2.2.8 Simplifying Storage

This section provides a brief overview of simplified storage setup.

When creating physical servers and virtual machines, it was difficult to smoothly provide servers as configuration of storage units and the storage network was necessary.
Resource Orchestrator enables quick allocation of storage through coordination with storage management software or VM management software.

In this product, two storage resources of the following are managed.

Virtual Storage Resources
The virtual storage resource indicates the following resources.
When storage management software is registered to Resource Orchestrator, the storage information controlled by the storage management software is automatically obtained and detected as a virtual storage resource.
The virtual storage resource need not be individually registered in the resource.
The resources can be managed as virtual storage resources using the same operations.
- For physical servers
  An original resource used to create LUN such as ETERNUS RAID groups or NetApp aggregates on storage units
- For VM
  A file system for creation of VMs and virtual disks such as VMFS (datastore) of VMware, shared volumes for clusters of Hyper-V, or storage repositories of Oracle VM
Disk Resources
A disk resource refers to a disk resource allocated to a server.
For disk resources created in advance such as LUNs, storage information is automatically obtained when storage management software is registered, and they are detected as disk resources. Therefore, it is not necessary to register disk resources individually.
- For physical servers
  - When using ETERNUS storage, NetApp storage, and EMC CLARiiON
    LUN (Logical Unit Number)
  - When using EMC Symmetrix DMX or EMX Symmetrix VMAX
    Device
- For VM
  Virtual Disk

Allocating of Storage to L-Server

In Resource Orchestrator, use the following procedure to allocate a disk resource to an L-Server:

Method that this product is generated disk resource of size specified from storage resource automatically, and allocated in L-Server (automatic generation from virtual storage)
Method to allocate disk resource created beforehand by use of storage management product in L-Server (prior making of disk resource)

The allocation strategy on storage is different according to the type and the storage device of L-Server used.

Allocating Storage to a Physical L-Server

For details, refer to "Allocating Storage to a Physical L-Server".

The following storage allocation methods and storage types are available for physical L-Servers.

Table 2.6 Storage Allocation Methods and Storage Types for Physical L-Servers
Allocation Method	Storage Type
Allocate disk resources automatically created from virtual storage resources	ETERNUS Storage NetApp FAS Storage
Allocate disk resources that were created in advance	ETERNUS Storage NetApp FAS Storage EMC CLARiiON Storage EMC Symmetrix DMX Storage EMC Symmetrix VMAX Storage

Allocating Storage to a Virtual L-Server

For details, refer to "Allocating Storage to a Virtual L-Server".

Storage Allocation Methods and Storage Types and Server Virtualization Types for Virtual L-Servers are as follows.

Table 2.7 Storage Allocation Methods and Storage Types and Server Virtualization Types for Virtual L-Servers
Allocation Method	Storage Type
Allocate disk resources automatically created from virtual storage resources	VMware Hyper-V Oracle VM RHEL5-Xen
Allocate disk resources that were created in advance	KVM

Supported Storage Configurations

For the storage units that can be connected with physical L-Servers, refer to "Table 2.67 Storage Units that can be Connected with L-Servers on Physical Servers" in "2.5 Hardware Environment".

For supported Storage for Virtual L-Server, refer to the following:

[VMware]
Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations".

[Hyper-V]
Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations".

[Xen]
Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations".

[Oracle VM]
Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations".

[KVM]

Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations".

[Solaris Containers]
Refer to "E.6.3 Storage Preparations".

Effective Utilization of Storage Using Thin Provisioning

Thin provisioning is technology for virtualizing storage capacities.

In Resource Orchestrator,, efficient use of storage is achieved by the following two methods.

Method for using the thin provisioning of a storage unit
Method for using the thin provisioning of server virtualization software

For details, refer to "Effective Utilization of Storage Using Thin Provisioning".

Effective Utilization of Storage Using Automatic Storage Layering

Automatic Storage Layering is a feature that monitors data access frequency in mixed environments that contain different storage classes and disk types. It then automatically relocates data to the most appropriate storage devices based on set data usage policies.

Resource Orchestrator can be coordinated with Automatic Storage Layering for ETERNUS storage.

For details, refer to "Effective Utilization of Storage Using Automatic Storage Layering".