What are the models and applications of virtualized storage?

Last Update Time: 2021-04-19 10:48:24

Three-tier model of virtualized storage

According to the composition and characteristics of the cloud storage system, the virtualized storage model can be divided into three layers: physical device virtualization layer, storage node virtualization layer, and storage area network virtualization layer.

The three-tier virtualized storage model greatly reduces the complexity of storage management, effectively encapsulates the complexity and diversity of the underlying storage devices, and enables the system to have better scalability and flexibility. Users only need to add storage devices to the storage pool and perform simple configuration to create virtual volumes without paying attention to the physical storage capacity and storage medium attributes of individual devices in the system, thereby achieving unified storage management.

Physical device virtualization layer:

It is mainly used for resource allocation and management at the data block level, and uses the underlying physical devices to create a continuous logical address space, that is, a storage pool. According to the attributes of the physical device and the needs of users, the storage pool can have multiple different data attributes, such as read and write characteristics, performance weights, and reliability levels. As a logical volume manager, on-demand storage devices can allocate logical volumes from storage pools, dynamically allocate storage resources, and manage the mapping and forwarding of data blocks.

Storage node virtualization layer:

It can realize resource allocation and management among multiple storage pools within a storage node, and integrate one or more storage pools allocated on demand into a unified virtual storage pool within the storage node. This virtualization layer is implemented by the storage node virtualization module inside the storage node, manages the storage devices allocated on demand for the lower part, and supports the storage area network virtualization layer for the upper part.


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Storage area network virtualization layer:

It can realize resource allocation and management between storage nodes and centrally manage storage pools on all storage devices to form a unified virtual storage pool. This virtualization layer is implemented by the virtual storage management module on the virtual storage management server. It manages the resource allocation of the virtual storage system in an out-of-band virtualization manner and provides services such as address mapping and query for virtual disk management.

Widely used

Virtualization technology has been widely used in the storage field.

Various storage equipment manufacturers have launched their own virtualized storage products. It is remarkable that Huawei provides enterprise-level virtualized storage services, and launched virtual machines for cloud computing and network storage servers, as well as VTL virtual tape libraries and VIS products. At the same time, Huawei has also applied a large number of virtualization technologies in cloud storage systems to realize the virtualized VMDS of metadata servers, the virtualized VOSN of object storage servers, and the virtualization of data containers.

Virtualized storage has begun to be applied on a large scale in various industries. These applications include:

Data center: Apply virtualization technology to provide services such as computing and storage service centers, network management centers, disaster recovery centers, and IT resource rental centers.

Telecommunications industry: With the development of the industry, the telecommunications industry is facing two challenges, on the one hand to reduce the cost of IT architecture, on the other hand to improve the availability of IT architecture. Virtualization technology is an effective way to solve this problem.

Banking, securities, and insurance (rest assured) industry: Virtualization is used for disaster recovery, and the "two locations and three centers" solution is adopted, that is, production centers, same city disaster recovery centers, and remote disaster recovery centers. The same city disaster recovery center is responsible for the prevention of general disasters, and the remote disaster recovery center is used to prevent large-scale disasters. Using virtualization technology, you can achieve cross-data center virtualization management in a unified virtualization infrastructure.

Government Information System: The construction of government data storage systems is receiving unprecedented attention. The system uses advanced storage virtualization technology to establish a unified, standard, and shared data resource storage platform, which can effectively manage huge, diverse, and complex data and related equipment, improve resource utilization, and establish a comprehensive data security guarantee system.

 

If you want to know more, our website has product specifications for virtualized storage, you can go to ALLICDATA ELECTRONICS LIMITED to get more information