Virtualized iSCSI SANs: Flexible, Scalable, Enterprise Storage for Virtual Infrastructures

W H I T E P A P E R
VIRTUALIZED iSCSI SANS: Flexible, Scalable
Enterprise Storage for Virtual Infrastructures
MARCH 2008VMware white paper
Table of Contents
Server Virtualization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Virtual Infrastructure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Storage Virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Requirements for Networked Enterprise Storage in a VMware Infrastructure. . . . . . . 5
What is iSCSI?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
ESX Server and iSCSI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
How iSCSI Enables Virtualized SANs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
EqualLogic Virtualized iSCSI SANs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Automatic Load Balancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Non-Disruptive Scalability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Quick, Intellegent Provisioning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Automated Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
A flexible, Scalable, Virtualized Environment for Servers and Storage. . . . . . . . . . . 10
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Customer Case Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2VMware white paper
VIRTUALIZED iSCSI SANS: Flexible, Scalable Enterprise Virtual Machines
Storage for Virtual App App App
Infrastructures OS OS OS
iSCSI is a flexible and powerful storage area networking (SAN) protocol that delivers superior capabilities and benefits across all market segments. In addition ESX Serverto providing enterprise-class data availability and performance, the iSCSI protocol enables breakthrough virtual storage designs that parallel the advanced designs of server virtualization technologies such as VMwareŽ Infrastructure 3. Enterprises of all sizes are building flexible storage infrastructures using iSCSI and advanced virtualization technologies that let them allocate and shift SAN resources dynamically to respond to the demands of their virtualized server environments. Physical ServerThis white paper describes a virtualized infrastructure that applies storage and server virtualization technologies physical computer (motherboard, VGA card, network to cost-effectively achieve a flexible, high-performance, card controller, etc). As a result, virtual machines are dynamic IT infrastructure that is simple to manage and completely compatible with all standard x86 operating scale. systems, applications and device drivers, so you can use a virtual machine to run all the same software that you Server Virtualization would run on a physical x86 computer.Virtualization is a proven software technology that is . Isolation: While virtual machines can share the physical rapidly transforming the IT landscape and fundamentally resources of a single computer, they remain completely changing the way that people compute. isolated from each other as if they were separate Today's powerful x86 computer hardware was originally physical machines. If, for example, there are four designed to run only a single operating system and a virtual machines on a single physical server and one single application. Virtualization breaks that bond, making of the virtual machines crashes, ... [download for more]