This document summarizes a presentation by VMware and IndonesianCloud about accelerating migration to storage-as-a-service using VMware vCloud and Virtual SAN. It discusses IndonesianCloud's past issues with a traditional storage platform and how Virtual SAN addressed their needs for cost efficiency, operational simplicity, reliability, and scalability. Specifically, Virtual SAN allowed them to match competitors' storage prices, simplify operations through policy-based management and per-VM services, improve reliability through a scale-out design that accommodates failures, and easily scale capacity and performance by adding servers. IndonesianCloud deployed a Virtual SAN platform using SuperMicro servers with SSDs and HDDs to provide storage as a service.
2. 3 Key Takeaways
Learn how you can transform
storage by aligning it with app
demands….
1. Fundamentally simplify storage
consumption
2. Exploit fast, resilient and dynamic
persistent storage tier
3. Significantly lower TCO for
comparable performance
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4. Virtual SAN:
Radically Simple Hypervisor-Converged Storage
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vSphere + Virtual SAN
…
• Software-defined storage embedded in
vSphere
• Runs on any standard x86 server
• Pools HDD/flash into a shared datastore
• Managed through storage policy-based
management framework
• High performance through flash acceleration
• Highly resilient - zero data loss in the event of
hardware failures
• Deeply integrated with the VMware stack
The Basics
Hard disks
SSD
Hard disks
SSD
Hard disks
SSD
Virtual SAN Shared
Datastore
5. Why VMware Virtual SAN?
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• Two click Install
• Single pane of glass
• Policy-driven
• Self-tuning
• Integrated with VMware stack
Radically Simple
• Embedded in vSphere kernel
• Flash-accelerated
• Up to 2M IOPs from 32 nodes
• Granular and linear scaling
High Performance Lower TCO
• Server-side economics
• No large upfront investments
• Grow-as-you-go
• Easy to operate with
powerful automation
• No specialized skillset
6. Two clicks to deploy!
Virtual SAN Simplifies Storage
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If You Know vSphere, You Know Virtual SAN
7. Virtual SAN is Deeply Integrated with VMware Stack
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Ideal for VMware Environments
vMotion
vSphere HA
DRS
Storage vMotion
vSphere
Snapshots
Linked Clones
VDP Advanced
vSphere Replication
Data Protection
Horizon View
Virtual Desktop
vCenter Operations Manager
vCloud Automation Center
IaaS
Cloud Ops and Automation
Site Recovery Manager
Disaster Recovery
Site A Site B
Storage Policy-Based Management
8. 8
Storage Policy-Based Management
VSAN Shared
Datastore
VSAN Simplifies and Automates Storage Management
Per VM storage service levels from a single self-tuning datastore
Capacity
Performance
Availability
Per VM Storage
Policies
Policies set based on
application needs
vSphere + VSAN
SLAs
Software automates control of
service levels
No more LUNs!
9. Virtual SAN Puts The App in Charge
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Simpler and Automated Storage Management Through Application-centric Approach
Today
1. Pre-define storage configurations
2. Pre-allocate static bins
3. Expose pre-allocated bins
4. Select appropriate bin
5. Consume from pre-allocated bin
✖ Overprovisioning
(Better safe than sorry!)
✖ Wasted resources, wasted time
✖ Frequent data migrations
Today Virtual SAN
1. Define storage policy
2. Apply policy at VM creation
Virtual SAN
Shared Datastore
Resource and data service are
automatically provisioned and
maintained.
No overprovisioning
Less resources, less time
Easy to change
10. vSphere + Virtual SAN
Virtual SAN is Highly Resilient Against Any Hardware Failure
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Virtual SAN is Designed to Ensure Data is Never Lost in Case of Failures
Simple to set up via policy
Delivered on per VM basis
Zero data loss in case of disk, network
or host failures
Ensures zero downtime from disk or
network failures
Interoperable with vSphere HA and
Maintenance Mode
11. Scale UP
Add more
Disks
IOPSCapacity
40 TB
400 TB
4.4 PB
Scale OUT
Add more
Hosts
Elastic
Grow or shrink on demand
Granular
Add single host or disk
Non-disruptive
No app downtime
Virtual SAN Enables Elastic Linear Scaling of
Capacity and Performance
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No More Complex Forecasting & Large Upfront Investments
12. Virtual SAN Reduces CAPEX
and OPEX for Better TCO
CAPEX
• Server-side economics
• No Fibre Channel network
• Pay-as-you-grow
OPEX
• Simplified storage configuration
• No LUNs
• Managed directly through
vSphere Web Client
• Automated VM provisioning
• Simplified capacity planning
As Low as
$0.50/GB2
As Low as
$0.25/IOPS
5X Lower
OPEX4
Up to 50%
TCO
Reduction
As Low as
$50/Desktop1
1. Full clones
2. Usable capacity
3. Estimated based on 2013 street pricing, Capex (includes storage hardware + Software License costs)
4. Source: Taneja Group
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14. Virtual Desktop
(VDI)
Tier 2
Production
Disaster Recovery
Target
• Simple to deploy and
manage for vSphere
admin thru integration
with VMware stack
• High performance and
consolidation ratios
• VM level SLA
management via policy
• Ideal for workloads that
require replication
RPOs > 15 min and 2/3
daily snapshots
• Integrated with
vSphere Replication
and VMware SRM
• Reduces cost of
storage
• Minimizes data center
footprint
• Handle peak
performance
requirements (boot,
login, read/write
storms)
• Granularly scale from
POC to production
without huge upfront
investments
• Supports high VDI
density
Virtual SAN Use Cases
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Site A Site B
Staging &
Test/Dev
• Rapid storage
provisioning and
complete automation
• Reduces cost of
storage for non-
mission critical
workloads
• Enables Cloud
Architect to easily
provision storage
16. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Introducing IndonesianCloud
We Are
Established in 2011, IndonesianCloud is a world class, local cloud
service provider. Standardizing on a certified VMware vCloud
powered platform, hosted in the most secure datacenter in
Indonesia, and leveraging the latest technology, enables us to offer
an “AlwaysOn” service guarantee
Our Mission
IndonesianCloud strives to be Indonesia ’ s most trusted, most
reliable, and most secure local cloud provider
Our Goal
Provide enterprise, global quality cloud services to Indonesian
clients
Our Solutions
We provide a complete portfolio of IT solutions including Hosting,
Integrated Solutions, and Consulting
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17. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Everyone is now a Global Service Provider
Shadow IT means Internal IT is being
held accountable for their costs
Local SPs must be competitive against
global SPs
Cloud Platforms (Private or Public)
need to scale, be cost effective, and
they must be reliable
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18. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Background
Existing platform
Blade Servers
spread across two
DC sites and
multiple chassis
Enterprise Grade
FCoE attached
storage with
deduplication and
thin provisioning
10GbE Networking
with VLAN/PVLAN,
and FCoE
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19. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Existing Storage
Storage Performance
Two performance Tiers* (Standard / High)
Storage Availability
Optional Hourly Snapshots
Optional Async Replication
Storage Costs
41c per GB for High Performance
15c per GB for Standard Performance
+7c per GB to enable Snapshots
+55c per GB to enable Replication
Prices per month in USD
*Standard Performance Storage (Bulk - 500 IOPS/TB); High Performance Storage (OLTP - 1500 IOPS/TB)
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20. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Past Issues
Controller
Failures (x3)
Cluster Instability
Concurrent
Controller Failures
(leading to
widespread outage)
Operational
complexities caused
by storage efficiency
technology
X
Operational complexities
caused by physically separate
storage service catalog items
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21. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our Storage Service Catalog
Storage Tier Performance* Local Recovery Remote DR
Diamond High Yes Yes
Platinum Standard Yes Yes
Gold High Yes No
Silver Standard Yes No
Bronze Standard No No
Each Tier encompasses a physically separate datastore
More Datastores = More Management & Waste
*Standard Performance Storage (Bulk - 500 IOPS/TB); High Performance Storage (OLTP - 1500 IOPS/TB)
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22. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
So…
High storage costs,
platform instability,
and operational
challenges led us to
reconsider
And our answers were interesting…
Is our existing platform cost effective?
Is our existing platform operationally simple?
Is traditional storage reliable enough?
Is traditional storage scalable enough?
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24. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
The Cloud Market
Standard Performance (Bulk)
Storage
High Performance (OLTP)
Storage
Prices per month in USD
*Standard Performance Storage (Bulk - 500 IOPS/TB); High Performance Storage (OLTP - 1500 IOPS/TB)
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25. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
The Hardware CapEx Market
Includes allowance for Hosting, but excludes any “cost of finance” Includes allowance for Hosting, but excludes any “cost of finance”
Not technically “like for like”
but representative of
customer comparisons
*Standard Performance Storage (Bulk - 500 IOPS/TB); High Performance Storage (OLTP - 1500 IOPS/TB)
Standard Performance (Bulk)
SATA
High Performance (OLTP)
SAS
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26. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Side by Side
Standard Performance High Performance
Hardware / CapEx 6c / GB 24c / GB
Local Competitor 30c / GB $1.50 / GB
AWS 12c / GB 27c / GB
Azure 8c / GB 18c / GB
Google 3c / GB 22c / GB
VMware vCloud Air 6c / GB 12c / GB
IndonesianCloud SELL 45c / GB 75c / GB
IndonesianCloud
COST
15c / GB 41c / GB
Prices per month in USD
*Standard Performance Storage (Bulk - 500 IOPS/TB); High Performance Storage (OLTP - 1500 IOPS/TB)
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27. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our Challenge
Our COST price for storage was
more than the sell price of
our international competitors
Our prospects were always baselining our
storage vs what “they can buy it for”
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28. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our Goal
Match the comparative price of “in house purchased”
solutions without compromising performance or
availability
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29. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
What we considered
• NetApp with 4TB SATA Drives (and 2TB NVRAM Cache)
• EMC ScaleIO
• StarWind Virtual SAN
• Nutanix Converged Compute
• Simplivity Converged Compute
• Nimble Hybrid Storage
• VMware Virtual SAN
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30. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our Findings
Virtual SAN License is 8c
per GB
Total COST of Virtual SAN
solution is 12c per GB;
sell for 24c per GB
Virtual SAN Hardware* is 4c
per GB for high performance
*Based on SuperMicro Virtual SAN Ready Nodes
*Includes cost for CPUs and RAM, which we can also sell
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31. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Standard Performance High Performance
Hardware / CapEx 6c / GB 24c / GB
Local Competitor 30c / GB $1.50 / GB
AWS 12c / GB 27c / GB
Azure 8c / GB 18c / GB
Google 3c / GB 22c / GB
VMware vCloud Air 6c / GB 12c / GB
IndonesianCloud SELL 45c / GB 75c / GB
IndonesianCloud
COST
15c / GB 41c / GB
Virtual SAN SELL n/a 24c / GB
The Result
Goal: Match the comparative price of “in house purchased”
solutions without compromising performance or availability
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33. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our Challenge
Storage efficiency savings inside
storage subsystem and not the
VMware Datastores (causing
operational issues)
Replications and Snapshots per
Datastore, not per VM (but we sell
per VM).
Being able to accurately
capacity plan for growth
Balancing performance
vs capacity
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34. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
• Ensure that any storage efficiency savings are instantly usable by VMware
• Enable Snapshot and Replication protection per VM to reduce the complexity of our
service catalogs
• Ensure that capacity planning is possible by providing accurate consumption metrics
• Ensure that we purchase “just enough” performance
Our Goal
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35. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our Findings
With Virtual SAN, we can deploy a
single physical storage tier, with
additional data protection per VM
Only VMware Virtual SAN offered
native integration with VCOPS for
accurate capacity forecasting
“Only Virtual SAN let me mix and
match capacity and performance
within the cluster”
** VVOLS will address this for block storage
With Virtual SAN, Storage
efficiency savings are usable by
VMware*
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37. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Background
• Dual Controller, Active/Passive or Active/Active ruled the storage arena
• We were always told “This is enterprise grade, it wont fail”
• Traditional Tech is designed NOT to fail
• When Traditional Tech DOES fail, all hell breaks loose (THIS IS COMMON)
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38. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our Challenge
Find a way to operate a
storage platform that is
designed to, and can
accommodate, failures
Remove the “noose” that
hangs around our neck by
having the business reliant
on storage vendors
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39. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our Findings
“Scale Out” removes traditional
SAN controllers as a point of
failure”
“Scale Out” removes traditional
RAID arrays as a point of
weakness
“Design for Failure is a FAR better
philosophy”
“Scale Out, Shared Nothing is PERFECT
for Service providers and large
enterprises”
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41. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our Challenge
We must always purchase
capacity in large increments
(20TB+) – this is a CapEx drain
Every time we outgrow our
storage controllers, we must
“FORKLIFT” replace them
Our disk CACHE hit ratio is very
good, but if I want to increase
cache.. How ??
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42. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our Findings
“With Virtual SAN, if we want more
Capacity, we can simply add a
new node with larger drives”
“With Virtual SAN, if we want more
sustained IOPS, we can simply
add a new node with more SSD”
“And more importantly,
controller performance is
linear. If we need more
power, just add more
nodes”
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44. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our Virtual SAN Platform
– SYS-F627R3-R72B+
• 4 Hot-plug System Nodes in 4U Each node supports:
• Dual socket R (LGA 2011) supports Intel® Xeon®
processor E5-2600 and E5-2600 v2 family
• Up to 1TB ECC DDR3, up to 1866MHz; 16x DIMM sockets
• 1 PCI-E 3.0 x16 (LP) + 1 Micro LP
• I/O ports: 2 GbE ports, 1 Built-in video, 1 COM/Serial port,
2 USB 2.0 ports
• Built-in Server management tool (IPMI 2.0, KVM/media
over LAN) with dedicated LAN port
• LSI 2208 based storage controller
• 6+2 Hot-swap 3.5" SAS2 HDD Bays via LSI 2208
• 4U rackmount 1280W Redundant Power Supplies
Platinum Level (95%)
– 8x Processor Ivy Bridge 10C E5-2670V2 2.5G 25M 8GT/s QPI
– 64x Memory 16GB 1333 ECC Reg
– 4x SSD Intel S3700 Series 800GB, SATA 2,5"
– 20x HDD 4TB 7.2RPM SAS 6 3.5"
– 4x AOC-CTG-i2T ( 10G Support w/ X540 chip with 2 x RJ45 )
– 4x SSD Tray (MCP-220-93801-0B)
• Super Micro
FatTwin –
• per Virtual SAN
Block
Queue Depth of
600
NL-SAS, 4TB
80 Cores, 1TB
RAM, 80TB
Storage
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45. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Our NEW Storage Service Catalog
Storage Tier Performance* Local Recovery Remote DR**
Diamond
HIGH
Yes Yes
Platinum Yes Yes
Gold Yes No
Silver Yes No
Bronze No No
Single Physical Tier, per VM uplifts
SIMPLE & EFFECTIVE
*High Performance OLTP Storage (1500 IOPS/TB)
** vSphere Replication with SRM
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46. Hosting, Solutions, Consulting.
Summary
Is our existing platform cost effective?
Is our existing platform operationally simple?
Is traditional storage reliable enough?
Is traditional storage scalable enough?
No…. But Virtual SAN is
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