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© Copyright IBM Corporation, 2012

Intelligent storage management solutionusing VMware vSphere 5.0 Storage DRS

A technical report of the storage management

solution using SDRS on the IBM SONAS

storage system

Udayasuryan Kodoly IBM Systems and Technology Group ISV Enablement

June 2012



Intelligent storage management solution using VMware vSphere 5.0 Storage DRS

2

Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 3

Executive summary .................................................................................................................. 3 Intended audience ....................................................................................................................................4 Scope .......................................................................................................................................................4

Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................ 4

Solution components ............................................................................................................... 4

VMware vSphere ......................................................................................................................................4 IBM SONAS overview ..............................................................................................................................5

Solution architecture ............................................................................................................... 6

Material list for solution setup in the lab ...................................................................................................7 Basic configuration requirement for the solution ......................................................................................8

NFS data store configuration ............................................................................................................8 Create file set on a specific file system for the NFS data store ........................................................8 Creating NFS share (export) with the newly created file set ......................................................... 10

Data store clusters ................................................................................................................................ 12 Data store cluster constraints ........................................................................................................ 13 Best practices before creating the data store clusters .................................................................. 13 Steps to create a data store cluster ............................................................................................... 14

Profile-Driven Storage ........................................................................................................................... 21 Create user-defined storage capabilities ....................................................................................... 22 Create a VM storage profile ........................................................................................................... 25 Assign the user-defined VM storage profiles to the data stores .................................................... 28 Using the VM Storage Profile ........................................................................................................ 31 Checking compatibility ................................................................................................................... 32

Guiding Storage DRS recommendations for the solution ..................................................................... 34

Affinity and anti-affinity rules.......................................................................................................... 35 Intra-VM VMDK affinity rule ........................................................................................................... 35 Intra-VM VMDK anti-affinity rule .................................................................................................... 37 Inter-VM anti-affinity rule ............................................................................................................... 38 Different VMFS block sizes ........................................................................................................... 39 SDRS data store maintenance mode ............................................................................................ 40

Summary ................................................................................................................................. 42

Appendix A: Glossary ............................................................................................................ 43

Appendix B: Materials used in the lab setup ........................................................................ 44

Appendix C: Resources ......................................................................................................... 45 About the author .................................................................................................................... 47

Trademarks and special notices ........................................................................................... 48




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Abstract

This technical paper provides the essential technical information about the advanced storage management solution for VMware virtual infrastructure using the VMware vSphere 5.0 Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (Storage DRS) feature with the IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) storage system.

Storage DRS (SDRS) is a new vSphere 5.0 feature that provides intelligent virtual machine (VM) placement across storage by making load-balancing decisions based on the current I/O latency and space usage and moving virtual machine disks (VMDKs) in a non-disruptive manner between the data stores in the data store cluster.

Storage DRS selects the best data store to place the virtual machine or VMDKs in the selected data store cluster of the SONAS file systems.

Executive summary

IBM® SONAS is a scalable storage offering designed to manage vast repositories of information

in enterprise environments requiring very large capacities, high levels of performance, and high

availability. IBM SONAS provides a clustered network-attached storage (NAS) system with a

single name space for Common Internet File System (CIFS), Network File System (NFS),Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS), Secure Copy Protocol (SCP), and File Transfer

Protocol (FTP) services. The system consists of:

• Two to thirty-two interface nodes (2851-SI2)

• One to thirty storage pods consisting of storage node (2851-SS2), storage

• Controller (2851-DR1) and attached disks

• Disk storage expansion units (2851-DE1)

• Ethernet and InfiniBand® switches and racks

IBM SONAS can scale up to a maximum configuration that provides up to a massive 21.6petabytes (PB) of storage capacity in a single cluster, highly redundant system. The storage used

in the SONAS system can be high-performance 15 K/10 K rpm serial-attached SCSI (SAS) hard

disk drives (HDDs) or high-capacity 7.2 K rpm nearline SAS HDDs, allowing configuration

according to the needs.

The VMware vSphere 5.0 Storage DRS feature aggregates storage resources of several storage

volumes and file systems of the IBM SONAS storage system in to a single pool and simplifies

storage management at scale. The feature intelligently places workloads on storage volumes and

file systems during provisioning based on the available storage resources. It performs ongoing

load balancing between storage volumes and file systems to ensure space and avoids I/O

bottlenecks as per predefined rules that reflect business needs and changing priorities with

vSphere Storage DRS. The important benefits of Storage DRS on a vSphere 5.0 virtual

infrastructure are as follows.

• Reduce IT costs and improve agility with rapid and simpler VM provisioning.

• Increase manageability at scale by automated monitoring and remediation.

• Improve application performance by avoiding storage resource bottlenecks.




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• Meet application service level agreements (SLAs) during unavoidable congestion by

using storage I/O control.

This technical report is intended for:

• Customers and prospects looking to implement advanced storage management solution

for the VMware virtual infrastructure using Storage DRS with the IBM SONAS storage

system.

• Users and management seeking information to implement advanced storage

management solution for the VMware virtual infrastructure using Storage DRS with the

IBM SONAS storage system.

This technical report provides:

• Detailed and advanced storage management solution implementation for the VMware

virtual infrastructure using Storage DRS with IBM SONAS.

• Detailed design and implementation guide; configuration best practices.• Reproducible test results that simulate common failure scenarios resulting from

operational problems and unplanned outages.

This technical report does not:

• Discuss any performance impact and analysis from a user perspective.

• Replace any official manuals and documents from IBM and VMware on the products

used in the solution.

Prerequisites

This technical paper assumes familiarity with the following prerequisites:

• Basic knowledge of VMware virtualization technologies and products:

− VMware vCenter Server 5.0

− VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0

• Basic knowledge of the IBM SONAS storage system

Solution components

This section briefly describes the essential components used in this solution.

In order for Storage DRS to function correctly, the environment must meet the following VMwarevSphere basic product requirements.

• VMware vCenter Server 5.0

• VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0

• VMware vCenter Cluster (recommended)

• VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus License




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• Shared Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) or NFS data store volumes

− Shared data store volumes accessible by at least one ESXi host inside the

cluster

− Data stores must be visible in only one data center

• All hosts associated with the data store cluster must run ESXi 5.0 or higher versions.

IBM SONAS is an enterprise-class, modular, scalable, NAS solution designed to meet rapidly

growing storage needs. Delivering seamless scalability for the high performance and massive

capacity that healthcare providers require, it builds on a distributed architecture to reduce

management complexity and eliminate any single point of failure that might impede data

availability.

SONAS scales to capacities over 21 PB to store large and small files generated by businesses

today and to meet the storage needs anticipated for the future. To keep these huge volumes of

data safe and to remove interruptions from business operations, SONAS provides built-in highavailability and fault tolerance for dependability, resiliency, and flexibility.

IBM SONAS provides a globally clustered NAS file system built upon IBM General Parallel File

System (IBM GPFS™). The global namespace is maintained across the cluster of multiple

storage pods and multiple interface nodes. This capability permits all interface nodes and all

storage nodes share equally in the cluster to balance workloads dynamically and provide parallel

performance to all users and storage, which also ensures high availability (HA) and automated

failover.

The IBM SONAS storage system offers the following features:

• IBM SONAS provides extreme scalability to accommodate capacity growth for up to 21

PB

• Manages multiple petabytes of storage and billions of files in a single file system

• Excellent performance within a single file system

• Enables ubiquitous access to files from across the globe quickly and cost effectively with

IBM Active Cloud Engine™

• Operational efficiency with automated, policy-driven tiered storage

• Automated lifecycle management and migration to tape

• Satisfies bandwidth hungry applications with scale-out performance

• Supports varied workloads including random access and streaming

• Disaster recovery and business continuity with asynchronous replication

• Fileset snapshots and file cloning for increased availability

• Simple to use and manage with an intuitive GUI




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Solution architecture

Figure 1: Intelligent storage management solution architecture for IBM SONAS

Figure 1 illustrates the architecture of the intelligent storage management solution for the VMware

vSphere 5.0 virtual cloud infrastructure, constructed on the IBM SONAS storage system for

enterprise cloud virtual environment. This solution is made up of VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0

hosts, VMware vSphere vCenter 5.0 servers, and IBM SONAS storage system.

There are two separate VMware vSphere 5.0 High Availability (HA) clusters configured for this

solution in the lab validation environment. Each VMware vSphere 5.0 HA cluster is active with

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 hosts running Microsoft® Windows® and Linux® VMs. VMs of each

cluster, resides on the NFS (NAS) data store cluster provisioned on the IBM SONAS storage

system.

NFS (NAS) data store cluster: The NFS (NAS) data stores consists of file-based data stores

created using the NFS protocol.

In the lab solution setup, the VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 hosts in each cluster setup can access

the NFS (NAS) data store cluster to host several VMs.




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Table 1 lists the hardware and software used in this solution architecture.

Infrastructure

components

Vendor Quantity Details

Servers running VMware

vSphere ESXi 5.0

IBM

(IBM System x®

3650 M3)

4

For more information, refer to the VMware

compatibility guide at:

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compat

ility/search.php

Example:

ibm.com /systems/x/hardware/rack/x3650m

3/specs.html

Storage system IBM 1

IBM SONAS

ibm.com /systems/storage/network/sonas/

Network (Ethernet)

Switch

Cisco Catalyst

6509

1

Network adapter

(Per ESXi host and IBM

SONAS interface nodes)

Two 10 Gbps

Four 1 Gbps

Software

IBM IBM SONAS Version 1.3

VMware VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 or higher

VMware VMware vCenter Server 5.0 or higher

Table 1: List of hardware and software material used in the lab to set up the solution




8

After correctly configuring the new virtual cloud infrastructure using the VMware vSphere ESXi

5.0 hosts, and vSphere vCenter server 5.0, the solution requires at least one NFS data store

configured on each vSphere ESXi 5.0 host on the configured vSphere 5.0 HA cluster. These datastores must be provisioned on the IBM SONAS storage system.

In the lab solution setup, the NFS data stores configured on all the vSphere ESXi 5.0 hosts are

configured on both the clusters.

NFS data store configuration

This section describes the steps to configure the NFS data store.

Create a file set on a specific file system for the NFS data store

The first step is to create an appropriate file set on a specific file system for the NFS data

store configuration.

You can find more information about that file set at:

http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.sonas.doc%

2Fmng_t_filesys_create.html

Perform the following steps to create a file set.

1. Click the Files icon and then click the File Sets option from the pop-up menu from the

GUI, as shown in the Figure 2.

Figure 2: Selecting the File Sets option




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2. Click New File Set.

Figure 3: Option to create a new file set

3. Provide the appropriate parameters to create the new file set and click OK.

Figure 4: New file set parameters




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4. Validate the file set creation status and click Close.

Figure 5: File set creation status information

Creating NFS share (export) with the newly created file set

Perform the following steps to define an NFS share export on the newly created file set.

1. Click shares on the pop-up menu.

Figure 6: Shares option to initiate NFS share creation




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2. Click New Share.

Figure 7: Clicking the New Share option

3. Select NFS share and provide the appropriate parameters for the new NFS share. In this

example, the newly created file set path, NFS share name, and appropriate NFS client

option are updated. Click OK.

Figure 8: NFS share configuration with parameters




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After the appropriate NFS share has been created for the newly created file set, it is time to

create and configure the NFS data store in the ESXi host using vCenter as show in the lab

setup in Figure 9.

Figure 9: NFS data store configured in the lab setup

The data store clusters form the basis of vSphere 5.0 Storage DRS and it can be described as a

collection of data stores aggregated into a single unit of consumption from an administrator

perspective. An administrator no longer needs to be concerned about individual data stores. Data

store clusters are managed rather than individual data stores.

Administrators can use data store cluster, during the provisioning process or during a manual VM

migration to the storage destination.

Note:

The provisioning process not only refers to the creation of a virtual machine, but also to adding a

disk to an existing virtual machine, cloning a virtual machine, or performing a Storage vMotion

operation.




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Data store cluster constraints

A data store cluster has the following constraints:

• Must be NFS-based data stores on the same data store cluster for IBM SONAS

storage system

• Maximum of 32 data stores per data store cluster

• Maximum of 256 data store clusters per vSphere vCenter Server 5.0

• Maximum of 9000 VMDKs per data store cluster

Best practices before creating the data store clusters

The following best practices need to be followed before creating the data store clusters.

• Set Storage DRS to manual and review the recommendation before accepting

them.

• All data stores in the cluster must use the same type of disk (SAS, SATA, or

nearline SAS)

• All data stores in the cluster must group with disks with similar characteristics

(RAID 5 with RAID 5, mirror or replicated with mirror or replicated, 15 K rpm with

15 K rpm and so on).

• All data stores in an SDRS cluster must be NFS data stores for IBM SONAS

storage systems.

• Data stores cannot be shared between different sites.

• All data store hosts within a data store cluster must be ESXi 5 hosts.




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Steps to create a data store cluster

This section illustrates the steps for creating the data store cluster. The example shows the

the lab test creation of the data store cluster, Class1_DatastoreCluster (Gold) .

1. Go to the vSphere vCenter Server 5.0 home page.

2. Click Datastores and Datastores Clusters.

Figure 10: Datastores and Datastore Clusters option




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3. Right-click the cluster and then click New Datastore Cluster.

Figure 11: New Datastore Cluster option to create the data store cluster




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4. Enter an appropriate name for the data store cluster and select the Turn on Storage

DRS check box, and click Next.

Figure 12: General data store cluster creation page




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5. Select the No Automation (Manual Mode) option and click Next.

Figure 13: SDRS automation page




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6. Accept the default settings (as shown in the Figure 14) and click Next.

Figure 14: SDRS Runtime Rules page




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7. Select the hosts and the clusters in the solution to add to the new data store cluster (as

shown in Figure 15) and click Next.

Figure 15: Selecting the hosts and clusters




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8. From the Show Datastores list, select Connected to some hosts to view all the

configured data stores and select the appropriate data stores to form the new data store

cluster (as shown in the Figure 16) and click Next.

Figure 16: The Select Datastores page




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9. Validate the selected configuration and click Finish.

Figure 17: Ready to Complete page

In the lab test environment, the test team created the following data store clusters.

• NFS based Tier1_DatastoreCluster (Gold)

• NFS based Tier2_DatastoreCluster (Silver)

vSphere 5.0 introduces Profile-Driven Storage which allows rapid and intelligent placement of

virtual machine based on predefined storage profiles. This feature automates matching the SLA

requirements of virtual machines with appropriate data stores or data store clusters. The

predefined storage profiles usually represent a storage tier and are created through a vCenter

feature called VM Storage Profiles.

In the lab solution setup, characteristics such as RAID level and performance are considered to

define different tires. The following list of storage tiers are used in the lab solution setup.

• Tier1_Gold, RAID-6, SAS drive 15000 rpm, NFS data stores, NDMP backup enabled,

Active Cloud Engine enabled




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• Tier2_Silver, RAID-6, nearline SAS 7200 rpm, NFS data store, NDMP backup enabled,

Active Cloud Engine enabled

In the lab solution setup, these VM storage profiles are user-defined and are manually

associated.

Create user-defined storage capabilities

You need to perform the following steps to create user-defined storage capabilities.

1. On the vSphere vCenter 5.0 window, click the VM Storage Profiles icon.

Figure 18: vSphere vCenter 5.0 VM storage profiles

2. Click Manage Storage Capabilities to add user-defined storage capabilities (or business

tags), as shown in Figure 19. Here is how the user-defined storage capability Tier1-Gold

is created in the lab solution setup.




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Figure 19: Adding storage capability




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In the lab solution setup, the test team created storage capabilities as Tier1-Gold and Tier2-

Silver, as shown in Figure 20.

Figure 20: Solution lab setup showing user-defined storage capabilities




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Create a VM storage profile

This section illustrates the steps to create a VM storage profile.

1. Click Create VM Storage Profile in the VM Storage Profiles view. Enter a name and

description, as shown in Figure 21.

Figure 21: Creating a new VM storage profile




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2. Select the storage capabilities for the newly created profile, as shown in Figure 22.

Figure 22: Manually assigning storage capabilities with VM storage profile




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In the lab solution setup, two VM storage profiles are created for each tier of storage, as

shown in Figure 23.

Figure 23: Lab solution setup of VM storage profiles




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Assign the user-defined VM storage profiles to the data stores

This section illustrates the steps to manually assign the newly created VM storage profiles to

the data stores within the data store clusters.

1. Right-click the data store within the data store cluster and click Assign User-Defined

Storage Capability.

Figure 24: Manually assigning the user-defined storage capability




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2. Select the predefined storage tier capability for the selected data store within the data

store cluster (as shown in Figure 25) and click OK.

Note: Make sure to manually assign the same storage capability to all individual data

stores within the data store cluster. A data store cluster must not have data stores

with different types of storage capabilities.

Figure 25: Selecting the appropriate user-defined storage capability from the list




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3. In the Summary tab of the data store, a new section named, Storage Capabilities now

displays both the options: System Storage Capability (VASA) and User-defined Storage

Capability. Click the bubble icon next to the capability to view additional details, as shown

in Figure 26.

Figure 26: Storage capability summary tab




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Using the VM Storage Profile

At this point, the VM profile is created and the user-defined capabilities are added to the data

store. Use the profile to select the correct storage for the VM, as shown in Figure 27.

Figure 27: Applying the VM storage profile

The profile is automatically attached to the VM during the deployment phase. Validate if the data

store on which the VM is placed has the same capabilities as the profile. If it does, then the VM issaid to be compliant. If not, the VM is said to be non-compliant, as shown in Figure 28.

Figure 28: Storage selection with appropriate VM storage profile




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Notice the way that the data stores are now split into (Compatible and Incompatible) in the lab

solution test environment. Compatible data stores are those which have the same storage

capabilities as those defined in the Gold profile.

Note: It is also possible to deploy the Gold VM on to one of the incompatible data stores.

Checking compatibility

To check individual VMs, go to the Summary tab of the VM and validate the new VM Storage

Profiles window. This indicates whether the VM is compliant or not, as shown in Figure 29.

Figure 29: VM Storage Profiles window




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Also check the VM storage profile view to validate the storage compliance all the VMs, as

shown in Figure 30.

Figure 30: VM Storage Profiles view




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Fundamentally, when creating a virtual machine, it is required to select the destination storage for

the virtual machine.

In the lab solution test environment, both the vSphere 5.0 HA clusters are connected to at least

one data store cluster, as shown in Figure 31.

Figure 31: VM destination storage selection page




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After selecting the data store cluster, vCenter displays initial placement recommendations for

SDRS, which need to be applied by the administrator (as shown in Figure 32).

Figure 32: VM initial placement recommendations page

Affinity and anti-affinity rules

By default, SDRS applies an intra-VM affinity rule (VMDK affinity), storing all f iles that belong

to a virtual machine to one data store. The SDRS supports three kinds of rules that are

enforced during the initial placement and during ongoing migrations for load balancing.

• Intra-VM VMDK affinity rule is used to keep a VM’s VMDKs together on the same data

store.

• Intra-VM VMDK anti-affinity rule is used to keep a VM’s VMDKs on a different data store.

• Inter-VM VM anti-affinity rule is used to keep VMs on different data stores.

Intra-VM VMDK affinity rule

SDRS applies a VMDK affinity rule to each virtual machine by default. This default rule is

commonly referred to as the intra-VM affinity rule, as shown in Figure 33.




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Figure 33: Intra-VM VMDK affinity

The user can change the data store cluster settings so that VMs in the cluster do not have an

intra-VM VMDK affinity rule set by default (as shown in Figure 34).

Figure 34: Overriding the intra-VMDK affinity rule




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If an existing virtual machine is moved into a data store cluster, the application of an intra-VM

affinity rule depends on the disk layout configuration of the virtual machine and the method of

introduction.

Note: A virtual machine can be moved into a data store cluster by either Storage vMotion or

by adding the data stores containing its disk to a data store cluster.

Table 2 shows the application of the default SDRS intra-VM affinity rule. Be aware of the

result of these actions when migrating to a data store cluster.

Disk layout source Method Rule activate Disk layoutdestination

All VMDKs on a singledata store

Storage vMotion Yes All VMDKs on a singledata store

VMDKs on multipledata stores

Storage vMotion Yes All VMDKs on a singledata store

All VMDKs on a singledata store

Add storage Yes All VMDKs on a singledata store

VMDKs on multipledata stores

Add storage No VMDKs on multipledata stores

Table 2: Applying the default intra-VM affinity rule

Intra-VM VMDK anti-affinity rule

The intra-VM VMDK anti-affinity rule keeps the specified VMDKs belonging to a virtual

machine on separate data stores, as shown in the Error! Reference source not found..




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Figure 35: VMDK anti-affinity rule

This rule can be useful for separating log and data disks of database VMs.

Recommendation: It is recommended to apply this rule sparingly as it might affect the

opportunities available for SDRS to find appropriate locations to place the virtual machine

and still be able to load balance workloads inside the data store cluster.

Inter-VM anti-affinity ruleThe inter-VM anti-affinity rule keeps the specified virtual machines on different data stores, as

shown in Figure 36.




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Figure 36: VM anti-affinity

The benefit of this rule is to help maximize the availability of a collection of related virtual

machines. In this rule, the availability of a set of critical virtual machines is increased by not

allowing SDRS to place the critical virtual machines on the same data store (for example,

VMs running web servers in a load-balance cluster or VMs running domain controllers).

Recommendation: Similar to the intra-VM anti-affinity rules, apply VM anti-affinity rulessparingly. Anti-affinity rules place limitations on SDRS and reduce the possibilities that it has

to reach a steady and balanced state.

Different VMFS block sizes

Recommendation: Avoid mixing data stores with different block sizes.




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SDRS data store maintenance mode

Storage DRS offers data store maintenance mode, which automatically evacuates all virtual

machines and virtual disk drives from the selected data store to the remaining data store in

the data store cluster, as shown in Figure 37.

Figure 37: Enter SDRS data store maintenance mode




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You can click Apply Recommendation to formally take the data store to the maintenance

mode, as shown in Figure 38.

Figure 38: SDRS Maintenance Mode Migration Recommendations page

Caution: SDRS cannot migrate the VMware Fault Tolerance (FT) enabled virtual machines.

The workaround is to temporarily turn off FT for the FT virtual machine, perform migration,

then re-enable FT. Similarly, virtual machine templates cannot perform Storage vMotion andthey introduce problems for placing data stores in the maintenance mode.




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Summary

vSphere Storage DRS continuously monitors storage space and I/O utilization across the SONAS

storage system resources (file systems) and intelligently aligns storage resources to meet

business objectives including:

• Ability to specify how storage resources of the SONAS storage system will be allocatedto virtual machines with rules and policies

• Providing IT autonomy to business organizations by assigning dedicated SONAS storage

infrastructure to business units while still achieving higher storage utilization through

pools of storage volumes

• Empowering business units to build and manage virtual machines within their SONAS

storage while giving central IT control over the SONAS storage resources.

VMware Storage DRS continuously balances SONAS storage resources and storage I/O load

and avoids resource bottlenecks to meet application service levels, and increases manageability

of storage at scale.

To help you make the most of your IT investments, IBM together with VMware can deliver a

complete virtualization platform that can be tailored to meet an organization’s needs and

environment. In partnership with VMware, IBM commits resources and establishes programs for

ongoing testing, validation, and interoperability. Together, IBM and VMware can offer:

• The broadest platform of proven virtualization solutions, giving organizations the

flexibility and choice

• Deep integration between products for enhanced usability and advanced features

• Comprehensive service and support to protect your virtualization investments over

the long term

As established leaders in the virtualization space, IBM and VMware are uniquely positioned to

help organizations achieve their virtualization goals, while minimizing business risk. This unique

combination of hardware and software solutions enables organizations to dramatically reduce the

complexity of IT, significantly lower IT costs, and increase IT flexibility for improved business

agility.

Note: This paper is not intended to be a definitive implementation or solutions guide for VMware

vSphere 5.0 virtual infrastructure solutions using the Storage DRS feature with the SONAS

storage system. Many factors related to specific customer environments are not addressed in this

paper. You can contact IBM for support from one of the IBM virtualization solutions experts for

any deployment requirement.




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Appendix A: Glossary

• IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) - Build on IBM high-performance

computing experience, and based upon IBM General Parallel File System (IBM GPFS™),

the scale out network-attached storage (NAS) solution provides the performance,

clustered scalability, high availability, and functionality that are essential to meet strategic

Petabyte Age and cloud-storage requirements.

• VMware vSphere – Is one of the industry-leading virtualization platforms for building

cloud infrastructures. vSphere accelerates the shift to cloud computing for existing data

centers, while also underpinning compatible public cloud offerings, paving the way for the

only hybrid cloud model.

• VMware ESXi – Are bare-metal embedded hypervisors. They are enterprise software

hypervisors from VMware for servers that run directly on server hardware without

requiring an additional underlying operating system.

• VMware vCenter Server – Delivers centralized management, operational automation,

resource optimization, and high availability to IT environments.

• Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (SDRS) – Is an aggregate of storage

resources of several storage volumes in to a single pool and simplifies storage

management at scale. It intelligently places workloads on storage volumes during

provisioning based on the available storage resources.

• VMware High Availability (HA) – Provides easy to use, cost-effective high availability for

applications running in virtual machines.

• VMware Fault Tolerance (FT) – Provides continuous availability for applications in the

event of server failures by creating a live shadow instance of a virtual machine that is in

virtual lockstep with the primary instance.




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Appendix B: Materials used in the lab setup

The following table lists the materials used in the lab setup.

Infrastructurecomponents Vendor Quantity Details

Servers IBM

(IBM System

x3650 M3)

4

IBM System x3650 M3

Intel® Xeon® processor (Intel VT) E55062.13 GHz

Memory: 128 GB in the cluster

Storage system IBM 1

IBM SONAS

ibm.com /systems/storage/network/sonas/

Network (Ethernet)

Switch

Cisco Catalyst

6509

1

Network adapter

(Per-ESXi host and IBM

SONAS Interface nodes)

Two 10 Gbps

Four 1 Gbps

Software

IBM IBM SONAS 1.3

VMware VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0

VMware VMware vCenter Server 5.0

Table 3: Materials used in the lab setup




45

Appendix C: Resources

The following websites provide useful references to supplement the information contained in thispaper:

• IBM Systems on IBM PartnerWorld®

ibm.com /partnerworld/systems

• IBM Redbooks®

ibm.com /redbooks

• IBM Publications Center

www.elink.ibmlink.ibm.com/public/applications/publications/cgibin/pbi.cgi?CTY=US

• IBM SONAS on IBM PartnerWorld

ibm.com /partnerworld/systems/sonas

IBM SONAS documentation

• IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage Concepts

ibm.com /redbooks/redpieces/abstracts/sg247874.html?Open

• IBM SONAS Introduction and Planning Guide (GA32-0716):

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sona

s_ipg.pdf

• IBM SONAS administration and user documentation:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/index.jsp

• IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage Administrator's Guide (GA32-0713):


s_admin_guide.pdf

• IBM SONAS User's Guide (GA32-0714):

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_user_guide.pdf

• IBM SONAS Software Configuration Guide (GA32-0718):

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/confi

guration_guide.pdf




46

• IBM SONAS Troubleshooting Guide (GA32-0717):


s_pd_guide.pdf

VMware documentation

• VMware vSphere Basics

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-

vcenter-server-50-basics-guide.pdf

• vCenter Server and Host Management Guide http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-

vcenter-server-501-host-management-guide.pdf

• vSphere Storage Guide

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-

vcenter-server-501-storage-guide.pdf




47

About the author

Udayasuryan Kodoly is a Storage Technology Specialist in IBM Systems and Technology

Group (ISV Enablement) Organization. Uday has several years of experience on designing,

architecting storage solutions, and developing solution best practices on various NAS and SAN

appliance data protection (backup) solutions. Uday is an expert on virtualization technologies andvirtual machine data protection strategies. Presently, Uday is working on enabling various ISV

backup, disaster recovery, and virtualization solutions for IBM SONAS and IBM Storwize® V7000

Unified systems.

You can reach Uday at [email protected].




48

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