White Paper For Service Providers Host Performance-Sensitive Applications in Your Cloud CloudByte ElastiStor Resolves Noisy Neighbor Issues and Delivers Guaranteed QoS to Every Application
Table of Contents Executive Summary. 3 Limitations of Legacy Solutions. 4 ElastiStor Cures Noisy Neighbor Issues... 6 ElastiStor: Key Features.... 7 ElastiStor: Standard Storage Features... 8 2
Executive Summary Business Opportunity for Service Providers For organizations today, running applications in the cloud has become a matter of when will we deploy, and not should we deploy. Even conservative IT shops that may have shied away from the public cloud have at least embraced the cost and efficiency advantages of deploying utility computing. Large retail-class infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers, like Amazon Web Services, work well for applications that require scaling to high aggregate processing throughput or near-infinite storage capacity. But, there are significant challenges in hosting performance-sensitive applications. A significant business opportunity exists for Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) that can support QoS-sensitive workloads, like Oracle, SAP, SAS, OLTP, ERP, etc. Challenges in Hosting Performance-Sensitive Applications Hosting performance-sensitive enterprise applications requires delivery of guaranteed QoS, which has been the Achilles heel of large cloud service providers. In fact, without much effort, one can find many horror stories from many organizations trying to get databases running and keep them running in these environments. So, what stops legacy solutions from delivering guaranteed QoS? Noisy neighbors! Within a shared storage platform, legacy solutions cannot isolate and dedicate a specific set of resources to any application. As a result, applications are in a constant struggle for the shared storage resources. An application s IOPS, throughput, and latency are determined by the current state of the system (i.e., currently available resources), rather than being in sync with its workload characteristics. An obvious solution is to dedicate physical storage per application. But this implies a huge wastage of resources and an exorbitant cost structure for the CSP. The only efficient solution is to virtually isolate applications and dedicate/control resources allotted to them right from the shared storage platform i.e., provide a true multi-tenant solution. Legacy storage solutions traditional SAN/NAS arrays, advanced SAN/NAS arrays, and scale-out storage platform fall woefully short of providing a true multi-tenant storage architecture, that is capable of guaranteeing QoS. With traditional storage arrays, admins typically resort to faster spindles and more capable controllers. This is both inefficient and difficult to implement as datacenters scale. Advanced storage arrays provide compartmentalization of tenants (to an extent) and CoS (control of service). CoS does not guarantee QoS and just gives the admin a way to decide which workload loses the least during periods when the system gets busy. Scale-out storage solutions eliminate multiple points of management by building, in effect, a storage cloud to which controllers and disk can be added and decommissioned with absolutely no impact to tenant workloads. They are designed around the principle of throwing hardware at the QoS problem, albeit making the process easier. To conclude, every legacy storage solution resorts to overprovisioning to workaround the noisy neighbor problem, resulting in a prohibitively expensive cost structure for CSPs, especially as they scale to hundreds of applications. CloudByte ElastiStor Guarantees QoS right from Shared Storage ElastiStor, with its patented TSM TM architecture, is specifically designed for hosting multiple disparate workloads on a single system. For the first time ever, ElastiStor delivers guaranteed QoS to every application within shared storage, resolving the noisy neighbor issues. In addition to industry-first multi-tenant capabilities, ElastiStor provides all the standard storage features that CSPs need. Software-only and software-defined, CloudByte also frees CSPs from any proprietary lock-in, eliminating large upfront and ongoing investments. 3
Limitations of Legacy Solutions Cloud Service Providers have several options when deploying a shared storage solution. They are: traditional SAN/NAS arrays, advanced SAN/NAS arrays, and scale-out storage platforms. As we will see in detail, all these solutions fall short of delivering guaranteed QoS within shared storage. Traditional Storage Arrays are Designed for Capacity Control With a traditional SAN/NAS array, CSPs have a single parameter that can be controlled for each tenant: storage capacity. Disk consumption is clearly important, but in a multi-tenant environment, the most troublesome issue is performance due to multiple workloads competing for scarce resources. Unfortunately, standard storage platforms do nothing to help the CSP ensure that each tenant receives its appropriate share. So, administrators need to design storage systems to ensure that each workloads will have its required resources when they are needed. Additionally, it is vitally important to allocate some reserve performance capacity to account for bursts of activity and other such periods where system resources may become constrained. When a traditional storage array runs low on resources, administrators can scale it up by upgrading to larger and/or faster controllers with more, and faster, spindles. But, once a system reaches its configurable limits, the only option is to deploy additional storage systems. This, of course, creates more points of management and goes completely opposite of the CSP s design goal of creating an efficient, shared infrastructure. Both of these effects increase the CSP s costs and create potential customer satisfaction issues: a perfect storm for driving down revenues. Advanced Storage Arrays Enable CoS (Control of Service); Do Not Deliver QoS Some storage vendors have realized the limitations of traditional SAN/NAS arrays and have innovated by providing limited compartmentalization and control of service (CoS) features in their offerings. In some respects, this is a significant advantage over the capabilities offered by traditional arrays because it provides better isolation and security. However, it does nothing to help resolve the noisy neighbor problem. The compartmentalization feature merely makes the process of moving noisy neighbors off of a busy storage system easier. Administrators are still forced to overprovision hardware and monitor for contention so that they can jump into action to migrate troublesome workloads before all tenants hosted on a particular system begin to suffer. To alleviate some of the problems associated with these troublesome workloads, some vendors offer Control of Service (CoS) features. Although it sounds similar, CoS is not QoS. Rather than setting detailed SLA parameters for each tenant, CoS allows an administrator to select from a limited set of priorities that can be assigned to each tenant. When the platform becomes resource constrained, it will utilize the priorities to apportion the scarce processing resources in a so-called fair manner. In short, overall system performance will suffer in this situation and CoS just gives the admin a way to decide which workload loses the least during periods when the system gets busy. Legacy Storage Solutions Noisy Neighbors: Applications Contending for Resources No QoS Control 4
Limitations of Legacy Solutions Scale-Out Storage Overcomes Noisy Neighbors by Overprovisioning Scale-out storage is one of the hottest topics in the computer industry today. These solutions allow CSPs to eliminate multiple points of management by building, in effect, a storage cloud to which controllers and disk can be added and decommissioned with absolutely no impact to tenant workloads. However, they are designed around the principle of throwing hardware at the problem. Scale-out storage platforms aggregate hardware resources into a shared pool under a single management umbrella and then distribute tenant workloads across that pool. Unlike the traditional or advanced SAN/NAS solutions previously discussed, these platforms significantly reduce the need for administrators to keep a close watch over system performance or capacity. Since the aggregate pool is so large, it is highly unlikely for a single workload, or even a handful of workloads, to completely overwhelm the system. And, when tenant workloads do start to consume too many resources, they simply grow the pool. So, what s the problem? Like their less-capable cousins, traditional and advanced storage arrays, scale-out storage platforms lack the ability to set specific SLAs for tenant workloads. Therefore, administrators are still forced to over-provision to keep aggregate performance ahead of the demands of tenant workloads. Worse yet, end users will see inconsistent performance as each tenant s experience is dictated by the current state of the system. This is a zero-sum game for the CSP because the inability to contain tenants means continually growing the shared storage pool to meet customer expectations. 5
ElastiStor Cures Noisy Neighbor Issues CloudByte TSM Architecture Cures the Noisy Neighbor Issues The fundamental difference between legacy storage solutions and CloudByte ElastiStor lies in the storage controller architecture. ElastiStor, with its TSM TM architecture, is specifically designed for hosting multiple disparate workloads on a single system. Legacy solutions have a monolithic storage controller architecture, where applications share a common pool of resources with no reference to QoS requirements. In a CloudByte controller, each application is fully isolated at all storage stack levels this isolated environment known as a TSM is the fundamental unit of CloudByte architecture. With CloudByte s TSM architecture, a specific set of controller resources can now be dedicated to each application, without any impact from other applications within the shared storage. Read more about CloudByte technology at http://www.cloudbyte.com/products_technology.aspx ElastiStor Delivers Guaranteed QoS within Shared Storage While TSM architecture allows each application to be dedicated a specific set of resources, CloudByte intelligence takes care of provisioning these resources based on QoS demands for the application in terms of IOPS, throughput and latency. Admins can now configure storage endpoints (LUNs) with the required capacity and performance metrics and CloudByte takes care of the rest. In short, CloudByte ElastiStor delivers guaranteed QoS to each application within shared storage an industry first! With ElastiStor, CSPs can now affordably host performance-sensitive applications right from shared storage, without resorting to the expensive dedicated storage or overprovisioning workarounds. CloudByte ElastiStor also boasts of other industry firsts such as on-demand provisioning and N-way HA, significantly increasing manageability and reliability. In addition, CloudByte provides all the standard storage features that CSPs need (see more details in page 8). Software-defined and software-only, CloudByte frees CSPs from any proprietary lock-in and allows them to custom-build their infrastructure based on their demands, whether it s SATA, SAS or SSD. ElastiStor Delivers Tailored QoS to Every Application within Shared Storage Every storage endpoint is defined in terms of capacity, IOPS, throughput, latency 6
ElastiStor: Key Features QoS-Configurable Storage Endpoints Share your storage and deliver predictable performance to every application. For the first time ever, ElastiStor allows storage LUNs to be defined beyond capacity, in terms of IOPS, throughput and latency. This allows applications with diverse workloads to be guaranteed QoS right from a shared storage platform. Together with linear scaling, a single extensible shared storage platform from ElastiStor can now replace legacy solutions dedicated storage islands. By un-fragmenting storage islands and optimally utilizing resources, ElastiStor steeply cuts down your storage footprint, leading to 80-90% cost savings over 3-5 years. On-Demand Storage Provisioning Do you still manually configure hardware to provision storage for any new application? Break the need for hardwiring storage with ElastiStor's on-demand provisioning. Just enter the required SLA/QoS parameters and let ElastiStor automate node selection and resource allocation for you. ElastiStor includes an intelligent heuristics daemon which continuously learns the quantity of various controller resources needed to deliver the required QoS. vcenter-like Administration Console ElastiStor makes managing storage as easy as managing VMs, even when as you scale to hundreds of applications. Storage admins can now comprehensively manage the entire storage cluster, spanning across multiple sites, from a single web-based console. Further, ElastiStor gives you unprecedented access and control over resource usage within shared storage, right down to the application-level granularity. REST APIs and Plugins for Easy Integration Every action performed at ElastiStor admin console translates into a REST based API call in the backend, enabling admins to fully manage ElastiStor right from their existing portals. Our plugin for VMware vcenter (also based on REST API) enables storage management right from the vcenter, right from setting QoS policies to monitoring resource usage. N-way High Availability ElastiStor enables N-way High Availability, exponentially increasing reliability (mean time to failure), compared to the standard 2-way HA provided by existing solutions. CloudByte's storage un-fragmentation and its patented TSM architecture make N-way HA affordable and feasible. Delegated Administration A much requested feature from the cloud service providers, delegated administration empowers both CSPs and its customers to monitor and control storage, as necessary. Management privileges vary based on the admin functionality for example, a super admin can manage the entire storage cluster, whereas a customer admin can manage just the storage resources allotted to that particular customer. 7
ElastiStor: Standard Storage Features Scalability 128-bit file system Zettabyte storage capacity Unlimited file size Access Protocols Storage Connectivity Storage Resilience Storage Efficiency NFSv3, NFSv4, CIFS, iscsi, FC SAS JBODS, iscsi targets, FC targets RAIDZ1, RAIDZ2 De-duplication Compression Thin provisioning Backup Efficient Snapshots, Unlimited Efficient Clones, Unlimited Tape Backup Availability N-way high availability (N-way HA) Partial failure transfer to the available node Active-Active mode HA with/without storage redundancy Disaster Recovery Tenant level disaster recovery High availability across primary and DR sites Block level replication Synchronous mirroring Asynchronous mirroring RPO Last minute RTO Few minutes Data Integrity Protection against silent data corruption Fixes corrupt block without having to take the file system offline CloudByte s file system is built on ZFS and hence, it inherits all the standard ZFS features 8
multi-tenant storage Service Providers can now provide full benefits of dedicated storage to their customers on a shared storage platform For more information, visit www.cloudbyte.com 9 or follow us on Twitter @CloudByteInc