Wouldn’t it be great if you could just add all your drives to a single pool, and use software to assign parts of it to different uses? This is the reality of virtualized storage, and it’s here today.
Calvin Zito is HP’s Worldwide StorageWorks Category Manager. With the introduction of HP’s latest—and lower-priced—storage array, the HP StorageWorks EVA4400, he says this technology is reaching a larger audience. “EVA uses only the space it needs, when it needs it. You save money because you end up buying fewer hard drives than a traditional disk array, and you’re using that capacity at closer to 100 percent.”
Companies using non-virtualized disk arrays, Zito says, are often surprised how easy virtualized disk arrays like the EVA are to manage. “We brought customers to Houston to do some common management tasks on an EVA4400, and then we asked them to do the same tasks on an EMC [nonvirtualized disk array],” Zito says. “They were amazed at how easy it is to manage the EVA.” One of the test subjects, Buzz Kazz of Patillo Construction, said of the experience: “We would normally have a consultant help us out when we were going to reconfigure, add disks to a group, create additional LUNs—that type of thing. But it’s so easy, we could do it ourselves.”
To be effective, a virtualized disk array needs capable software to help manage it, and the EVA series doesn’t disappoint. In a white paper published by the Edison Group, real customers compared ease of use on an EVA4400 to a Dell/EMC CLARiiON CX310. The study asked the participants—experienced IT staff that previously used neither array—to perform such tasks as creating a disk group, making and restoring from snapshots, and creating clones.*
The test found that the EVA4400 required far fewer steps to complete the same tasks, and that those tasks were much more understandable and intuitive. In almost all cases, test subjects completed the same tasks on the EVA4400 in half the time as on the CLARiiON. Anecdotally at least, those who use the EVA4400 like it a lot.
A bigger, better picture
Virtualized storage systems allow you to see and manage all your drives as if they were one large device. With an easy-to-use software utility, you can segment that pool of storage into different pieces: two terabytes of “virtual” RAID level five for Exchange, or one terabyte of “virtual” RAID level one for file sharing. If those requirements change, so can your array. With the push of a few buttons, you can assign more space to the Exchange array, and your chair stays nice and warm.
Another benefit of storage virtualization comes from the more efficient use of capacity. In a traditional disk array, great amounts of storage are often “stranded”—that is, left unused due to overly optimistic estimates of required space. If you add up those blocks, many companies find that a significant amount of storage is completely unused.
“With virtualization,” says Zito, “because it’s a common pool of storage, you can go in and say ‘make it smaller.’ You can take capacity that’s unused in another application, and move it to the application that needs it.”
And when you run out of capacity, just add more. The virtualization software automatically integrates the new drives’ capacity into the available pool. So next time a virtual water tanker full of data comes sloshing up to your data center, you can happily take it on, instead of dreading the administrative nightmare that comes with mixing and matching old fixed disk arrays.
* “Competitive Testing of Common Administrative Tasks: HP StorageWorks EVA4400 vs. EMC CLARiiON CX3-10,” February 2008.
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Printable version
What’s better to hold water: a 12-foot-by-24-foot swimming pool, or its equivalent volume in 8-ounce drinking glasses? At four feet deep, you’d need 137,500 glasses to hold the same volume. Now imagine you’re in charge of storing water. Big tanker trucks pull up, and they want you to take their loads. Would you put it in the drinking glasses or the pool?