Managing storage in the virtual data center

Managing storage in the virtual data centerA white paper on HP Storage Essentials support for VMware host virtualizationIntroduction Virtualization clouds server-storage As server virtualization technologies like VMware get visibility.deployed in data centers, the increased complexity While server virtualization technologies like VMware's of the IT service makes storage management very chal- ESX and virtual server bring several benefits to the lenging. HP Storage Essentials is a storage resources enterprise, they also create dynamics in the storage management solution that provides comprehensive environment.capabilities to manage heterogeneous storage and its resources in a virtualized environment. By providing To begin with, virtualization has dramatically increased VMware to storage array visibility and capacity man- network-based storage within the enterprise. In fact, agement, best-in-class analytics, and automation several storage analysts predict that 50 percent of new capabilities, HP Storage Essentials improves storage storage purchases are driven by server virtualization ini-utilization and reduces operational expenses in the tiatives. A key reason for this increase is that vendors like Ždata center. VMware and Microsoft recommend that all hypervisors use storage area network (SAN)-based storage to take The virtual data center is here. advantage of dynamic application scaling technologies In today's competitive global economy, businesses need like VMware VMotion.to be poised to respond faster to market changes, new The increased deployment of SAN storage introduces customer demands, and growth opportunities. To do management challenges; it also increases the complexity this, enterprises need an agile IT infrastructure that is of the server/storage relationships. Gone is the well built to deliver better business outcomes. At the same understood server/SAN/storage array interrelationship; time, enterprises have to hold the line on rising data now we have additional virtual machine abstractions center costs. like virtual machine files system (VMFS), virtual machine To address these challenges, enterprises have adopted disks (VMDK), virtual host bus adapters (HBAs) to add virtualization technologies that allow IT to consolidate to the complexity of the server/storage dependency. infrastructures-pool and share resources to improve uti- This complexity makes it hard for the server and storage lization and reduce data center costs. Virtualization also team to control and make changes to its infrastructure. increases flexibility because a diverse range of resourc- Additionally, the lack of server/storage dependencies es can now be added, changed, and moved easily to also makes it hard to ensure application and storage meet shifts in business demand. With the reduced cost performance.and increased agility value proposition, it's no wonder that just about every enterprise IT organization is adopt-ing virtualization technologies today. Most analysts claim that server virtualization technologies like VMware have been deployed in over 75 percent of enterprises already and their penetration will grow dramatically in the next few years.
2The virtualization environment also helps optimize . Automate the process of provisioning storage storage. resources to VMware servers.. How many resources are allocated to a hypervisor . Lastly, when deploying VMware with HP Arrays (EVA and virtual machine (VM)? and XP), Storage Essentials provides the capabilities . How much of it is used? What is underutilized and to also monitor, view, and report deep application/what can be reclaimed? storage array performance metrics to troubleshoot and enable application performance. . Do I have virtual machine (VM) "sprawl" (under-managed virtual servers) in my environment? Comprehensive visibility into VM/storage . Are these servers consuming expensive storage dependenciesresources? SE leverages storage management standards like Storage Management Infrastructure - Specification Without good answers to these questions, enterprises (SMI-S). Storage Essentials provides accurate and will not use their storage resources effectively and will detailed storage and SAN infrastructure configuration consequently see dramatic increases in storage budgets data. By extending this discovery to VMware servers, and purchase needs. through the VMware VirtualCenter and its VI SDK Web Lastly, the enhanced agility of virtualizatio... [download for more]