Storage Virtualization Basics

Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Foreword
 Data has become an enterprise’s most important asset. How is data stored on
the cloud? How is this different from the way it is stored with traditional IT? This
chapter will answer these questions.

Page 2 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Objectives
 Upon completion of this course, you will:
 Understand Huawei’s FusionSphere virtualization solution.

 Understand the storage architecture used for virtualized environments.

 Understand different types of disks.

 Understand the differences between centralized and distributed storage.

 Understand the differences between virtualized and non-virtualized storage.

 Understand different types of VM disks.

 Understand the storage features of Huawei’s virtualization product.

Page 3 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Contents
1. Storage Architecture for Virtualization

2. Physical Disk Types and Related Techniques

3. Centralized Storage vs. Distributed Storage

4. Virtualized Storage vs. Non-Virtualized Storage

5. Introduction to VM Disks

6. Storage Features of Huawei’s Virtualization Product

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 Where Do the Storage Resources Used by
VMs Come From?
How do VMs access
the underlying
storage resources?

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 Storage Architecture for Virtualization
Non-
Virtualized
virtualized
storage
storage

qcow raw vmdk vhd others

Shared Catalog
File System

Logical
Volumes

NAS File System SAN Logical Division Logical Division

Storage Storage

Storage Storage Logical Distributed

Pool Pool Division Storage Pool

Distributed
Storage

Page 6 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Virtualized Storage Conversion Path in
Cloud Computing
Shared Catalog

Virtual file
system

Logical
Attach to compute cluster
volume
and format

Physical
NFS file
volume Logical division
Format system

RAID or Replication

Page 7 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Non-Virtualized Storage Conversion Path in
Cloud Computing

Logical
volume Attach to compute cluster

Physical
volume Logical division

RAID or Replication

Page 8 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Contents
1. Storage Architecture for Virtualization

2. Physical Disk Types and Related Techniques

3. Centralized Storage vs. Distributed Storage

4. Virtualized Storage vs. Non-Virtualized Storage

5. Introduction to VM Disks

6. Storage Features of Huawei’s Virtualization Product

Page 9 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Physical Disk Type - SATA
 SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment),
also called serial ATA, is a computer bus interface
that connects host bus adapters to mass storage
devices. Using serial communication, the serial ATA
bus uses embedded clock signals to check
transmission commands (not only data) and
automatically corrects detected errors, ensuring
reliable data transmission for SATA disks. The
SATA interface is simple and the disks are hot-
swappable.

Page 10 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Physical Disk Type - SAS
 Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is a new-generation
SCSI technology, which, like the popular Serial ATA
(SATA), also uses serial communication to achieve
a higher transmission speed. Compared with the
older parallel SCSI, SAS improves the efficiency,
availability, and scalability of storage systems and
offers optional compatibility with SATA.

Page 11 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Physical Disk Type - NL-SAS
 Nearline SAS (NL-SAS) disks are a combination
of a SAS interface with SATA disks. The rotational
speed of NL-SAS disks is only 7200 rpm, so
performance is lower than that of SAS disks.
However, with the SAS interface, addressing and
speed are improved.

Page 12 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Physical Disk Type - SSD
 A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device
that uses integrated circuit assemblies as non-volatile
memory. An SSD consists of a control unit and a
storage unit (flash or DRAM chip). An SSD is the same
as a common hard disk drive (HDD) in terms of
interface specifications and definition, functionality,
usage, and product shape and size. Although SSDs
deliver fast read/write performance, light weight, low
power consumption, and compact sizes which
traditional HDDs cannot rival, SSDs have a shorter
lifespan and higher price.

Page 13 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Comparing Different Types of Physical Disks
Performance

Price

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 Contents
1. Storage Architecture for Virtualization

2. Physical Disk Types and Related Techniques

3. Centralized Storage vs. Distributed Storage

4. Virtualized Storage vs. Non-Virtualized Storage

5. Introduction to VM Disks

6. Storage Features of Huawei’s Virtualization Product

Page 15 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Centralized Storage

Storage
Pool

RAID

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 RAID Technology

RAID
Efficient Safe
Parallel read and write on Parity check and hot backup
1
multiple disks

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 Common RAID Types
Logical
Disks D0, D1, D2, D3, D4, D5 D0, D1, D2 Logical
Disks
D5
D4
D4 D5 D2 D2 D2
D3
D2 D3 D1 D1 D1
D2
D0 D0 D0
D1 D0 D1
D0 Disk 1 Disk 2
Disk 1 Disk 2
RAID 0 RAID 1
RAID 5 RAID 6
P3
Logical D7
Disks D6
Q3
D0, D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7 D5
D0, D1, D2, D3, D4, D5 D4
D5 Q2
D4 P2
P2 D3
Q3 D6 D7 P3
D3 Q1
P2 D4 D5 P2 Q2 D4 D5 P1
P1
D2 P1 D3 D2 P1 Q1 D3 D2
D2
D0 D1 P0 D0 D1 P0 Q0 Q0
P0
P0
D1
Disk 1 Disk 2 Disk 3 Disk 1 Disk 2 Disk 3 Disk 4 D1
D0 D0

Page 18 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Centralized Storage Types
SAN NAS

Windows Unix-like
client client

IP/FC network

CIFS NFS

Windows NAS Unix-like

server server

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 Distributed Storage

Distributed
Storage
Pool

Replication

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 Replication
Data write

Distributed
Storage Pool

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 Replication
Data write Data read

Distributed Distributed
Storage Pool Storage Pool

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 Popular Distributed Storage Products

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 Contents
1. Storage Architecture for Virtualization

2. Physical Disk Types and Related Techniques

3. Centralized Storage vs. Distributed Storage

4. Virtualized Storage vs. Non-Virtualized Storage

5. Introduction to VM Disks

6. Storage Features of Huawei’s Virtualization Product

Page 30 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Virtualized Storage Conversion Path in Cloud
Computing
Shared Catalog

Virtual file
system

Logical
Attach to compute cluster
volume
and format

Physical
NFS file
volume Format
Logical division system

RAID or Replication

Page 31 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Non-Virtualized Storage Conversion Path in
Cloud Computing

Logical
volume Attach to compute cluster

Physical
volume Logical division

RAID or Replication

Page 32 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Relationship Between RAIDs and LUNs
 A RAID array can be seen as a large physical volume made up of a number of hard disks.

 On top of a physical volume, you can create one or more logical units of specified
capacities. These logical units are called Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs) and can be mapped
to hosts as basic block devices.

Logical volume LUN 1 Logical volume LUN 2 LUN 3

Physical volume Physical volume

Create one logical volume on a single Create multiple logical volumes on

physical volume a single physical volume

Page 33 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Process of Creating a LUN

LUN 1 LUN 2 LUN 3

Logical volume
Logical division

Segmentation
Physical volume

RAID

Hard disk

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 Common File Systems
Virtual clustered file system

NAS file system File system in an OS

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 Mapping a File to a Disk

Create Store Mapping via file

system
User File File
system File system
blocks
Mapping

Mapping Mapping via LVM

Disk sectors Physical Logical locations

locations on disks of LVM

Page 37 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Contents
1. Storage Architecture for Virtualization

2. Physical Disk Types and Related Techniques

3. Centralized Storage vs. Distributed Storage

4. Virtualized Storage vs. Non-Virtualized Storage

5. Introduction to VM Disks

6. Storage Features of Huawei’s Virtualization Product

Page 38 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 VM Disks

User view
Administrator view

Page 39 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Common VM Disk Formats

VM Disk File Format Vendor

RAW All
VMDK VMware
VHD Microsoft Hyper-V, Huawei FusionCompute
QCOW
QEMU or KVM virtualization platforms only
QED
VDI Oracle

Page 40 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Contents
1. Storage Architecture for Virtualization

2. Physical Disk Types and Related Techniques

3. Centralized Storage vs. Distributed Storage

4. Virtualized Storage vs. Non-Virtualized Storage

5. Introduction to VM Disks

6. Storage Features of Huawei’s Virtualization Product

Page 41 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Storage Architecture for Huawei
Virtualization Product
Virtualized Non-virtualized
RDM storage storage

Data store

Shared catalog
LUN

Storage device

FusionStorage
Block
SAN/NAS
Storage resource

Page 42 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Huawei Virtual Disk Features

Type
• Common
Multi-tenant • Shared
sharing

Space-saving
Temporary
Configuration Mode
data storage Customer needs • Common
Fast read/write • Thin-provision

Disk Mode
• Dependent
• Independent & persistent
• Independent & nonpersistent

Page 43 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Summary
 At this point you should understand how data is written to storage devices in
virtualization scenarios.

Page 44 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Quiz
1. Which of the following disk types is recommended for an archive room that needs to store
large amounts of data that will be accessed infrequently over long periods of time? ( )
A. SSD

B. SAS disk

C. SATA disk

D. NL-SAS disk

2. SATA disks use a parallel interface while SAS disks use a serial interface.
A. TRUE

B. FALSE

Page 45 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

 Recommendations
 Huawei e-Learning website
 [Link]

 Huawei Support case library

 [Link]

 HCIA-Cloud Computing v4.0 online forum

 [Link]
HCNA-Cloud-Certification-Course/thread/456287-911

Page 46 Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2019

Thank You
[Link]