Silverton Consulting, Inc.

StorInt Briefing
As virtualized server infrastructures become the dominant architectural paradigm for IT
data centers, new challenges emerge in protecting the consolidated infrastructure from
unplanned outages due to component failure, data loss, and site failure. Classic tape
backup methods continue to be employed, but increasingly are being augmented with
new online data protection (DP) methods and tools that simplify data protection, enhance
recovery times, and automate data management processes.
As a premier supplier of server virtualization technology, VMware has been continuously
evolving their architecture to meet the needs for continued infrastructure growth,
ultimately making shared storage a core requirement of the virtualized infrastructure for
expandability and availability. Storage Area Networks (SANs) have been implemented
with VMware to enable key advanced features, such as High Availability (HA),
VMotion, and Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS). In the first waves of
implementation, many data protection processes painfully evolved, at best as manual
processes. This unsatisfactory outcome originated from ITs struggle to preserve preexisting data protection methods, while attempting to meaningfully leverage data
protection technology available at the guest OS, hypervisor, and SAN infrastructure
layers.
Dell EqualLogic PS Series virtualized iSCSI SANs have been a popular storage choice in
VMware-based environments. Customers have been quick to recognize how the PS
Series virtualized SAN architecture complements the VMware infrastructure, providing a
simple, easy-to-use, cost-effective enterprise storage platform that optimizes storage
resource utilization, lowers TCO, and adapts to changing business needs. Today, new
levels of automation and integration between VMware and Dell EqualLogic arrays are
now available to protect the entire virtualized infrastructure.

High Availability Platform Architecture for Data

Protection
The high availability design features found in the EqualLogic PS Series product family
are of primary importance when architecting a virtual infrastructure resilient against
failure. The PS Series is designed for 99.999% data availability. The redundant, hotpluggable storage architecture of PS Series arrays and advanced system and disk
monitoring capabilities enhance system availability. Features such as RAID, multi-path
I/O support, mirrored write back cache, hot sparing, and automatic system monitoring
protect against unplanned downtime in case of component failure.
Dells PS Series storage supports RAID 5, 6, 10, and 50 with hot sparing for optimizing
drive performance or storage capacity. Failed or failing disks are automatically rebuilt to
another drive. Dells PS Series product also supports mirrored, battery-backed write

Integrated VM data protection from Dell

cache. New data is written to each of the controllers ensuring continued availability of
the data even in the case of a controller failure. Data is further protected during shortterm power outages by a battery backed cache providing retention of previously written
data. This protected data is then restored upon power restoration.
Dells PS Series product is also protected by ongoing automatic system monitoring of the
hardware components. The system notifies the appropriate IT personnel via email,
Syslog, or normal network management services (SMNP traps) of impending failures and
thus insuring maximum data protection.
The EqualLogic PS Series further extends storage data protection capabilities by
supporting snapshots of the SAN-based volumes. PS Series snapshots are point-in-time
copies of volume data that can be quickly created, mounted and restored, and just as
quickly deleted. PS Series snapshots are advantageous because they efficiently store
snapshots with minimal capacity and performance overhead, thus supporting up to 512
read-writeable snapshots per volume to provide a complete history of the underlying
volume.
EqualLogics Auto-Replication feature remotely replicates data from one PS Group to
another over a standard IP network over long distances, helping provide high levels of
data protection and disaster tolerance. Auto-Replication offers the advantages of
geographic isolationa critical component in any true disaster recovery planwithout
the traditional complexity. Administrators can quickly and easily configure volumes for
replication, letting the PS Series arrays manage the underlying hardware resource
complexity. A catalog of recovery points is maintained at each disaster recovery site,
providing multiple points of recovery from which to choose in the event of a disaster.
Automatic failover and failback functions enable non-disruptive testing of the disaster
recovery deployment in addition to facilitating continuous access to data.

VMware vStorage VMFS, VMware Snapshots and

EqualLogic Snapshots
Virtual machine data sets are maintained in VMwares VMFS, a clustered file system
hosted on an EqualLogic SAN-based volume, accessed in a coordinated fashion by ESX
Servers in the ESX cluster through VMFS file locking mechanisms. All virtual machine
data is centrally located on the SAN, but access and ownership of individual virtual
machines is assigned to the ESX server upon which the virtual machines workload is
actively being executed. As a result, an ESX server running multiple virtual machines
hosted on multiple VMFS file systems can be actively accessing multiple SAN-based
volumes.
VMware provides a basic snapshot capability that allows virtual machine state to be
captured to disk at the time the snapshot is taken. The virtual machine is put in
snapshot mode, where additional changes to the volume are journaled to a separate file.
As a result, VMware snapshots are well-suited to provide temporary targets for tape- or
disk-based backup, but not as an online repository of point-in-time copies maintained
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Integrated VM data protection from Dell

over time, maintaining an online repository of VMware virtual machine snapshots will
both incur performance and capacity overhead in the VMFS file system volume.
Alternatively, SAN-based snapshots of the underlying volumes may be simply done
using SAN-based tools. Without proper coordination with the VMware infrastructure
and guest operating systems, recovery of these data sets can be potentially problematic1;
with data in-flight or unwritten to disk at the time of the snapshot, the potential exists for
the point-in-time copy to be irrecoverable and/or inconsistent, requiring a lengthy data
analysis by ESX hypervisor, the guest operating system, and application with the
potential for mixed results. Classically, in a physical environment, best practice
techniques require that in addition to crash-consistent snapshots, at least some snapshot
scheduling include coordination between the snapshot processing and the application to
quiesce the running workload and guarantee data is written to disk prior to the snapshot
being taken.
The Dell EqualLogic Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware Edition (ASM/VE) provides the
best of both worlds, providing a reliable, scalable data protection solution. By combining
VMware hypervisor-based snapshots and EqualLogic SAN-based snapshots, ASM/VE
leverages the capabilities of both these techniques to automate and optimize online data
protection and recovery in a VMware environment.

Protecting VMFS Data Stores Using Dell EqualLogic

Snapshots
Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware Edition is a graphical, browser-based tool that
centralizes virtual machine snapshot management in an EqualLogic-based storage
environment. ASM/VE directly integrates with VMware vCenter interfaces (APIs) to
understand the logical mapping between virtual machines, the VMFS file systems, and
the SAN-based volumes in which they reside. Using this data, ASM/VE allows
administrators to define and coordinate snapshot schedules for individual virtual
machines or groups of virtual machines (i.e., all VMs in a given VMFS folder or VMFS
file system).
According to these user-specified schedules, ASM/VE coordinates VMwares snapshot
processing with EqualLogic SAN-based snapshot execution. The virtual machines are
put in VMware snapshot mode, EqualLogic SAN-based snapshots of the affected VMFSfile systems are instantaneously taken, and the virtual machine(s) are then taken out of
snapshot mode. With these point-in-time copies safely stored in the EqualLogic SANbased snapshot, the VMware host-based snapshot can be safely deleted, returning the
virtual machine to its fully executing state and reducing storage consumption in the
VMFS file system. The SAN-based snapshot, which can include the memory state of

Note that this is not specific to SAN but also generally applies to all storage-based snapshot technologies
irrespective of protocol connectivity.
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Integrated VM data protection from Dell

each affected VM, is ESX-consistent2, i.e., a restorable checkpoint of each VM from
which ESX can recover a VM to a prior point in time. Without ASM/VE, when a VM
crashes or blue screens, it can take hours to restart. Today with ASM/VE, this process
can be done in minutes, saving valuable administrator time, effort and frustration.

Figure 1. ASM/VE snapshot screen

Protecting Transactional Workloads in a VMware

Environment Using Dell EqualLogic SAN-based
Snapshots
An additional level of data protection is achievable in the case of transactional workloads
in a VMware environment, particularly with Windows-based virtual machines using
EqualLogics integral Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition (ASM/ME).
Historically, in non-virtualized environments, storage snapshots have suffered from a
lack of application- or transaction-consistency for the application executing on a physical
server. Microsoft created Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) to address this concern.
VSS was designed to take advantage of hardware-based storage snapshots such as
2

This is not to be confused with application-consistent. ESX can recover the virtual machine from the
snapshot but additional steps may be required by the guest operating system and/or application to analyze
and recover the guest-based file system and/or data sets. This will be discussed in more detail in the next
section.
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Integrated VM data protection from Dell

bundled with Dells PS Series products, both in order to enable serverless backup as well
as to remove the performance overhead of host-based snapshot processing on the
production server. This classic integration issue extends into the virtual environment as
well.
Leveraging the VSS framework, Dell EqualLogics Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft
Edition (ASM/ME), is a wizard-based tool available for both physical and virtual
environments to provide application-consistent snapshots of Microsoft (MS) Windows
applications data sets based on NTFS, MS/Exchange storage groups and MS/SQL server
databases3. To properly coordinate Windows VSS with SAN-based snapshots in virtual
machines requires bypassing the VMFS file system, and attaching the iSCSI SAN-based
data sets directly to the virtual machines guest operating system using Windows native
iSCSI software initiator4.
In these environments, ASM/ME interfaces with Windows VSS services to quiesce
application I/O activity and flush all host buffers prior to execution of the volume
snapshot. Once the snapshot completes, ASM/ME reactivates application I/O, recording
a clean, space-efficient, SAN-based point-in-time copy of the application dataset that can
be easily restored, removing the requirement for checking for file system and application
data consistency.

Using similar methods, application-consistent SAN-based snapshots are also achievable with virtual
machines in other operating system environments, dependent on operating system and its underlying
services to quiesce applications and flush file system buffers. For example, Oracle provides tools to
coordinate database transaction processing with SAN-based snapshots across multiple operating system
environments, primarily through user-defined scripts that leverage Oracle- and SAN-based command
interfaces.
4
VMware Infrastructure version 3.5 includes rudimentary support for the VSS framework, leveraging VSS
to quiesce Windows-based applications and/or file systems when taking a VMware snapshot. Thus,
snapshots taken with Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware Edition inherit this capability.
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Integrated VM data protection from Dell

Figure 2. ASM/ME Snapshot screen

Like Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware Edition, snapshot scheduling and management is
also supported by ASM/ME. Operations establish automated, user-specified schedules
that create automatically identified and time stamped point-in-time copies. Additionally,
volume snapshot space is automatically managed by ASM/ME by deleting older
snapshots when space is needed. The automation of snapshot processes along with
application consistency provides an attractive option for protecting Windows data sets in
a virtual environment.

Disaster Recovery with PS Series Auto-Replication and

VMware Site Recovery Manager
Disaster recovery features and planning represents an additional tier of data protection.
Historically, recovery from primary site outages required a large number of cumbersome,
often manual operational steps at the remote site, prone to error and hard to maintain.
Dell EqualLogic storage, coupled with VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM),
automates these manual DR operations.
Dell EqualLogic PS Series arrays and VMware SRM offer an approach to disaster
recovery designed to be quick, automated, and economical. PS Series arrays help reduce
the complexity and cost barriers of traditional SANs by providing a cost effective iSCSI
SAN infrastructure that can be maintained efficiently by IT staff. PS Series storage also
comes with Auto-Replication software included, avoiding a major licensing expense and
recurring software support costs. Dell-engineered SRM Storage Adapter software,
available as a download at no additional cost, integrates the PS Series Auto-Replication
feature directly into VMware SRM. The integration of Dell EqualLogic PS Series arrays
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Integrated VM data protection from Dell

and VMware SRM through the SRM Storage Adapter software combines the positive
economics of replication over IP with automated disaster recovery made possible through
virtualization. PS Series Auto-Replication automates the key disaster recovery
functionmaking copies of data and sending the copies to a remote location at a safe
distance from the primary data center.
Automating the DR process has obvious advantages. VMwares SRM software provides
an automated recovery tool to facilitate failover. SRM requires array-replicated volumes.
The volume replication is configured on the PS Series array and can be adapted to meet
various organizational service level needs. SRM works with the Dell EqualLogic PS
Series array to facilitate the failover of the production site to the disaster recovery site by
automating the disaster recovery steps, i.e., promoting the replicated volumes to
production status and booting the virtual machines in pre-defined sequences for a
complete recovery.

Are backups still necessary?

Given the automatic and comprehensive data protection provided by Dell EqualLogic
storage integrated with VMware Infrastructure, where and when is traditional backup still
needed? Data protection is best done in concentric, overlapping layers. Traditional data
backup continues to be a standard, integral and critical layer of data protection. The
backup process provides an additional easily-transported copy of the organizations
mission-critical data, providing a distinct recovery point maintained on an additional,
independent storage media.
Traditional backups of snapshot-based, point-in-time copies can be particularly useful. To
conserve on the expense of disk-based storage, snapshots can be backed up to tape,
providing a vehicle for fewer online copies to be maintained. With snapshot backups on
tape or on a backup appliance such data can exist for a very long time and can then be
used to provide a final layer of data protection in the unlikely event of catastrophic
failures at both the primary and disaster site.
In a more common scenario, SAN-based snapshots may be employed as the primary
source for backup software applications, relieving the production server from backup
processing, thus readily reducing the backup window and yet still provide a critical layer
of data protection. During VM backup, whether using traditional guest-based backup
agents or VMware-based snapshots, VM applications are quiesced and unavailable for
normal transactions. By taking a data snapshot, which is then mounted and backed up on
another storage media, two distinct yet equivalent copies of the data exist and application
execution has only been minimally disrupted.
Traditional backups also remain a critical component of disaster recovery because of
networking bandwidth cost and reliability. For example, due to the cost of networking
bandwidth, it may be the case that the virtual machine and application data of less critical
applications are not replicated to the disaster site. Thus, for non-replicated VMs,

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Integrated VM data protection from Dell

traditional backups provide a cost-efficient recovery point from which to restore at a
remote site.

Conclusion
Protecting VMware virtual server infrastructure can be a multi-faceted, time-consuming
endeavor ranging from backup processes for everyday data protection to replication for
offsite VM disaster recovery (DR). It is paramount that IT managers and administrators
consider the impact of virtualization on their existing processes as well as evaluate the
significant opportunities to enhance their data protection methods that virtualization and
advanced SAN features make available. With the proper tools and planning, IT
organizations can provide comprehensive data protection and disaster recovery strategies
for the entire virtual data center.
Traditionally, VMware implementations often resulted in expensive and complex Fibre
Channel storage area networks (FC SANs) implementations. In contrast, storage
consolidation using Dell EqualLogic PS Series virtualized iSCSI SANs represents an
evolution in storage economics and ease of use. The PS Series provides advanced
storage functionality while still maintaining simplicity. With volumes virtualized across
all available SAN resources rather than a discreet set of physical disk drives, advanced
load balancing automates performance tuning. Equally impressive is the PS Series ability
to seamlessly expand the SAN environment without downtime, as well as migrate data
across and within storage pools non-disruptively. Dells PS Series offerings also support
full system redundancy, multiple RAID levels, automatic system monitoring and other
features to provide a highly available storage subsystem and another important tier of
data protection.
By automating daily management tasks and including advanced features such as
snapshots and replication at no additional cost, the PS Series provides users with
additional time and resources to more effectively design and manage business continuity
within their virtualized server environments. Advanced integration with VMware
environments, including Auto-Snapshot Manager tools and VMware Site Recovery
Manager PS Series adapters, provide application- and hypervisor-aware data protection
and automated disaster recovery workflows to simply and efficiently protect the virtual
data center.
In conclusion, Dells PS Series storage provides a comprehensive scheme of data
protection for VMware-based virtual infrastructures. When combined with tape backup,
an enterprises data and business operations is formidably guarded by multiple concentric
layers of protection based on Dells PS Series virtualized iSCSI SAN infrastructure.

Silverton Consulting, Inc. is a Storage, Strategy & Systems consulting services company,
based in the USA offering products and services to the data storage community.

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