2.2.8 Simplifying Storage

This section provides a brief overview of simplified storage setup.

When preparing physical servers and virtual machines, it was difficult to smoothly provide servers as the 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, the following two storage resources are managed.

Virtual Storage Resources
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. Virtual storage resources do not need to be individually registered as resources.
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 datastores of VMware, shared volumes for clusters of Hyper-V, or storage repositories of OVM for x86
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, EMC CLARiiON, and EMC VNX
    LUN (Logical Unit Number)
  - When using EMC Symmetrix DMX or EMX Symmetrix VMAX
    Device
  - For Storage Server on which FalconStor NSS operates
    Virtual Device
- For VM
  Virtual Disk

Allocation of Storage to an L-Server

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

Method involving allocation of disk resources with specified sizes that have been automatically created by this product from storage resources (Automatic generation from virtual storage)
Method involving allocation of disk resources that have been created in advance using storage management software to L-Servers (Creation of disk resources in advance)

The allocation strategy on storage differs depending on the type of the L-Server and the storage device 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 2.7 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 VNX Storage EMC Symmetrix DMX Storage EMC Symmetrix VMAX Storage Storage Server on which FalconStor NSS operates

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 2.8 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 OVM for x86 RHEL5-Xen KVM Solaris Zones (Solaris 11)
Allocate disk resources that were created in advance	KVM Solaris Zones (Solaris 10) OVM for SPARC

Supported Storage Configurations

For the storage units that can be connected with physical L-Servers, refer to "Table: Storage Units that can Be Connected with L-Servers on Physical Servers" in "6.2.3 Cloud Edition" in the "Overview".

For supported storage for Virtual L-Servers, refer to the following:

[VMware]
Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations" in "E.1.3 Storage Preparations".

[Hyper-V]
Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations" in "E.2.3 Storage Preparations".

[Xen]
Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations" in "E.3.3 Storage Preparations".

[OVM for x86 2.2]
Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations" in "E.4.3 Storage Preparations".

[KVM]
Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations" in "E.5.3 Storage Preparations (SAN Configurations)".

[Solaris Zones]
Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations" in "E.6.3 Storage Preparations".

[OVM for SPARC]
Refer to "Supported Storage Configurations" in "E.7.3 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 using the thin provisioning of a storage unit
Method 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".