How to purchase storage virtualization

The storage needs of the users – and applications have grown up in an uncontrolled way. Keeping pace with these needs generally involves the accumulation of disks and storage subsystems. But the increase in resources for the storage poses a problem in its management: storage administrators must recoDRar which applications are linked with what storage units must allocate sufficient space to meet future needs and monitor their performance manually. Over time, the inefficiency of this manual procedure causes a waste of storage space.

The storage virtualization mitigates these problems by implementing an abstraction layer between applications and physical units of storage, allowing storage may be combined and treated as a ubiquitous resource, regardless of their location. While storage can be virtualized in several ways, the ultimate goal is to improve storage utilization (reducing or preventing capital investment) and management. Apart from the obvious reasons of investment costs and support, below a number of key points involved in the procurement of storage virtualization.

Which brings to the storage virtualization of the company? Storage virtualization offers many potential benefits, but what are your organization needs? The optimized storage utilization, saving capital costs and ease of management are three of the most common, but there are others that relate to storage administrators. Virtualization can, for example, help simplify failover strategies (Disaster Recovery – DR) and business continuity (business continuance) to allow the use of Hadrware not identical between sites. You can also manage the migration of data between storage platforms, layers (tiers) and sites. Virtualization also facilitates the expansion of storage capacity by automating manual tasks needed to allocate storage to different applications.

What level of complexity should be incorporated? Many Hadrware virtualization solutions require additional software and infrastructure. Besides the new servers or switches), you must first determine which host computers, administrators of paths (path managers), agents (agents) or filters (shims’ figure) needed to support the future virtualization product. Maintenance is usually the first to start roughing it – IT staff can easily get stuck patching and updating a lot of storage virtualization servers when Hadrware be replaced or new versions appear. Not paying enough attention to maintenance can result in disparity versions, causing instability and performance problems. Should evaluate each storage virtualization solution from the perspective of management and maintenance, and consider whether it solves the problems outweigh the disadvantages resulting.

Where storage virtualization in their environment is better integrated? In terms of implementation, storage virtualization can be based on the host, in matrices (arrays) or structure. Storage virtualization based on lies with the host software (installed on the host servers) that control traffic and data storage. The Veritas Storage Foundation from Symantec Corp. solution is a virtualization solution based on the host. Dedicated solutions such as File Manager 7200 NeoPath Networks Inc., are similar. The array-based virtualization technology integrates the storage array itself, as TagmaStore array of Hitachi Data Systems. It is increasingly paying more attention to the structure-based virtualization, which runs on dedicated software intelligent switches. Each of these solutions has advantages and disadvantages in terms of performance, scalability and cost.

Scalability. A virtualization solution can only handle a limited amount of storage. You must understand the relationship between scale and performance. This is a particularly tricky issue because many virtualization initiatives begin as tests or pilot plant before being implemented throughout the company. It is possible that the scalability problems do not appear until an advanced stage in the cycle of installation. The advance assessment of scalability will exclude unacceptable products.

Interoperability. The promise of using storage support (cross-vendor) has been an overriding feature of virtualization technology, but veDRadero heterogeneous support is one of the gaps in virtualization environments. The array-based virtualization is linked to the array vendor. Virtualization solutions based on host and structure in turn impose a number of restrictions proprietary (vendor lock-in) with the software or device that integrates software. You must determine the compatibility of any virtualization solution with existing environment and future updates and new versions.

Testing and implementation are on a small scale. The majority of analysts recommend a thorough assessment of any virtualization solution before taking a decision to purchase. This should include analysis of mock reversal. Once adopted the decision to purchase, you should start small-scale implementation prior to virtualization with systematic. This conservative approach grants administrators ample time to get used to the virtualization management and prevents unforeseen problems can paralyze an entire data center.

Know how to undo the installation. The storage virtualization is not perfect. The problems of performance, scalability limitations and interoperability issues are only some of the reasons that lead to uninstall a virtualization solution. A provider can also disrupt the development of a solution in favor of another, better one. Unfortunately, the reversal of virtualization is detrimental to applications and confusing for administrators. Before committing to purchase a see virtualization solution provider uninstall options.