Storage and data protection technologies - the third day at VMware EMPOWER 2019
We continue to discuss technological innovations presented at the VMware EMPOWER 2019 conference in Lisbon. Our materials on a subject on Habré:
vSAN is a vSphere-integrated storage for deployment in a private and public cloud. It allows you to abstract from hardware disks and work with resource pools without worrying about where the data of virtual machines are located. Starting with vSAN 6.7, developers have taught the system to use the infrastructure more efficiently - the tool automatically frees up space, reducing the total cost of storage ownership.
Representatives of VMware say that the new version of vSAN has greater I / O performance (20-30%) compared to its predecessor. Also, the updated system solved some of the problems associated with vMotion migration, replication and working with snapshots. These operations have become much more stable - now situations with “sticking” virtual machine disks during migration and loss of changes during the creation and removal of snapshots will be much less common. The company's engineers promise to permanently eradicate them in the upcoming vSAN 6.7 updates.
Another IT giant is working to implement full-featured support for the All-NVMe disk infrastructure and optimize vSAN for working with SSD arrays. Among the priorities, the company's speakers highlighted the increase in productivity and data protection in case of failures of storage elements. First of all, it was about increasing the speed of rebuilding the array, working with the Redirect-On-Write mechanism and generally minimizing the number of disk operations between media on the network. Operational data recovery between cluster nodes and minimization of delays were also mentioned.
At the same time, artificial intelligence systems are actively being introduced into the vSAN product. His tasks include monitoring the status of disk subsystems, their automatic "treatment", as well as notifying administrators and compiling reports / recommendations.
On one of the VMware EMPOWER 2019 panels, speakers separately discussed the capabilities of the updated NSX-T 2.4, designed for network virtualization and aggregation of virtual networks of data centers. It was about the capabilities of the platform in the context of emergency data recovery (Disaster Recovery).
VMware is actively working on its own DR solutions in single-site and multi-site environments. The company managed to almost completely abstract virtual resources (machines, disks, networks) from physical platforms. Already, NSX-T can work with multi-cloud, multi-hypervisor and bare-metal nodes.
The tool reduces data recovery time and the number of manual operations associated with reconfiguring the infrastructure (IP addresses, security policies, routing and parameters of the services used) after migration to new equipment, when many technical conditions change.
For these reasons, VMware is actively promoting the ideas of logical micro-segmentation of infrastructure, orchestration and automation of recovery procedures. Particular emphasis is placed on the implementation of artificial intelligence systems. They already appear in IT giant solutions such as VMware NSX Cluster Management, Storage Replication, as well as virtual switches and tunnels based on the Geneve protocol. The latter replaced the NSX-V VXLAN and is the foundation on which the NSX-T is based.
Representatives of the company spoke about the smooth transition from VMware NSX-V to NSX-T on the first day of the conference . The main feature of the new solution is the fact that it is not tied to vCenter / vSphere, so it can be used as a standalone solution for various types of infrastructure.
We visited special VMware demo stands where we were able to evaluate the work of the above products in practice. It turned out that despite the wide functionality, managing SD-WAN and NSX-T solutions is quite simple. We managed to deal with everything on the fly, without the help of consultants.
It's good that VMware pays attention to the tasks related to security and data recovery. Today, as a rule, third-party systems are responsible for their solution, which leads to compatibility problems (especially when changing infrastructural conditions) and additional costs from customers. New VMware solutions will increase the stability of the processes occurring in the IT infrastructure.
Live streaming from VMware EMPOWER 2019 in our Telegram channel:
Storage virtualization goes to the next level
The third day at VMware EMPOWER 2019 began with an analysis of the company's plans to develop the vSAN product and other storage virtualization solutions. In particular, it was about updating vSAN 6.7 update 3.
vSAN is a vSphere-integrated storage for deployment in a private and public cloud. It allows you to abstract from hardware disks and work with resource pools without worrying about where the data of virtual machines are located. Starting with vSAN 6.7, developers have taught the system to use the infrastructure more efficiently - the tool automatically frees up space, reducing the total cost of storage ownership.
Representatives of VMware say that the new version of vSAN has greater I / O performance (20-30%) compared to its predecessor. Also, the updated system solved some of the problems associated with vMotion migration, replication and working with snapshots. These operations have become much more stable - now situations with “sticking” virtual machine disks during migration and loss of changes during the creation and removal of snapshots will be much less common. The company's engineers promise to permanently eradicate them in the upcoming vSAN 6.7 updates.
Another IT giant is working to implement full-featured support for the All-NVMe disk infrastructure and optimize vSAN for working with SSD arrays. Among the priorities, the company's speakers highlighted the increase in productivity and data protection in case of failures of storage elements. First of all, it was about increasing the speed of rebuilding the array, working with the Redirect-On-Write mechanism and generally minimizing the number of disk operations between media on the network. Operational data recovery between cluster nodes and minimization of delays were also mentioned.
“VSAN is becoming smarter, with more and more intelligent functions appearing in it, related to positioning data and optimizing routes for their transmission. These aspects are important for the operation of functions such as DRS, vMotion, etc. "
At the same time, artificial intelligence systems are actively being introduced into the vSAN product. His tasks include monitoring the status of disk subsystems, their automatic "treatment", as well as notifying administrators and compiling reports / recommendations.
About data recovery
On one of the VMware EMPOWER 2019 panels, speakers separately discussed the capabilities of the updated NSX-T 2.4, designed for network virtualization and aggregation of virtual networks of data centers. It was about the capabilities of the platform in the context of emergency data recovery (Disaster Recovery).
VMware is actively working on its own DR solutions in single-site and multi-site environments. The company managed to almost completely abstract virtual resources (machines, disks, networks) from physical platforms. Already, NSX-T can work with multi-cloud, multi-hypervisor and bare-metal nodes.
The tool reduces data recovery time and the number of manual operations associated with reconfiguring the infrastructure (IP addresses, security policies, routing and parameters of the services used) after migration to new equipment, when many technical conditions change.
“Restoring all settings manually for a long time, plus a human factor arises - the system administrator can forget or ignore a number of mandatory steps. Such errors lead to failures in the operation of the entire IT infrastructure or individual services. Also, the human factor negatively affects the achievement of indicators of accessibility and speed of data recovery ( SLA / RPO / RTO ) ”
For these reasons, VMware is actively promoting the ideas of logical micro-segmentation of infrastructure, orchestration and automation of recovery procedures. Particular emphasis is placed on the implementation of artificial intelligence systems. They already appear in IT giant solutions such as VMware NSX Cluster Management, Storage Replication, as well as virtual switches and tunnels based on the Geneve protocol. The latter replaced the NSX-V VXLAN and is the foundation on which the NSX-T is based.
Representatives of the company spoke about the smooth transition from VMware NSX-V to NSX-T on the first day of the conference . The main feature of the new solution is the fact that it is not tied to vCenter / vSphere, so it can be used as a standalone solution for various types of infrastructure.
We visited special VMware demo stands where we were able to evaluate the work of the above products in practice. It turned out that despite the wide functionality, managing SD-WAN and NSX-T solutions is quite simple. We managed to deal with everything on the fly, without the help of consultants.
It's good that VMware pays attention to the tasks related to security and data recovery. Today, as a rule, third-party systems are responsible for their solution, which leads to compatibility problems (especially when changing infrastructural conditions) and additional costs from customers. New VMware solutions will increase the stability of the processes occurring in the IT infrastructure.
Live streaming from VMware EMPOWER 2019 in our Telegram channel: