Hypervisor CPU and Networking overhead is a common issue for operations like VM provisioning, migration, and cloning. There should be a way to enhance performance by offloading the unnecessary CPU load and shrinking the SAN traffic. ODX and VAAI features do exactly this by offloading routine disk tasks to the storage array so they will be executed more effectively.

1. Webinar:
Make Your Storage Work For You
VAAI and ODX offload up to 30% of disk
operations to the SAN

2. 2
About Aidan Finn
• @joe_elway
• Hyper-V MVP
• Technical Sales Lead with MicroWarehouse (http://www.mwh.ie)
• Irish technology distributor
• Learning, evangelizing & teaching Microsoft infrastructure to Microsoft
partners
• Background in Windows Server & desktop management, virtualisation, Azure
IaaS, and IT infrastructure
• Blogging & writing:
• http://www.aidanfinn.com
• http://www.petri.com/author/aidan-finn
• Published author/contributor of several books
PRESENTATION

3. 3
About Max Kolomyeytsev
• StarWind Virtual SAN Product Manager
• 8+ years of QA and technical support
@ StarWind
• 10+ of professional IT experience
• Host of the StarWind Webinar series
PRESENTATION

4. ODX and the Microsoft Cloud

5. 5
Desires
• Data is growing and so are hard disk sizes
• How IT is deployed is/has changed for many organizations
• Administrators need to react more quickly to business needs
• Enable faster self-service deployment of virtual machines
PRESENTATION

6. 6
Slow Storage Operations: Example 2
PRESENTATION
1 Gbps iSCSI
Hyper-V Host
Storage
SCVMM Library
Virtual machine
template and
virtual hard disk
New virtual
machine

7. 7
Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX)
• A hardware offload introduced in Windows Server 2012
• Offloads slow operations and transfers from servers/hosts to the SAN
• Results in much faster operations and happier customers
• Hyper-V uses ODX for disk operations
• ODX support added in System Center 2012 R2
PRESENTATION

8. 8
How ODX Works
PRESENTATION

9. 9
Benefits of ODX for Hyper-V
• Much faster disk operations, such as:
• Creating fixed-size virtual hard disks
• Extending fixed-size virtual hard disks
• Live Storage Migration
• Merging checkpoints (formerly AKA Hyper-V snapshots)
• Clouds
• Creating virtual machines from a library
• Faster self-service provisioning of services
PRESENTATION

10. 10
Fast Storage Operations: Example 1
PRESENTATION
1 Gbps iSCSI
Hyper-V Host
Storage
0000
0000
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0000
0000
0000
0000
0000
0000
0000
0000
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0000
0000
0000
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0000
0000
0000
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Create new
or extend FIXED
virtual hard disk

11. 11
Slow Storage Operations: Example 2
PRESENTATION
1 Gbps iSCSI
Hyper-V Host
Storage
SCVMM Library
Virtual machine
template and
virtual hard disk
New virtual
machine
SCVMM 2012 R2
Fast File Copy

12. 12
ODX Hardware Requirements
• A SAN that supports ODX:
• iSCSI
• Fibre channel
• Fibre channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
• SAS
• Always good practice to upgrade firmware and drivers throughout
the entire storage stack
• Check with SAN vendor
• From HBAs to disks
PRESENTATION

13. 13
ODX Software Requirements
• Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, or later
• System Center 2012 R2 (for Fast File Copy VM deployment)
• Opted-in filter drivers (anti-virus, encryption, etc)
• The affected volumes:
• Unencrypted basic (not dynamic) partition
• NTFS
• Disable Data Deduplication and BitLocker on the volumes
• No Storage Spaces
• Files:
• 256 KB or larger
• Preferably not highly fragmented
PRESENTATION

14. 14
Interesting Designs
• Virtual machine Guest OS can support ODX:
• Guest OS iSCSI initiator is connected to LUN on ODX-capable SAN
• Virtual machine is connected to LUN on ODX-capable SAN via virtual
fibre channel
• Hyper-V can use ODX over SMB 3.0
• File server or SOFS is connected to ODX capable SAN
• Inter-SAN data transfers
• Copy data between LUNs in different SANs using ODX
• Requires storage controller support for inter-SAN ODX transfers
PRESENTATION

15. 15
Caution!
• Not all SANs offer the same level of support for ODX
• ODX might be “supported” but unstable
• Disable ODX:
Set-ItemProperty
hklm:systemcurrentcontrolsetcontrolfilesystem -Name
"FilterSupportedFeaturesMode" -Value 1
• Some models of SAN offer great performance gains from ODX
• Some barely show any benefit at all
PRESENTATION

16. 16
Just 2 VMware servers to enable
Fault Tolerance on the entire system.
Really.
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PRESENTATION