VMworld 2013 Brian Martin, VMware Learn more about VMworld and register at http://www.vmworld.com/index.jspa?src=socmed-vmworld-slideshare

1. VMware Virsto Technical Overview:
Optimizing Your SAN Infrastructure for VDI and
Virtual Datacenter Environments
Brian Martin, VMware
STO5359
#STO5359

2. 2
Software-Defined
Data Center
Software-Defined
Storage
SDDC | SDS
All infrastructure is virtualized and delivered
as a service, and the control of this data
center is entirely automated by software.
Virtualization of control and data planes to
deliver storage resources as a service
through policy-driven VM-based interface

3. 3
The Journey to SDDC ‒ New Approach to Storage
SAN
HDDSSD
DASNAS
SAN NAS
Physical
Software-Defined
Storage
vSphere
Virtual
App App App App
SDS
SAN NAS
vSphere
• VMware Virsto
• Virtual SAN
• vSphere Flash Read Cache
• Virtual Volumes
• Policy-based Management
• …
• VAAI
• VASA
• S-VMotion
• SDRS
• vSphere
Replication
• vSphere Storage
Appliance

4. 4
Mismatch Between Virtualization Layer
and Storage Infrastructure
Virtual Machines have introduced storage
patterns that have caused inefficiencies
at the SAN layer
 Streams of Random I/O
 Data fragmentation due to Random I/O
 Overprovisioning for the sake of
performance
 Need to over-engineer SANs
Hypervisor
?
HDDSSD
HDDSSD

5. 5
Storage Patterns from VMs Create Pressure on SAN
Randomized I/O
100%
73%
62%
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
1 VM 4 VMs 8 VMs
IOPS Degradation – 1 Host, Native
38%
Decrease
Randomized I/O
Performance Degradation
Block Storage
ESXi

6. 6
Over-Provisioning to Deal with Performance Challenges
-
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
70.0
80.0
90.0
50 VMs 100 VMs 200 VMs 400 VMs
Capacity Needed
Capacity Deployed
Excess Capacity
for Performance

7. 7
VMware Virsto is Designed to Address this Mismatch
VMware
Virsto
Block Storage
ESXi • Solving problems at the most efficient
point – before I/O’s are introduced
• Supports existing block storage
• Maintain native VM workflows
• Delivering VM centric data services
• Predictable Performance
• Faster Data Services executed at the
virtualization layer
• Faster storage provisioning
• Improved SAN utilization
• Storage agnostic
• High performance thin provisioning
across all workloads
VMware Virsto ‒ VM-centric
infrastructure agnostic and 100%
software based solution designed to
optimize block based storage arrays by:

8. 8
Data Services Unused Due to Performance Degradation
0%
200%
400%
600%
800%
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Performance Degrades with Increasing Snapshots
IOPS Read Write
IOPS
Decrease
Latency
Increase

9. 9
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
IOPS
Number of Snapshots
VMware Virsto Snapshot Performance

10. 10
VMware Virsto Architecture Artifacts
VMware Virsto vMaster
• Centralized Management Plane
• Requires Windows 2008 OS
• Manages vService on each host
• Coordinates cluster operations
such as HA, vMotion and
Storage vMotion
VMware Virsto Global
Namespace Server
• A Linux based virtual appliance
• Dedicated to the management
of the VMware Virsto global
NFS namespace in clusters
• Coordinates cluster operations
such as HA, vMotion and
Storage vMotion
VMware Virsto vService
• A Linux based virtual
appliance
• Deployed onto every host
• Manages all I/O for host
• One VMFS datastore per 8
or 32 host in cluster
• Recommended minimum
size is ~65GB
VMware Virsto vDisk
• New disk type
• Storage object presented to
virtual machines
• Performance equal to
Thick VMDK
• Efficiency equivalent to
linked clones

11. 11
VMware Virsto Architecture Artifacts
VMware Virsto vSpace
• Primary Storage Area for
virtual machines
• Allocated based on RDM
• Asynchronous writes drain log
• Optimized for VM-level data
placement
• Virtual machines read
operations
are done from vSpace
• Can be tiered to provide higher
performance
VMware Virsto vClones
• Never degrade in performance
over time
vSphere Interoperability
• Seamless integration into
existing vSphere environment
• Supports key tools in existing
vSphere ecosystem
• VMware Virsto Plug-in
• vCenter Server 5.0 U1, 5.1, 5.5
• Orchestrator
• VMware Tools
• VDI Brokers
• VMware Horizon View 5.1
• VMware Horizon View 5.2
VMware Virsto vLog
• Used to optimized writes from
virtual machines
• Writes are immediately
committed and acknowledge.
• vLog storage should be ~10GB
• One vLog per ESXi host in
cluster

12. 12
VMware Virsto Data Flow: Random to Sequential
I/O’s are contiguously
written to the vLog
Written to vSpace in a
sequential manner to
Maximize performance
1. VM where I/O originated
2. Data
3. Address
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
vDisk vDisk vDisk
Immediate write
acknowledgement
De-staged
VMware Virsto vSpace
Virsto
vLog
Virsto
vService

13. 13
VMware Virsto Thin Provisioning
Performance of Thick with the Efficiency and Provisioning Speed of Thin
Block Storage
 Allocate blocks
 Pre-zero blocks
 Update mapping
 Write data
 Send acknowledgement
Native Thin
Provisioning
Block Storage
Write
Write
 Write data
 Send acknowledgement
 Allocate blocks
 Pre-zero blocks
 Update mapping
 Write data
VMware Virsto Thin
Provisioning
vSphere
vSphere
Virsto

14. 14
VMware Virsto Predictable Performance at 8 VMs
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
IOps Read IOps Write IOps Average Read Response Time Average Write Response Time
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
IOps Read IOps Write IOps Average Read Response Time Average Write Response Time
Native Performance
VMware Virsto Performance

15. 15
VMware Virsto Predictable Performance at 32 VMs
0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
Test141WorkloadT232VMScalingVirstoResultsbyWorker
IOps ReadIOps WriteIOps AverageReadResponseTime AverageWriteResponseTime

16. 16
VMware Virsto: Ideal Use Cases
VDI
Software Defined
Datacenter
Cloud Computing Test & Development

17. 17
Application Performance Consistency
VMware Virsto on EMC VNX for SQL Server

18. 18
VDI Performance Challenges
 Windows desktops expect
dedicated local disk
• Windows generates lots of I/O
 More write-intensive workloads
 VM Density with many more
VMs/host
 Much wider variability between
peak & Avg. IOPS
• Boot, Login, Application, Logout Storms

19. 19
VMware Virsto Wizards for VDI Environments
Transparent Integration into existing workflows
VMware Virsto Deploy Wizard  Workflow for initial deployments/imaging
VMware Virsto Re-Deploy Wizard  Workflow for re-deployments/image updates
VMware Virsto Re-Deploy Recovery
VMware Virsto Revert Wizard  Workflow to refresh a desktop or group of desktops
VMware Virsto Delete Wizard  Workflow to delete a desktop or group of desktops
 Transparently repairs failed re-deploy/refresh operations

20. 20
Seamless Integration with vSphere Management UI
VMware Virsto Plug-in integrates with the vSphere Management UI
 Management UI tab
 Provisioning Workflow with vSpace
Tier Options
 vSnap Workflow
 Integration with Horizon View
Transparently embedded into standard
desktop creation workflows
 Effectively replaces View Composer
 Supports the standard deployment,
re-deployment and refresh workflows
 Native integration - Virsto View
Connector hands Virsto-provisioned
desktops over to View Manager
without a separate control interface
* vSphere Web Client Plug-in currently under development

21. 21
VM-centric, hypervisor resident, infrastructure agnostic
Highly parallel, non-blocking design for cloud scale
Efficient and performant data services to deliver full
potential of virtualization
Logging architecture and hierarchical, extent-based maps
Global namespace simplifies management across multiple
backend devices and storage tiers
VMware Virsto Design Foundations

22. 22
VMware Virsto Architecture
Tiered vSpacevLog (one per host)
De-stages to vSpace
Writes to vLog are sequential
Reads from vSpace
vDisk vDisk vDisk vDisk
VMware Virsto
vSphere
vDisk vDisk vDisk vDisk
VMware Virsto
vSphere
vDisk vDisk vDisk vDisk
VMware Virsto
vSphere
vDisk vDisk vDisk vDisk
VMware Virsto
vSphere

23. 23
VMware Virsto vDisk Logical to Physical Translation
vSpace
vDisk
vMaps

24. 24
VMware Virsto Map Hierarchy
“Map”
Attribute
“Data”
Attribute
“Map”
Attribute
“Data”
Attribute
 Every vDisk, Snapshot, and Clone
has its own root map block
 Map entries point to contiguous
data space or another map block

25. 25
VMware Virsto Snapshot Operation
Writes
vLog
Snapshot
Log Mark
vDisk write operations are
collected in each host’s vLog
A Snapshot is created with
a simple log mark
vDisk write operations before the
log mark are in snapshot
vDisk write operations after the
log mark are not
vDisks

26. 26
“Shared”
Attribute
Snapshot (former vDisk) Clone
o The original vDisk root map
block becomes the snapshot
root map block
o If the vDisk is in use, or the
snapshot is cloned, a new root
map block is created with all
map entries marked “Shared”
VMware Virsto Map After Snapshot and Clone

27. 27
Copy
Snapshot
“Shared”
Attribute
Clone
“Shared”
Attributes
New Data
Write
VMware Virsto Maps During Clone Write

28. 28
VMware Virsto Flash Features
 Unlimited levels of snap/clone block
sharing maximizes efficiency of flash
 Flash mode for VMware Virsto logs
leverages higher read-write concurrency
 Flash friendly allocation units and access
patterns reduce write amplification

29. 29
VMware Virsto Benefits
Predictable Performance Don’t have to over-engineer the SAN
Improved SAN Utilization Defer Hardware Purchases
Faster Data Services No performance trade-offs
Faster Storage Provisioning VM-centric vs LUN-centric

30. 30
Questions

31. 31
Other VMware Activities Related to This Session
 Group Discussions:
STO1004-GD
vSphere Flash Read Cache, VSAN, VMware Virsto, Software Defined
Storage Architecture with Rawlinson Rivera and VMware
R&D Engineers

32. THANK YOU

34. VMware Virsto Technical Overview:
Optimizing Your SAN Infrastructure for VDI and
Virtual Datacenter Environments
Brian Martin, VMware
Rawlinson Rivera, VMware
STO5359
#STO5359