IBM Cloud VMware Guide

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VMware for IBM Cloud and QuantaStor

Server and desktop virtualization environments require highly-available block storage that can deliver consistent performance with minimal downtime. QuantaStor Software Defined Storage systems are designed with high-availability and scale-out features needed for mission-critical desktop and server virtualization solutions. QuantaStor storage servers provide VMware certified NFS and iSCSI storage with advanced features including encryption, compression, and remote-replication. iSCSI storage is also VMware VAAI integrated which greatly improves the performance of VM cloning and other network-intensive operations. QuantaStor storage servers for VMware include SSD to accelerate write performance and combined with a RAM-based read cache will deliver between 10K and 15K read/write IOPS (70/30). Automatic Snapshot Schedules with optional long term retention options make it easy to protect and recover data and virtual machines from previous points in time.

VMware VAAI Integrated with VMware 5 and 6 Certification

To ensure best performance with VM migration and compatibility OSNEXUS keeps QuantaStor SDS up to date with the latest in VMware certificationsincluding VMware 6 and VAAI support.

Storage Grid technology

QuantaStor’s Storage Grid technology makes it easy to add storage systems and manage all systems through a single-pane-of-glass management interface which is built into the systems. OSNEXUS QuantaStor is an available operating-system option on most server types and is available in all IBM Cloud datacenters worldwide. The QuantaStor license selection is a SaaS offering which includes access to all QuantaStor features with no additional feature add-on fees.

Remote Replication

QuantaStor SDS systems utilize technology that links multiple systems into a single grid. Systems can be accessed over local or wide-area networks linking data centers anywhere in the world. No matter where the data resides, the entire data center can be managed from a single web interface allowing remote replication of data to and from any system in the grid. Remote-replication features allow replication to-from any QuantaStor systems across IBM data centers and even to other locations to form a hybrid cloud Storage Grid. To ensure high availability in the event of a hardware outage it is recommended that one replicate VMware datastores to a second QuantaStor system in the same or remote IBM data center. Replication is block-level incremental, asynchronous, and may be configured to run at certain times of day or every few minutes to meet strong SLA requirements.

All Flash and Hybrid-flash Accelerated Storage

For configurations requiring performance in excess of 30K IOPS, OSNEXUS recommends dividing up VMs across multiple hybrid pools in one or more QuantaStor SDS system that includes HDD and SSD storage for write logging. Configurations that require over 30K IOPS in a single storage pool should deploy QuantaStor SDS as an all-flash storage system that will deliver performance ranging from 30K IOPS to 1M+ IOPS depending on the number and type of SSDs used in the deployment. All highly-available configurations use a shared SAS/Fibre Channel (FC) storage back-end connected via 12G SAS to an external disk enclosure but can also be FC connected to a back-end SAN.

Virtualized Database and OLTP Applications

QuantaStor SDS High Availability (HA) configurations are ideal for the heavy IOPS workloads seen with databases and OLTP applications that run within a virtualized environment. QuantaStor’s integrated ZFS technology combined with QuantaStor’s integrated HA cluster and failover management technology ensures that applications always have access to their storage even in the event of a switch outage, head-node outage or a back-end enclosure outage. Storage pools deliver both file and block storage via all major protocols including NFS, CIFS, iSCSI and Fibre Channel so that applications can make use of any given configuration for both structured and unstructured data. QuantaStor’s ZFS-based Storage Pools also provide the broadest set of enterprise storage features including high-availability, data compression, remote-replication, snapshots, thin-provisioning and encryption.

Reference Configurations

SAN/NAS Storage Servers

Scale-out Block Storage

Scale-out NAS Archive Storage