Advanced online storage management
Data Sheet: Storage Management Overview
SymantecTMStorage Foundation for Windows® brings
advanced online storage management to Microsoft® Windows Server® physical and virtual environments by virtualizing the storage seen by a host, so that users can optimally manage, configure, and share storage. Storage Foundation delivers storage management without interruption to servers and the business-critical applications and services they host, such as Microsoft Exchange®, SQL®, and SharePoint® Server and Microsoft Hyper-V™. Advanced features that will make your data center more dynamic and reduce overall costs are also
available, such as SymantecTMDynamic Multi-pathing
(DMP) and SymantecTMReplicator Option.
Highlights
• SmartIO -SmartIO - Granular and intelligent application-level caching enables storage QoS for mission-critical applications.
• Storage pooling fStorage pooling for Hyper-Vor Hyper-V - Storage services on a per virtual machine (VM) basis for Hyper-V virtual machines. • Online sOnline storage migrationtorage migration—Eases storage migration in
both physical and virtual environments.
• Online configuration with dynamic disks—Online configuration with dynamic disks—Optimizes storage performance and availability without disrupting the OS applications or virtual machines.
• CentralizCentralized management and reportinged management and reporting—Improves operational efficiencies and visibility with centralized management and reporting across thousands of hosts and enables non-disruptive storage operations through Graphical User Interface (GUI) based management. • I/O path aI/O path avvailabilitailability and perfy and performanceormance—Spreads I/O
across multiple paths for maximized performance and provides path-fault tolerance for protection against path failure.
• LLocal and remoocal and remote data prote data protection—tection—Creates fault-tolerant snapshot copies of data for quick recovery and off-host
operations, and replicates data across any distance for remote access.
• Thin provisioning support—Thin provisioning support—Enables customers to "Get Thin" and "Stay Thin".
• MicroMicrosofsoft Hyper-Vt Hyper-V™ inte™ integration—gration—Enhances Hyper-V environments with advanced storage management and disaster recovery features.
• Increased sIncreased storage utilization and visibilittorage utilization and visibility acroy acrossss heterogeneous s
heterogeneous storage platftorage platforms –orms –Provides
comprehensive insight into the storage environment and improved usage across storage hardware.
SmartIO
Enable granular and intelligent caching for critical applications or Hyper-V virtual machines. With SmartIO, application architects, server administrators, and database administrators can increase I/O throughput and lower I/O latency for critical SQL instances. Additionally, SmartIO helps in stacking multiple Hyper-V virtual machines without ending up with an I/O logjam.
SmartIO provides caching at a volume level to accelerate application read performance. It protects data by using a write through cache to the HDD, providing persistent high
availability integrity of application data. SmartIO comes with automatic caching heuristics that adapt to the application’s I/ O access patterns. Users can additionally tune SmartIO based on additional hints they may have on the applications. In internal Symantec lab tests replicating real-world use cases, SmartIO delivers up to 3x performance improvement, and helps reduce storage costs by 70%.
Storage pooling for Hyper-V
service which can be disastrous for critical applications if that LUN/Array has a failure.
Storage pooling in Storage Foundation for Windows provides storage services on a per virtual machine basis for Hyper-V virtual machines. The per virtual machine data can now be stored as mirrored volumes across arrays, protecting virtual machine data from single LUN/Arrays failures. This is also helpful in Live Migrating virtual machines across campus distances, where storage resides at respective sites.
Online Storage Migration
Storage Foundation for Windows adds intelligence to storage migration operations and provides a level of automation and orchestration so that multiple volumes can be easily moved to new storage locations while online. In virtual and physical environments, online storage migration can be dramatically simplified with the SmartMove feature. SmartMove crosses hardware boundaries to provide efficient movement of data when mirroring volumes. With SmartMove, only used blocks are copied, which results in improved performance during volume and snapshot mirror operations, and significantly shortens volume and array migration times.
Online configuration with dynamic disks
Dynamic disks created with Storage Foundation for Windows enhance storage management, improve performance and increase availability. Multiple volume types, including simple, spanned, mirrored, striped, mirrored-stripe, and RAID-5 can be configured and operations such as relaying out a volume can be performed while the system, volumes, and the hosted applications remain online. Advanced features are available to monitor volume capacity, take corrective action when low space conditions exist, perform online shrinking of volumes, discover thin storage, and the reclaim freed up space, which is returned to the thin array’s storage pool.
The Site Aware Allocation feature protects against
configuration errors in stretched (or campus) clusters that allow storage resources to be tagged with site identifiers so that volumes maintain site integrity. With Site Aware
Allocation, volumes can be mirrored or grown to any storage within the same site.
Centralized management and reporting
With Veritas™ Operations Manager, organizations can centrally monitor and report on the application, server, and storage environments through a secure Web-based console across heterogeneous platforms. This approach leads to higher service levels, reduces the risk of human error, and provides comprehensive visibility throughout the
environment. Operations Manager enables administrators to identify and visualize potential problems with applications and storage resources by correlating health and status information across multiple applications, servers, storage, and replication resources. The increased visibility enables rapid problem resolution that typically spans multiple organizational structures.
Storage Foundation for Windows enables single point control of routine administration tasks, such as adding or moving storage resources or data across different disk devices and subsystems. Volume shred capabilities allow data to be securely deleted via Department-of-Defense compliant three-and seven-pass erasure. Online storage bottlenecks three-and I/O hot spots are proactively detected and the data can be migrated easily and non-disruptively with drag-and-drop functionality or scheduled with a migration wizard.
Automatic track alignment is also available to optimize performance.
Figure 1. Storage Foundation for Windows provides simple, graphical, and non-disruptive, storage management capabilities.
I/O path availability and performance
Storage I/O performance and availability are enhanced across heterogeneous server and storage infrastructures with Dynamic Multi-pathing. It fully integrates with the Microsoft Windows® MPIO Framework, offering MPIO Device Specific Modules for most of the industry’s leading arrays. It also delivers several intelligent algorithms to balance I/O load across multiple host bus adapters for faster throughput, and increases application availability by rerouting I/O traffic to an available data path in the event of a path failure.
Advanced multi-pathing management enables visualization of array resources (by array, controller, or path), command-line interfaces for custom scripts, path performance statistics, proactive path checking, and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) alerts for path failure and recovery
notification. Array specific naming provides consistent device names across servers, bridging the gap between server and storage administrators. Aggregate statistics offer better determination of bottlenecks, and extended attribute discovery provides information about the devices being managed so that a system administrator can easily identify the type of device being presented, including RAID type, whether it’s thick or thin, being replicated, or cloned.
Figure 2. Storage Foundation for Windows provides easy to use storage, device, and I/O path management.
Local and remote data protection
Storage Foundation for Windows addresses both local and remote data protection needs. With the FlashSnap™ option, administrators can utilize the intuitive, GUI-based scheduler to create point-in-time copies of data with minimal impact to applications and users. Volume Replicator, as part of
Replicator Option from Symantec is a non-hardware specific solution that consistently copies data to remote locations without distance limitations.
FlashSnap snapshots are full-mirror, point-in-time copies, which can be accessed from the same server or easily transported to another server. FlashSnap is integrated with Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS), and supports VSS-based snapshots via a scheduler and software snapshot provider. These snapshots can be used on-host as backups for quick recovery from disasters, or off-host for various
operations, including backup, testing, and data warehousing. FlashSnap includes application specific support for Microsoft® Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL® Server, Microsoft
SharePoint® Portal Server, and Symantec Enterprise Vault™. VSS-based configuration wizards ease the snapshot
volumes, and setup schedules for snapshot operations. Along with these quick recovery wizards, entire workflows and configuration wizards are also available for other solutions in the Symantec™ Solutions Configuration Center.
For business-critical applications that require remote recovery sites, Replicator Option is extremely flexible and can
efficiently replicate data across any distance over IP networks. Organizations can combine virtually any storage devices on any major operating system to offer a consistent, easy-to-manage, highly available disaster recovery solution across the enterprise. Volume Replicator integrates with FlashSnap so that VSS-based snapshots can be taken at the production site and duplicated with minimal overhead at the disaster recovery site. The bunker replication feature allows organizations to implement the optimal data replication strategy, where they can replicate data over any distance while being able to maintain a recovery point objective of zero.
Figure 3. Establishing snapshots and using rollbacks or roll-forward to recover from data corruption or logical failures
"Get Thin" and "Stay Thin"
Storage Foundation for Windows delivers unique capabilities when it comes to leveraging thin provisioning. Organizations can address the two major elements involved in the successful long-term adoption of thin provisioning: first they need to get thin and then they need to stay thin. Organizations need to do
both of these in a manner that is seamless and non-disruptive. Getting Thin.
Getting Thin. The first challenge for IT organizations is migrating to a thin environment. Most online storage
migration tools perform block-level copying, which means that they cannot differentiate between used and unused data blocks, so they copy everything, including the unused blocks. This results in the destination and the source being identical and over provisioned by the thin array.
Storage Foundation for Windows solves this challenge by identifying, which blocks are used and which are unused. It then copies only the used data blocks to the new, thin environment. Migration can occur while applications remain online. This facilitates an easy, non-disruptive and efficient transition to a thin environment—at anytime.
Sta
Staying Thin.ying Thin. The second challenge IT organizations face is keeping an environment thin over time. While this may seem like a rational expectation, array vendors typically don’t make it easy to stay thin. Specifically, blocks of data that are erased by an application or user are typically not reclaimable, even by the most advanced thin-enabled arrays.
Storage Foundation for Windows provides host-side
Figure 4. Storage Foundation for Windows helping customers to migrate to thinly provisioned storage and continuously reclaiming unused storage after
it has been migrated.
Hyper-V integration
Storage Foundation for Windows provides several benefits to virtual machines (VMs) when used in the Hyper-V parent partition, including multi-pathing, replication, storage migration, and snapshots, to extend Hyper-V’s capabilities in the data center. Those benefits extend to both the VM's operating system and its associated data volumes, in both Quick Migration and Live Migration scenarios. For
environments utilizing the new capabilities of Microsoft Hyper-V™ 2012 Virtual Fibre Channel capabilities, Storage Foundation for Windows can also provide all of its storage management and advanced capabilities for fibre channel attached storage from within the virtual machine. Live Storage Migration
Live Storage Migration
Storage Foundation for Windows running within the Hyper-V host (parent partition) includes a Storage Migration Wizard that allows selection at the VM level for live storage migration. The VM and all of its associated data files are identified and intelligently migrated while remaining online and accessible. This capability allows administrators a high level of flexibility when deploying new hardware, as VMs can be moved to a new
array or to a Logical Unit Number (LUN) that has been configured for better performance. Running with the virtual machine, Storage Foundation for Windows, can provide online migration of application data volumes, whether that is between different virtual disks regardless of underlying parent storage or between fibre channel LUNs attached directly to the guest through Hyper-V Virtual Fibre Channel.
Replication Replication
Running in the Hyper-V parent, Replicator Option can selectively replicate volumes that contain the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX) files used by the VMs and their application data over an IP network. Replication can be synchronous, asynchronous, or a combination of the two. If run within the virtual machines, Replicator Option provides replication of application data volumes – when utilized with Cluster Server inside the virtual machine, Storage Foundation HA/DR for Windows provides a comprehensive end to end automated disaster recovery solution for the application.
Campus Clus Campus Clustersters
As a host-based volume manager, Storage Foundation for Windows can mirror volumes across different storage devices and arrays. This allows shared storage clusters to be stretched beyond the confines of a data center to a secondary site, as long as the distance between them does not exceed latency limitations. These stretched clusters, also known as Campus Clusters, provide a level of high availability that can withstand a complete site failure, and provide a potential disaster recovery strategy for a Hyper-V environment from virtual machine level up when run in the Hyper-V parent. When utilized in Hyper-V guests with Hyper-V Virtual Fibre Channel, an application focused campus cluster disaster recovery strategy is achieved.
Dynamic Multi-P Dynamic Multi-Pathingathing
Storage Foundation for Windows extends multi-pathing capabilities to provide path failover and load balancing to Logical Unit Numbers that host Hyper-V VMs when utilized in the Hyper-V parent. If utilizing Hyper-V Virtual Fibre Channel for direct fibre channel access of storage to the virtual machine to accommodate scenarios around in guest
Increased storage utilization and visibility across heterogeneous storage environments
IT organizations struggle with soaring storage costs and capacity that becomes wasted through the regular cycle of operations. Storage Foundation for Windows enables administrators to improve storage utilization and capacity management across heterogeneous storage hardware. Storage volumes and file systems can be grown or shrunk dynamically, and storage can be provisioned to new applications without modifications or end-user downtime. Storage Foundation for Windows automates daily and repetitive storage tasks and performs them while keeping applications online, including RAID reconfiguration, defragmentation, file system resizing, volume resizing, and storage migrations, and even visibility to storage’s latest technology, solid-state or flash drives.
Supported OS platforms, applications, and storage devices
• Microsoft Windows® Server 2008 R2, 2012 (x64), 2012 R2 (x64)
• Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007, 2010 • Microsoft SQL Server® 2008, 2008 R2, 2012 • Microsoft SharePoint® Portal Server 2010, 2013 • Microsoft® System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 • Oracle® 10g R2, 11g, 12c
• Symantec Enterprise Vault™ 9.0, 10.0
If the Storage Foundation for Windows Dynamic Multi-pathing or any third-party, multi-pathing software is utilized, refer to the latest Storage Foundation for Windows Hardware
Compatibility List. If a multi-pathing option is not utilized, any hardware device in the Microsoft Windows® Server Catalog is supported.
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Related products
• Symantec™ Storage Foundation HA for Windows
• Symantec™ Cluster Server for Windows® and Symantec™ Cluster Server HA/DR for Windows®
• Symantec™ Dynamic Multi-Pathing for Windows® • Veritas™ Operations Manager
Packaging
• SSymantecymantec™ Storage F™ Storage Foundation Basicoundation Basic fforor WindowsWindows®®— A free version of the industry-leading Storage Foundation for Windows is available for management of edge-tier and departmental workloads, with up to four volumes and two sockets per system. Storage Foundation Basic for Windows
is available for free download at:www.symantec.com/
sfbasic
• SSymantec™ymantec™ Storage FStorage Foundationoundation fforor WindowsWindows— Includes Dynamic Multi-pathing
• SSymantecymantec™ Storage F™ Storage Foundation Enterpriseoundation Enterprise fforor
Windows
Windows®®— Includes FlashSnap and the Cluster Option for Microsoft® Cluster
• SSymantecymantec™ Storage F™ Storage Foundation HAoundation HA fforor WindowsWindows®®— Includes Symantec Cluster Server for Windows, application agents and database agents
• SSymantecymantec™ Storage F™ Storage Foundation Enterprise HAoundation Enterprise HA fforor
Windows
Windows®®— Includes FlashSnap and Fast Failover • SSymantecymantec™ Storage F™ Storage Foundation HAoundation HA/DR/DR fforor WindowsWindows®®—
Includes Hardware Replication agents and Global Cluster Option
• SSymantecymantec™ Storage F™ Storage Foundation Enterprise HAoundation Enterprise HA/DR/DR fforor
Windows
Windows®®— Includes Storage Foundation HA for Windows, DMP, Hardware Replication agents, GCO, FlashSnap, and Fast Failover
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