vSphere 5 Storage DRS: Enables Cloud Hosting Companies to Ensure High Disk Performance
By Lisa Gecko
One of the more impressive new additions from VMware included with the release of vSphere 5 is the Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (SDRS), which utilizes data store clusters to intelligently balance resource levels and oversee virtual disk placement automatically. Storage DRS and Profile-Driven Storage reduce the possibility of I/O bottlenecks, and provide a level of control over storage resources ensuring the highest disk performance to date. The new cluster-level management capacity of vSphere 5 and the inclusion of Storage DRS drastically increase the capability and fluidity of resource pools, allowing for a broader spectrum of specifications for service level agreements (SLAs). With the automation of virtual machine (VM) migration across storage tiers based on a variety of preset conditions, the ability to seamlessly balance the changing needs of any single-provider cloud hosting client is easier, far more powerful, and almost invisibly fluid. On the market there is currently nothing as effective as vSphere 5’s Storage DRS, and Profile-Driven Storage that can provide this level of control over storage resources.
On a base level, not only does vSphere 5’s Storage DRS ensure high disk performance, it is one of the essential tools that VMware includes that afford companies both large and small the ability to modify the cloud to an ever-increasing set of specific needs. From a client perspective this is of paramount importance. Applications maintaining the appropriate level of resources across multiple servers is fundamental to cloud computing, and with the new addition of Storage DRS automated load balancing, the draw of single-provider cloud hosting is stronger than ever. Companies can now have access to intelligently designed resource pool management, shared across infinitely definable group parameters that provide tailor-made resource availability. What this means is that businesses opting to move to the cloud can now expect to be able to operate relatively hands-free, with all of the advantages that cloud computing provides. It should come as no surprise that VMware is leading the way in virtualization, but the importance of dynamic automation in virtual disk placement with vSphere 5’s new Storage DRS cannot be overstated.
Disk performance and business-critical processing rank a close second to security for concerns in the new world of virtual computing, and rightfully so. The allure of the cloud, still in its relative infancy, brings to mind a host of frontiers where the advantages were at best misunderstood. Without waxing poetic regarding the trials and tribulations of pioneers that have paved the way to present day cloud computing, it would be fair to say that fear, due to a lack of information, have held many back in the past. Cloud hosting, and in particular single-provider cloud hosting is breaking beyond that barrier. Leading the vanguard is VMware, which continues to address the complex issues of cloud-based hosting with innovations that have consistently reached far beyond expectations. An excellent example is vSphere 5’s Storage DRS which is now essential, and still at this point groundbreaking, in regards to high disk performance.
With the release of vSphere 5 and the cloud infrastructure set firmly in place, it is no longer an issue of “if,” but “when.” Storage DRS is just one of many features that are stacking the odds against in-house computing versus moving to a virtual platform. The ability to utilize resources at this level is cost-effective across the board, and the fiscal benefits for any business are just the beginning. Performance at this level can no longer viably be obtained outside of the cloud.
