWS technologies.

Hyper-V Disaster Recovery SDDC Data Infrastructure Data Protection

Attend and learn about:

  • Application-aware point in time snapshot data protection
  • Protecting AWS EC2 and on-premises applications (and data)
  • Leveraging AWS for data protection and recovery
  • And much more

Register for the live event or catch the replay here.

Where to learn more

Learn more about data protection, software defined data center (SDDC), software defined data infrastructures (SDDI), AWS, cloud and related topics via the following links:

SDDC Data Infrastructure

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means and wrap-up

You can not go forward if you can not go back to a particular point in time (e.g. recovery point objective or RPO). Likewise, if you can not go back to a given RPO, how can you go forward with your business as well as meet your recovery time objective (RTO)? Join us for the live conversation or replay by registering (free) here to learn how to enable AWS Cloud Application Data Protection Webinar, as well as using AWS S3 for on-site, on-premises data protection.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.