Software Defined

Is flash the saviour of Software Defined Storage?

Duncan Epping · May 22, 2013 ·

I have this search column open on twitter with the term “software defined storage”. One thing that kept popping up in the last couple of days was a tweet from various IBM people around how SDS will change flash. Or let me quote the tweet:

“What does software-defined storage mean for the future of #flash?”

It is part of a twitter chat scheduled for today, initiated by IBM. It might be just me misreading the tweets or the IBM folks look at SDS and flash in a completely different way than I do. Yes SDS is a nice buzzword these days. I guess with the billion dollar investment in flash IBM has announced they are going all-in with regards to marketing. If you ask me they should have flipped it and the tweet should have stated: “What does flash mean for the future of Software Defined Storage?” Or to make it even sound more marketing is flash the saviour of Software Defined Storage?

Flash is a disruptive technology, and changing the way we architect our datacenters. Not only did it already allow many storage vendors to introduce additional tiers of storage it also allowed them to add an additional layer of caching in their storage devices. Some vendors even created all flash based storage systems offering thousands of IOps (some will claim millions), performance issues are a thing of the past with those devices. On top of that host local flash is the enabler of scale-out virtual storage appliances. Without flash those type of solutions would not be possible, well at least not with a decent performance.

Since a couple of years host side flash is also becoming more common. Especially since several companies jumped in to the huge gap there was and started offering caching solutions for virtualized infrastructures. These solutions allow companies who cannot move to hybrid or all-flash solutions to increase the performance of their virtual infrastructure without changing their storage platform. Basically what these solutions do is make a distinction between “data at rest” and “data in motion”. Data in motion should reside in cache, if configured properly, and data in rest should reside on your array. These solutions once again will change the way we architect our datacenters. They provide a significant performance increase removing many of the performance constraints linked to traditional storage systems; your storage system can once again focus on what it is good at… storing data / capacity / resiliency.

I think I have answered the questions, but for those who have difficulties reading between the lines, how does flash change the future of software defined storage? Flash is the enabler of many new storage devices and solutions. Be it a virtual storage appliance in a converged stack, an all-flash array, or host-side IO accelerators. Through flash new opportunities arise, new options for virtualizing existing (I/O intensive) workloads. With it many new storage solutions were developed from the ground up. Storage solutions that run on standard x86 hardware, storage solutions with tight integration with the various platforms, solutions which offer things like end-to-end QoS capabilities and a multitude of data services. These solutions can change your datacenter strategy; be a part of your software defined storage strategy to take that next step forward in optimizing your operational efficiency.

Although flash is not a must for a software defined storage strategy, I would say that it is here to stay and that it is a driving force behind many software defined storage solutions!

EMC ViPR; My take

Duncan Epping · May 15, 2013 ·

When I started writing this article I knew people were going to say that I am biased considering I work for VMware (EMC owns a part of VMware), but so be it. It is not like that has ever stopped me from posting anything about potential competitors so it also will not stop me now either. After seeing all the heated debates on twitter between the various storage vendors I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try to provide my perspective. I am looking at this from a VMware Infrastructure point of view and with my customer hat on. Considering I have huge interest in Software Defined Storage solutions this should be my cup of tea. So here you go, my take on EMC ViPR. Note that I did not actually played with the product yet (like most people providing public feedback), so this is purely about the concept of ViPR.

First of all, when I wrote about Software Defined Storage one the key requirements I mentioned was the ability to leverage existing legacy storage infrastructures… Primary reason for this is the fact I don’t expect customers to deprecate their legacy storage all at once, if they will at all. Keep that in mind when reading the rest of the article.

Let me summarize shortly what EMC introduced last week. EMC introduced a brand new product call ViPR. ViPR is a Software Defined Storage product; at least this is how EMC labels it. Those who read my articles on SDS know the “abstract / pool / automate” motto by now, and that is indeed what ViPR can offer:

It allows you to abstract the control path from the actual underlying hardware, enabling management of different storage devices through a common interface
It enables grouping of different types storage in to a single virtual storage pool. Based on policies/profiles the right type of storage can be consumed
It offers a single API for managing various devices; in other words a lower barier to automate. On top of that, when it comes to integration it for instance allows you to use a single “VASA” (vSphere APIs for Storage Awareness) provider instead of the many needed in a multi-vendor environment

So what does that look like?

What surprised me is that ViPR not only works with EMC arrays of all kinds but will also work for 3rd party storage solutions. For now NetApp support has been announced but I can see that being extended, and I now EMC is aiming to. You can also manage your fabric using ViPR, do note that this is currently limited to just a couple of vendors but how cool is that? When I did vSphere implementations the one thing I never liked doing was setting up the FC zones, ViPR makes that a lot easier and I can also see how this will be very useful in environments where workloads move around clusters. (Chad has a great article with awesome demos here) So what does this all mean? Let me give an example from a VMware point of view:

Your infrastructure has 3 different storage systems. Each of these systems have various data services and different storage tiers. Now when you need to add new data stores or introduce a new storage system without ViPR it would mean you will need to add new VASA providers, create LUNs, present these, potentially label these, see how automation works as typically API implementation differ etc. Yes a lot of work, but what if you had a system sitting in between you and your physical systems who takes some of these burdens on? That is indeed where ViPR comes in to play. Single VASA provider on vSphere, single API, single UI and self-service.

Now what is all the drama about then I can hear some of you think as it sounds pretty compelling. To be honest, I don’t know. Maybe it was the messaging used by EMC, or maybe the competition in the Software Defined space thought the world was crowded enough already? Maybe it is just the way of the storage industry today; considering all the heated debates witnessed over the last couple of years that is a perfectly viable option. Or maybe the problem is that ViPR enables a Software Defined Storage strategy without necessarily introducing new storage. Meaning that where some pitch a full new stack, in this case the current solution is used and a man-in-the-middle solution is introduced.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that ViPR is THE solution for everyone. But it definitely bridges a gap and enables you to realise your SDS strategy. (Yes I know, there are other vendors who offer something similar.) ViPR can help those who have an existing storage solution to: abstract / pool / automate. Yes indeed, not everyone can afford it to swap out their full storage infrastructure for a new so-called Software Defined Storage device and that is where ViPR will come in handy. On top of that, some of you have, and probably always will, a multi-vendor strategy… again this is where ViPR can help simply your operations. The nice thing is that ViPR is an open platform, according to Chad source code and examples of all critical elements will be published so that anyone can ensure their storage system works with ViPR.

I would like to see ViPR integrate with host-local-caching solutions, it would be nice to be able to accelerate specific datastores (read caching / write back / write through) using a single interface / policy. Meaning as part of the policy ViPR surfaces to vCenter. Same applies to host side replication solutions by the way. I would also be interested in seeing how ViPR will integrate with solutions like Virtual Volumes (VVOLs) when it is released… but I guess time will tell.

I am about to start playing with ViPR in my lab so this is all based on what I have read and heard about ViPR (I like this series by Greg Schultz on ViPR). My understanding, and opinion, might change over time and if so I will be the first to admit and edit this article accordingly.

I wonder how those of you who are on the customer side look at ViPR, and I want to invite you to leave a comment.

RE: Is VSA the future of Software Defined Storage? (OpenIO)

Duncan Epping · Apr 24, 2013 ·

I was reading this article on the HP blog about the future of Software Defined Storage and how the VSA fits perfectly. Although I agree that a VSA (virtual storage appliance) could potentially be a Software Defined Storage solution I do not really agree with IDC quote used for the basis of this article and on top of that I think some crucial factors are left out. Lets start with the IDC quote:

IDC defines software-based storage as any storage software stack that can be installed on any commodity resources (x86 hardware, hypervisors, or cloud) and/or off-the-shelf computing hardware and used to offer a full suite of storage services and federation between the underlying persistent data placement resources to enable data mobility of its tenants between these resources.

Software Defined Storage solutions to me are not necessarily just a software-based storage product. Yes as said a VSA, or something like Virtual SAN (VSAN), could be part of your strategy but how about the storage you have today? Do we really expect customers to forget about their “legacy” storage and just write it off? Surely that won’t happen, especially not in this economical climate and considering many companies invested heavily in storage when they started virtualizing production workloads. What is missing in this quote, or in that article (although briefly mentioned in linked article), is the whole concept of “abstract, pool, automate”. I guess some of you will say, well that is VMware’s motto right? Well yes and no. Yes, “abstract, pool, automate” is the way of the future if you ask VMware. However this is not something new. Think about Software Defined Networking for instance, this is fully based on the “abstract, pool, automate” concept.

This had me thinking, what is missing today? There are various different initiatives around networking (openflow etc), but what about storage? I created this diagram that from a logical perspective explains what I think we need when it comes to Software Defined Storage. I guess this is what Ray Lucchesi is referring to in his article on Openflow and the storage world. Brent Compton from FusionIO also had an insightful article on this topic, worth reading.

If you look at my diagram… (yes FCoE/Infiniband/DAS etc is missing, not because it shouldn’t be supported but just to simplify the diagram) I drew a hypervisor at the top, reason for it being is that I have been in the hypervisor business for years but reality is this could be anything right. From a hypervisor perspective all you should see is a pool. A pool for your IO, a pool where you can store your data. Now this layer should provide you various things. Lets start at the bottom and work our way up.

IO Connect = Abstract / Pool logic. This should allow you to connect to various types of storage abstract it for your consumers and pool it of course
API = Do I need to explain this? It addresses the “automate” part but also probably even more importantly the integration aspect. Integration is key for a Software Defined Datacenter. The API(s) should be able to provide both north-, south-, east- and west-bound capabilities (for explanation around this read this article, although it is about Software Defined Networking it should get the point across)
PE = Policy Engine, takes care of making sure your data ends up on the right tier with the right set of services
DS = Data Services. Although the storage can provide specific data services this is also an opportunity for the layer in between the hypervisor and the storage. Matter a fact, data services should be possible on all layers: physical storage, appliance, host based etc
$$ = Caching. I drew this out separately for a reason, yes it could be seen as a data service but I wanted it separately as for any layer inserted there is an impact on performance. An elegant and efficient caching solution at the right level could mitigate the impact. Again, caching could be part of this framework but could very well sit outside of it on the host-side or at the storage layer, or appliance based

One thing I want to emphasize here is the importance of the API. I briefly mentioned enabling north-, south-, east- and west-bound capabilities but in order for a solution like this to be successful this is a must. Although with automation you can go a long way, integration is key here! Whether it is seamless integration with your physical systems, integration with your virtual management solution or with an external cloud storage solution… These APIs should be able to provide that kind of functionality and be enable a true pluggable framework experience.

If you look at this approach, and I drew this out before I even looked at Virsto, it kind of resembles what Virsto offers today. Although there are components missing the concept is similar. It also resembles VVOLs in a way, which was discussed at VMworld in 2011 and 2012. I would say that what I described is a combination of both combined with what Software Defined Networking promises.

So where am I going with this? Good question, honestly I don’t know… For me articles like these are a nice way of blowing steam, get the creative juices going and open up the conversation. I do feel the world is ready for the next step from a Software Defined Storage perspective, I guess the really question is who is going to take this next step and when? I would love to hear your feedback.

Install and configure Virsto

Duncan Epping · Apr 23, 2013 ·

Last week I was in Palo Alto and I had a discussion about Virsto. Based on that discussion I figured it was time to setup Virsto in my Lab. I am not going to go in to much details around what Virsto is or does as I already did that in this article around the time VMware acquired Virsto. On top of that there is an excellent article by Cormac which provides an awesome primer. But lets use two quotes from both of the articles to give an idea of what to expect:

source: yellow-bricks.com
Virsto has developed an appliance and a host level service which together forms an abstraction layer for existing storage devices. In other words, storage devices are connected directly to the Virsto appliance and Virsto aggregates these devices in to a large storage pool. This pool is in its turn served up to your environment as an NFS datastore.

source: cormachogan.com
Virsto Software aims to provide the advantages of VMware’s linked clones (single image management, thin provisioning, rapid creation) but deliver better performance than EZT VMDKs.

Just to give an idea, what do I have running in my lab?

3 x ESX 5.1 host
1 x vCenter Server (Windows install as VCVA isn’t supported_
VNX 5500

After quickly glancing the quickstart guide I noticed I needed a Windows VM to install some of Virsto’s components, that VM is what Virsto refers to as the “vMaster”. I also need a bunch of empty LUNs which will be used for storage. I also noticed reference of Namespace VMs and vIOService VMs. Hmmm, it sounds complicated, but is it? I am guessing these components will need to be connected. This is kind of the idea, note that the empty LUNs will be automatically connected by to the IOService VMs. I did not add those to the diagram as that would make it more complex than needed.

Tintri releases version 2.0 – Replication added!

Duncan Epping · Apr 8, 2013 ·

I have never made it a secret that I am a fan of Tintri. I just love their view on storage systems and the way they decided to solve specific problems. When I was in Palo Alto last month I had the opportunity to talk to the folks of Tintri again and what they were working on. Of course we had a discussion about the Software Defined Datacenter and more specifically Software Defined Storage and what Tintri would bring to the SDS era. As all of that was under strict NDA I can’t share it, but what I can share are some cool details of what Tintri has just announced, version 2.0 of their storage system.

For those who have never even looked in to Tintri I suggest you catch-up by reading the following two articles:

When I was briefed initially about Tintri back in 2011 one of the biggest areas of improvement I saw were around availability. Two things were on my list to be solved, first one was the “single controller” approach they took. This was solved back in 2011. Another feature I missed was replication. Replication is the main feature that is announced today and it will be part of the 2.0 release of their software. What I loved about Tintri is that all data services they offered were on a virtual machine level. Of course the same applies to replication, announced today.

Tintri offers a-synchronous replication which can go down to a recovery point objective (RPO) of 15 minutes. Of course I asked if there were plans on bringing this down, and indeed this is planned but I can’t say when. What I liked about this replication solution is that as data is deduplicated and compressed the amount of replication traffic is kept to a limit. Let me rephrase that, globally deduplicated… meaning that if a block already exists in the DR site then it will not be replicated to that site. This will definitely have a positive impact on your bandwidth consumption, and Tintri has seen up to 95% reduction in WAN bandwidth consumption. The diagram below shows how this works.

The nice thing about the replication technique Tintri offers is that it is well integrated with VMware vSphere and thus it offers “VM consistent” snapshots by leveraging VMware’s quiescing technology. My next obvious question was what about Site Recovery Manager? As failover is on a per VM basis, orchestrating / automating this would be a welcome option. Tintri is still working on this and hopes to add support for Site Recovery Manager soon. Another I would like to see added was grouping of virtual machines for replication consistency; again this is something which is on the road map and hopefully will be added soon.

One of the other cool features which is added with this release is remote cloning. Remote cloning basically allows you to clone a virtual machine / template to a different array. Those who have multiple vCenter Server instances in their environment know what a pain this can be, hence the reason I feel this is one of those neat little features which you will appreciate once you have used it. Would be great if this functionality could be integrated within the vSphere Web Client as a “right click”, judging by the comments made by the Tintri team I would expect that they are already working on deeper / tighter integration with the Web Client, and I can only hope a vSphere Web Client plugin will be released soon so that all granular VM level data services can be managed from a single console.

All-in-all a great new release by Tintri, if you ask me this release is 3 huge steps forward!