SAN Headed for Virtualization and More
Virtualization is the new trend in data centers with large scale apps such as databases and Exchange being virtualized. Whether you’re using the technology to enhance the manageability of larger applications or to consolidate the smaller ones, having a lot of I/O, RAM and processor cores will serve your best purposes. So will a storage area network (SAN) that has a lot of features that will allow for easier dedicated hosting management of virtual machines.
Looking from the perspective of storage, a virtual machine will utilize a file to simulate an actual hard disk. This file, known as VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk Format) under VMware or VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) for Microsoft, could be found in the internal drive of the server or on its SAN.
Placing a file in SAN comes with a lot of benefits. For starters, the file can conveniently be duplicated through the snapshot function of the storage facility. It can also be easily moved from a hardware server to the next to improve scalability or for purposes of fault tolerance. Finally, the storage itself can even be designed to be fault tolerant.
The prices of such machines vary largely. One can acquire the system for less than $10,000 for DataCore and Promise Technologies combinations. There are also high-end systems from Pillar Data System that can set you back by $130,000.
So who wins in the award for efficient desktop virtualization? There are actually a lot of brands vying for this position. Based on reviews, VMware View offers fairly decent performance while Citrix XenDesktop may not work for everyone. Of course, choices depend on every user’s requirements. They get slimmer, for instance, if you’re looking to install iSCSI to enhance performance. The idea is to assess your need for virtual storage and go from there.
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