SOLUTION PROFILE
Maximize Value From VMware Mirage With Hitachi
NAS Platform
Organizations worldwide have long realized the benefits of
server virtualization. Server virtualization helps accelerate
the time to market of new services and improve compute
efficiency while it reduces the operational complexity of
server management. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)
replicates server virtualization benefits for end-user devices
through centralized management, cost reduction, and
availability. VDI essentially moves the compute, memory
and storage from end-user devices to the data center,
thus centralizing end-user device management for agility,
flexibility and security. However, many users require
applications that work locally and not inside the data center.
These users still want traditional VDI benefits, such as
flexibility to move across devices, nondisruptive OS and
application updates and disaster recovery capabilities.
Business Challenges
The following are key business challenges:
1. Time spent on OS and application upgrades.
2. Asset loss that results in loss of data.
3. Long backup and restoration lead time.
4. Disruptive IT operations, such as upgrades and
patches.
5. High IT operational costs to manage and maintain
remote locations.
6. Critical users’ need for local execution.
7. Limited or no bring-your-own-device flexibility.
8. Users who want to customize their environment.
SOLUTION PROFILE
VMware Mirage is specifically built from the
ground up to meet the business challenges
described above, and ultimately to deliver
agile, flexible and efficient centralized desktop management for local execution. Mirage
provides image management for physical
desktops and BYO devices. Image management includes dynamic layering and
full system recovery capabilities, which
enable IT departments to quickly and
cost-effectively deliver, manage, and protect
updates to operating systems and applications on endpoints at scale. Designed for
distributed environments, Mirage requires
little to minimal infrastructure at branch sites,
which helps drive down capital expenditures.
Backend infrastructure is a key consideration
for IT teams that seek to deliver business
value from Mirage deployments. In fact,
backend storage is the top consideration.
Mirage requires storage volumes to store
base layers, application layers, hardware
drivers and endpoint backups. Meticulous
planning is required to properly design the
storage infrastructure for Mirage so that both
sufficient capacity and IOPs are provided.
As the number of users grows in Mirage
managed environments, the storage infrastructure assumes an increasingly critical
role in delivering performance and efficiency.
Failure to choose the right storage solution
can be a potential limiting factor in achieving
the desired benefits of Mirage deployments.
End-user environments require concurrent
I/O operations that can strain the setup,
causing user frustration due to slow centralizing, backup and restore operations. Hitachi
NAS Platform (HNAS) with Hitachi Unified
Storage (HUS) offers a high-performance,
scalable and efficient storage platform that
enables IT teams to deploy Mirage with confidence (see Figure 1). With NAS Platform,
IT teams do not have to worry about I/O
storms, scale or resource overprovisioning.
Figure 1. VMware Mirage on Hitachi NAS Platform with Hitachi Unified Storage.
Serial
No.
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VMware Mirage with NAS Platform solutions
deliver the following benefits:
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Flexibility for End Users: Seamless
operation from the endpoints.
Resilient Data Management: Centralized
end-user data, applications, OS and profiles, making it easier to meet compliance
and security requirements.
Efficient IT: Lower total cost of ownership
because of lower operational costs.
Mirage requirement
HNAS with HUS benefits
1
Faster desktop centralization
HNAS superflush reduces the
backend I/O to HUS, leading to
faster centralization of endpoints
2
High throughput
Provides high throughput to deliver
unprecedented parallelism, even
during I/O storms
3
Scalability to add large number of users
Scalable to 8-node cluster to serve
larger deployments
4
Efficient storage for favorable ROI
HNAS superflush coalesces random
I/Os to create large blocks of data,
freeing resources for other workloads
Enhanced Productivity: Seamless OS and
application updates without end-user disruption for higher productivity. Centralized
management frees IT personnel to focus on
other aspects of business support.
Agility: Support of business growth without the threat of performance or capacity
bottlenecks.
VMware Mirage deployments can be broadly
divided into the following two parts. Each
part represents a different set of requirements, and the role of scale-right storage
arrays is equally important in both:
1. Day Zero (Configuration and Deployment).
2. D
ay One (Steady State or Business as
Usual).
Day Zero
Mirage endpoints are centralized to activate
the endpoint in the management console.
The centralization process creates and associates a centralized virtual desktop (CVD)
on the Mirage server for the administrator to
manage the device data. During the desktop
centralization stage, Mirage deduplicates
the data that is being centralized from PCs,
and writes to backend storage. For bigger
environments, lead time to centralize the
end-user infrastructure is a key factor in
determining the success of the project.
Centralization is a write-intensive operation,
as large amounts of unique and shared data
are transferred from Mirage endpoints to
Mirage servers and eventually to storage
3
systems. Hitachi NAS Platform and Hitachi
Unified Storage support sustained writeintensive workloads. Hitachi storage solutions
help IT to minimize the time to centralize the
desktops and thus provide nondisruptive
deployments for end-users. Even for several
thousands of desktops, the lead time could
be as little as walking out at the end of the
day and walking in the next morning with centralization activity completed.
In lab tests conducted jointly by Hitachi Data
Systems and VMware, it was observed that
1,000 virtual desktops were centralized in
less than 19 hours, with an average time per
desktop of 12 hours.
Day One
Mirage’s unique workload and data-lifecycle-management mechanism generates
sustained write-heavy random I/O operations.
Such I/O operations require highperformance, scalable storage to deliver
sustained throughput and support growing headcount. NAS Platform with Unified
Storage arrays deliver high throughput in excess of 1.5GB/sec for Mirage
environments to drive up efficiency and
manageability. The performance requirement for I/O operations is a lot less in
steady state than in day zero when endpoints are centralized. During steady state,
only incremental changes are made to
backend infrastructure. However, steady
state operations require high throughput to
overcome I/O storms, and HNAS with HUS
supports large deployments with sustainable high throughput.
The key benefits of HNAS with HUS architecture for VMware Mirage during the
application life cycle are as follows:
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Sustainable High Performance.
HNAS with HUS storage arrays deliver high
performance for sustained write-intensive
I/O operations, removing the bottleneck in
average storage arrays. As per lab tests
conducted for 1,000 desktops, a HNAS
with HUS configuration delivered throughput of 1.5GB/sec.
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Efficient Storage Management.
HNAS uses superflush, a performance
optimizing technique, to write data more
efficiently to backend HUS storage arrays.
Superflush coalesces the number of random
I/Os to a sequential I/O stream, which results
in less CPU utilization on the backend
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storage and frees up resources for other
workloads. HNAS is able to flush random
writes into a single stripe across the file
system, which results in lower processor utilization on the backend block storage array.
Bigger I/O sizes result in better throughput to
support growth in user numbers on Mirage
deployments. Superflush results in efficient
operations because it allows for smaller
writeback cache capacity.
Lab test results show that the average
IOPs per HNAS node is 8,000, whereas the
average IOPs at backend HUS storage is
just a fraction, 2,000 IOPs, due to HNAS
superflush.
HNAS adds block-level dedupe capability,
which complements Mirage’s file-level deduplication and compression, reducing capacity
needs and capital expenditures. In addition,
HNAS allows intelligent tiering and long-term
retention of inactive data to improve storage
utilization, and to optimize infrastructure cost.
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Scalability to Support Business Growth.
NAS Platform scales up to 8 nodes in a
single cluster. This allows businesses to meet
dynamic demands with Hitachi reliability. The
modular architecture of the HNAS cluster lets
customers start small and then add nodes
as their environment grows. Thus, the architecture provides for linear scalability, which
enables customers to purchase for just
enough performance and capacity and to
add incrementally as needed.
In addition to scale-out, the HNAS cluster can
scale up to eliminate “node-sprawl,” which
results in reduced storage overhead. Node
sprawl results from adding new nodes before
existing node resources are fully utilized.
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Automated Backup and Restoration.
Hitachi delivers a centralized storage resource
that simplifies data protection and virtual
machine creation while it meets critical storage efficiency and performance objectives.
Hitachi Virtual Infrastructure Integrator enables
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administrators to deliver scalable data protection and management services from their
vSphere console. You can simplify data management with managed backup, recovery
and cloning of virtual machines and storage.
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OS Migration.
HNAS with HUS helps accelerate the enduser OS migration from Windows® XP to
Windows 7 or from Windows 7 to Windows
8.1 with minimal downtime.
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Nondisruptive Storage Migration.
HNAS universal migrator allows organizations to virtualize and migrate data
nondisruptively from legacy or third-party
NAS platforms to HNAS. Administrators can
quickly virtualize, migrate and consolidate
data from non-Hitachi systems to HNAS,
without impacting normal business operations. Services and connectivity continue to
operate as usual during the migration activity.
Summary
VMware Mirage on Hitachi NAS Platform
with Hitachi Unified Storage delivers
high-performance, scalable and efficient
centralized desktop infrastructure. This
in turn helps deliver native performance,
consistent personalization, flexibility in
operations, and the continuous ability to
perform business operations for the end
user. IT departments enjoy simple and efficient management of their physical desktop
environment.
You can deploy Mirage with HNAS and
HUS to provide performance, scale and
efficiency in managing your desktop environment. Your choice of storage platform
is a key consideration for Mirage deployments to succeed, and Hitachi NAS
Platform with Hitachi Unified Storage delivers zero-worry infrastructure to realize the
benefits of business-defined IT.
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SP-199-A DG January 2015