VMware Virsto Technical Overview:

Optimizing Your SAN Infrastructure for VDI and

Virtual Datacenter Environments

Brian Martin, VMware

STO5359

#STO5359

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

The Journey to SDDC ‒ New Approach to Storage

SAN

HDD SSD

DAS NAS

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

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

?

HDD SSD

HDD SSD

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

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

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

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

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

IOP

S

Number of Snapshots

VMware Virsto Snapshot Performance

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

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

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

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

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 ReadIOps WriteIOps AverageReadResponseTime AverageWriteResponseTime

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

IOps ReadIOps WriteIOps AverageReadResponseTime AverageWriteResponseTime

Native Performance

VMware Virsto Performance

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

VMware Virsto: Ideal Use Cases

VDI

Software Defined

Datacenter

Cloud Computing Test & Development

17

Application Performance Consistency

VMware Virsto on EMC VNX for SQL Server

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

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

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

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

VMware Virsto Architecture

Tiered vSpace vLog (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

VMware Virsto vDisk Logical to Physical Translation

vSpace

vDisk

vMaps

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

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

“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

Copy

Snapshot “Shared”

Attribute

Clone

“Shared”

Attributes

New Data

Write

VMware Virsto Maps During Clone Write

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

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

Questions

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

THANK YOU

VMware Virsto Technical Overview:

Optimizing Your SAN Infrastructure for VDI and

Virtual Datacenter Environments

Brian Martin, VMware

Rawlinson Rivera, VMware

STO5359

#STO5359