Rochester Institute of Technology RIT Scholar Works Theses 12-9-2014 An Analysis of Storage Virtualization Nicholas Costa Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.rit.edu/theses Recommended Citation Costa, Nicholas, "An Analysis of Storage Virtualization" (2014). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by RIT Scholar Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of RIT Scholar Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An Analysis of Storage Virtualization By Nicholas Costa Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Networking and Systems Administration Rochester Institute of Technology B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences Department of Information Sciences & Technologies December 9, 2014 Rochester Institute of Technology B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences Master of Science in Networking and Systems Administration Thesis Approval Form Student Name: Nicholas Costa Thesis Title: An Analysis of Storage Virtualization Thesis Committee Name Signature Date Chair (Bill Stackpole [email protected]) Committee Member (Daryl Johnson [email protected]) Committee Member (Charlie Border [email protected]) Abstract Investigating technologies and writing expansive documentation on their capabilities is like hitting a moving target. Technology is evolving, growing, and expanding what it can do each and every day. This makes it very difficult when trying to snap a line and investigate competing technologies. Storage virtualization is one of those moving targets. Large corporations develop software and hardware solutions that try to one up the competition by releasing firmware and patch updates to include their latest developments. Some of their latest innovations include differing RAID levels, virtualized storage, data compression, data deduplication, file deduplication, thin provisioning, new file system types, tiered storage, solid state disk, and software updates to coincide these technologies with their applicable hardware. Even data center environmental considerations like reusable energies, data center environmental characteristics, and geographic locations are being used by companies both small and large to reduce operating costs and limit environmental impacts. Companies are even moving to an entire cloud based setup to limit their environmental impact as it could be cost prohibited to maintain your own corporate infrastructure. The trifecta of integrating smart storage architectures to include storage virtualization technologies, reducing footprint to promote energy savings, and migrating to cloud based services will ensure a long-term sustainable storage subsystem. Table of Contents Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... I Table of Figures............................................................................................................ III Table of Tables .............................................................................................................. V List of Terms and Abbreviations ............................................................................... VII Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... X 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT .......................................................................................... 2 1.2 IMPORTANCE ........................................................................................................ 4 1.3 BUSINESS IMPACTS OF ALL SIZES .......................................................................... 5 1.4 REVIEW OF CURRENT RESEARCH .......................................................................... 5 1.5 OVERVIEW ........................................................................................................... 7 2 Background ............................................................................................................. 8 2.1 THE HISTORY OF STORAGE ................................................................................... 8 2.2 THE HISTORY OF DATA CENTERS ......................................................................... 10 3 Storage Technologies Research ......................................................................... 19 3.1 THIN PROVISIONING & OVER-ALLOCATION/OVER-SUBSCRIPTION ........................... 19 3.2 FILE DEDUPLICATION .......................................................................................... 23 3.3 BLOCK DEDUPLICATION ....................................................................................... 25 3.4 STORAGE REPLICATION/MIRRORING .................................................................... 27 3.5 NON-DISRUPTIVE DATA MIGRATION ...................................................................... 30 3.6 COMPRESSION ................................................................................................... 31 3.7 DISK EXPANSION AND SHRINKING ON THE FLY ...................................................... 31 3.8 MANUAL AND AUTOMATED TIERED STORAGE ........................................................ 32 3.9 PERPENDICULAR STORAGE RECORDING ............................................................... 35 3.10 SUMMARY ....................................................................................................... 36 4 Green Energy Technologies Research ............................................................... 38 4.1 GEOTHERMAL COOLING ...................................................................................... 39 4.2 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY ....................................................................................... 41 4.3 SOLAR POWER ................................................................................................... 44 4.4 WIND POWER ..................................................................................................... 47 4.5 HYDROELECTRIC POWER .................................................................................... 49 5 Cloud Services Technologies Research ............................................................. 52 6 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 55 7 Future Work........................................................................................................... 57 8 Appendices ........................................................................................................... 59 8.1 SMALL BUSINESS STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION APPLICATION ~$100,000 .................. 59 8.1.1 Requirements ...................................................................................................................... 59 8.1.2 Hardware BOM ................................................................................................................... 60 8.1.3 Software BOM ..................................................................................................................... 65 8.1.4 Services BOM ...................................................................................................................... 66 8.1.5 Total Cost of Solution .......................................................................................................... 66 I 8.1.6 Architecture and Interconnect Drawings ............................................................................ 67 8.1.7 Storage Virtualization Design .............................................................................................. 69 8.1.8 Expandability & Future Proofing ......................................................................................... 70 8.1.9 Complexity .......................................................................................................................... 71 8.2 MEDIUM SIZED BUSINESS STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION APPLICATION ~$1,000,000 ... 73 8.2.1 Requirements ...................................................................................................................... 73 8.2.2 Hardware BOM ................................................................................................................... 74 8.2.3 Software BOM ..................................................................................................................... 84 8.2.4 Services BOM ...................................................................................................................... 86 8.2.5 Total Cost of Solution .......................................................................................................... 86 8.2.6 Architecture and Interconnect Drawings ............................................................................ 88 8.2.7 Storage Virtualization Design .............................................................................................. 92 8.2.8 Expandability & Future Proofing ......................................................................................... 95 8.2.9 Complexity .......................................................................................................................... 97 8.3 LARGE BUSINESS STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION APPLICATION ~$10,000,000