ABSTRACT

This chapter Introduces cloud storage systems and

storage virtualization concepts.

CLOUD Instructor: Asma’a Khtoom

COMPUTING
COURSE
Chapter4-Cloud Storage
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Storage Virtualization Definition

Storage virtualization is the process of grouping and sharing the physical storage from multiple
network storage devices so that it looks like a single storage device, which simply managed from
a central console.

When you buy a server or storage array these days, you often have the choice between different
kinds of hard drives:

Mainstream Physical Disk Types

Type1: HDD

HDDs (Hard Disk Drive): are considered as an irreplaceable and important storage device that
uses a mechanical arm with a read/write head to move around and read information from the
right location on a storage platter.

HDD Types:

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Currently, SATA and SAS hard drives are commonly used and distinguished by interface type.

1. PATA (Parallel advanced technology attachment): this transfers data in parallel mode
and it is not used any more.

2. SATA hard drive (Serial advanced technology attachment): it replaced all PATA
interfaces, SATA transfers data in serial mode. One of its distinctive features is that
SATA is faster than PATA and have a very high capacity.

SATA HDD

3. SAS
Serial attached SCSI (SAS), that is, small computer system interface. Similar to SATA,
SAS uses serial transfer to achieve higher performance. Compared with a SATA hard
drive, a SAS hard drive has a higher read/write speed, higher price, and smaller
capacity.

SAS HDD

In reliability, SAS disks are an order of magnitude safer than either NL-SAS or SATA disks. This
metric is measured in bit error rate (BER), or how often bit errors may occur on the media.

4. NL-SAS
Near Line SAS (NL-SAS) is a type of hard drive between SATA and SAS. Therefore, an NL-SAS
hard drive is developed, which consists of SAS interfaces and SATA platters (head, media, and
rotational speed).

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NL_SAS HDD

NL-SAS is slower than SAS.

NL-SAS is faster than SATA.

NL-SAS has the capacity and price of the SATA hard drive and the reliability of the SAS hard
drive.

Type2: SSD (Solid-State Drives)

- SSDs offer up to 100 time’s greater throughput than traditional hard drives, which means
faster boot ups and better overall system performance.
- Unlike SATA and SAS hard drives, SSDs have no moving parts making them the most
reliable and efficient option.
- The lack of moving parts also means a reduced risk of failure and an increase in
power efficiency compared to traditional hard drives.
- SSDs, as storage media with higher read/write speeds than traditional HDDs, have
received widespread attention.
- Traditional HDDs are disk drives and data is stored in disk sectors. The common storage
medium of an SSD is flash memory.
- Because of the performance, speed, and reliability benefits, solid-state drives are
generally more expensive than SAS and SATA hard drives.
- SSDs are ideal for high frequency immediate transactional data like database, CRM
or bank transactions.
- SSDs are one of the most essential storage devices in the ultra-thin laptop and tablet
fields.
- In addition, SSDs have distinctive features such as shock resistance, small size, no
noise, and low cooling requirements.
- An SSD consists of a flash controller and memory chips. The flash controller controls
the coordination of the data read/write process and the memory chips are responsible for
storing data.A most common type is to use a flash memory chip as the storage
medium, and the other type is to use a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip
as the storage medium.

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Flash-based SSDs
The most common SSDs use a flash memory chip as the storage
medium. Flash memory chips can be manufactured into various
electronic products, such as SSDs, memory cards, and USB drives.
These devices have small size and easy to use.

Disadvantage of SSD

- The cost of SSDs is far higher than that

of traditional HDDs.
- Less capacity than HDD

- Please watch the video in the URL:

https://youtu.be/GN4YJaRA9Ss

Comparison between different physical disk types

Item SSD SAS NL-SAS SATA
Performance Very high High Relatively high Relatively high
Reliability Minor High Relatively high Minor
Price Very high High Relatively low Low
Power Minor High Relatively low Relatively low
consumption
Recommended High frequency Suitable for Suitable for backup Because of the
scenario immediate users with and data archiving high storage
transactional discrete (low data access) capacity they
data like data access offer, SATA drives
database or are commonly
bank used for file
transactions. sharing, email,
web, backup, and
archival data.

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Centralized Storage

Centralized storage means that all storage resources are centrally deployed and are provisioned

over a unified interface.

With centralized storage, all physical disks are centrally deployed in disk enclosures and are used

to provide storage services externally through the controller. Centralized storage typically refers

to disk arrays.

A disk array combines multiple physical disks into a single logical unit. Each disk array consists of

one controller enclosure and multiple disk enclosures. This architecture delivers an intelligent

storage space featuring high availability, high performance, and large capacity.

Disk Array

Based on the technical architecture, centralized storage can be categorized as:

DAS, NAS and SAN.

1. DAS (Direct attached storage):

It is digital storage directly attached to the computer accessing it.

Examples of DAS include hard drives, solid-state drives, optical disc drives, and storage

on external drives. DAS is the most widely used storage system before SAN is

introduced.

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DAS Types:

- Standalone

- JBOD (Spanned)

- RAID

2. NAS (Network attached storage)

A technology integrates distributed and independent data into a large-scale and

centralized data center for access by different hosts and application servers.

- NAS is a file-level computer data storage connected to a computer network

providing data access to heterogeneous group of clients.

- An NAS server contains storage devices, such as disk arrays, CD/DVD drives,

tape drives, or portable storage media.

- An NAS server delivers an embedded OS to share files across platforms.

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Simply speaking, a NAS is a device that is connected to the network with file storage

function. Therefore, NAS is also called a network file storage device.

- It is often manufactured as a computer appliance – a purpose-built specialized

computer, It delivers centralized file storage and management and separates

storage devices from servers, releasing bandwidth and improving performance.

Essentially, NAS is a storage device rather than a server.

- The advantage of NAS is that it can deliver file storage services in a fast and cost-

effective manner using existing resources in the data center. The current solution

is compatible between UNIX, Linux, and Windows OSs, and can be easily

connected to users' TCP/IP networks. The following shows the NAS system.

CIFS vs NFS are protocols developed to permit a client system to access the file system

on remote computing devices like server or personal computers (File Sharing Protocols).

1. NFS is the “Network File System” specifically used for Unix and Linux operating systems

systems to share files and folders.. It allows files communication transparently between

servers and end users machines like desktops & laptops. NFS uses client- server

methodology to allow user to view read and write files on a computer system.

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2. CIFS is abbreviation for “Common Internet File System” used by Windows operating systems

for file sharing. CIFS also uses the client-server methodology where a client makes a request

of a server program for accessing a file .The server takes the requested action and returns a

response. CIFS is an open standard version of the Server Message Block Protocol (SMB)

developed and used by Microsoft and it uses the TCP/IP protocol.

3. SAN (Storage Area Network):

Now, data has become the most valuable asset since the Internet and e-commerce are growing
at an explosive rate. How to store, protect and manage data in an effective way is a big challenge
for IT technicians. Here, SAN, storage area network, has been developed to provide a creative
model for data storing in the data center.

SAN Definition: is a specialized, high-speed network that provides block-level network access to
storage.

SAN Component: SANs are typically composed of hosts, switches and storage devices that are
interconnected using a variety of technologies, topologies, and protocols.

SAN Access Mechanism

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SAN makes a network of storage devices accessible to multiple servers.

SAN devices appear to servers as locally attached drives, eliminating traditional network bottlenecks.

A SAN is block-based storage, leveraging a high-speed architecture that connects servers to their
logical disk units (LUNs).

A LUN is a range of blocks provisioned from a pool of shared storage and presented to the server as a
logical disk.

The server partitions and formats those blocks, typically with a file system, so that it can store data on
the LUN just as it would on local disk storage.

SAN Types

SAN solutions are available as many types, the most common two types are:

 FC-SAN (Fiber Channel SAN): Storage and servers are connected via a high-speed network of
interconnected fiber channel switches. This is used for mission-critical applications where
uninterrupted data access is required.

FC SAN Network

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 Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) Protocol/IP SAN: This infrastructure gives
the flexibility of a low-cost IP network. It uses iSCSI protocol, a transmission standard over
TCP/IP, to transfer block data over an Ethernet network. IP SAN allows different servers to
access pools of the shared block storage devices by storage protocols.

IP SAN network

Composite Solution (both FC SAN and IP SAN)

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IP SAN vs FC SAN: What Is the Difference?

Here is a table shows the differences of IP SAN vs FC SAN.

IP SAN FC SAN

Network Gigabit Ethernet network fiber channel network

Cost Low High

Transmission speed Fast Extremely fast

Transmission protocol TCP/IP fiber channel

Extensibility More easier to extend Easy to extend

SAN vs. NAS

NAS SAN
Main Target Are methods of managing storage centrally and sharing that storage with
multiple hosts (servers) .
Network Ethernet-based Ethernet and Fibre Channel
Focus on Ease of use, manageability, scalability, and high performance and low
lower total cost of ownership (TCO). latency
Partitioning NAS storage controllers partition the The server partitions and
storage and then own the file system formats SAN storage blocks
with its file system
Protocols CIFS, NFS FCP, iSCSI Protocol

RAID
RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks or Drives, or Redundant Array of
Independent Disks): A data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical
disk drive components into one or more logical units for the purposes of data reliability,
performance improvement, or both.

Benefits of RAID

RAID allows us to combine drives, increase speed and improve reliability so we can store more
data while our data is stored safer.

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RAID allows us to bundle multiple hard-drives that your Operating System (Windows, MacOS X,
Linux, etc) will see as one single big drive.

Example

As an example, based on Windows and 3 hard-drives of say 1 Tb:

Without RAID, taking Windows as an example, 3 drives could be seen as the drives C:, D:, and E:
of each 1Tb (if each drive would have one partition).
With RAID, these 3 drives can be combined to a single hard-drive, C:, with a capacity of 3Tb
(depending on the RAID configuration you choose).

Where can you find RAID?

RAID can be found in any computer, server, external disk array or NAS (Network Attached
Storage), where the “controller” can actually be hardware or software.
RAID Types (Variations)

RAID is an umbrella name for different variations of combining hard-disks that would then appear
to your computer as one single hard-disk.
Multiple disks are combined with different goals in mind, hence the different variations. Goals can
be Faster access to data, more storage space and/or higher reliability.
These variations are named “RAID” followed by a number. For example RAID 0, RAID 1, etc.
Each fitting for a particular purpose.

The different variations come with different levels of:

Speed, reliability, availability and the minimum number of hard-drives needed.
RAID Variations (Types)

 RAID 0 – Striping

 RAID 1 – Mirroring

 RAID 2 – Bit level Striping

 RAID 3 / RAID 4 – Striping with
Parity
 RAID 5 – Striping with rotating
parity
 RAID 6 – Striping with double
rotating parity
 Nested RAID (RAID 10)

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RAID 0 – Striping

In RAID 0 data is written in parallel to 2 or more disks. Think of it as writing block 1 to disk 1,
block 2 to disk 2, block 3 to disk 3 etc.

Minimum number of required drives: 2 drives (even number).

Space efficiency: 100% of the sum of the capacity of the drives.

Positives:
- The great advantage is SPEED as data is written or read in parallel.
- Another advantage is that all of the storage capacity will be available for storage.
Negatives:
The big downside is lack of reliability: If one disk crashes all data is gone, as half of the
information will be lost. RAID 0 is not fault-tolerant.

RAID 0 – Striping

Ideal use
RAID 0 is ideal for non-critical storage of data that have to be read/written at a high speed, such
as on an image retouching or video editing station.

RAID 1 – Mirroring

RAID 1 arrays mirrored data of one drive to another drive. Therefore, when your computer writes
data to the array, the controller will actually write the data twice: to disk 1 and to disk 2.
If a drive fails, the controller uses either the data drive or the mirror drive for data recovery and
continues operation.

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Minimum number of required drives: 2 drives (even number).

Space efficiency: 50% of the sum of the capacity of the drives.

Positives:

 Increased reliability since data is always saved in duplicate on two different drives. If one drive
dies, the other will still be able to provide you the data. In case a drive fails, data do not have to
be rebuild, they just have to be copied to the replacement drive.
 RAID 1 is a very simple technology.

Negatives:
The main disadvantage is that the effective storage capacity is only half of the total drive capacity
because all data get written twice.

RAID 1 – Mirroring

Ideal use
RAID-1 is ideal for mission critical storage, for instance for accounting systems.

RAID 5 – Striping with rotating Parity

- RAID 5 is the most common secure RAID level.

- It requires at least 3 drives but can work with up to 16.

- Data blocks are striped across the drives and on one drive a parity checksum of all the
block data is written.

- The parity data are not written to a fixed drive, they are spread across all drives, as the
drawing below shows.

- Using the parity data, the computer can recalculate the data of one of the other data
blocks, should those data no longer be available.

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- That means a RAID 5 array can withstand a single drive failure without losing data.

- Although RAID 5 can be achieved in software, a hardware controller is recommended.

Often extra cache memory is used on these controllers to improve the write performance.

Minimum number of required drives: 3 drives

Space efficiency: Sum of the capacity of all drives – (Sum of the capacity of all drives /
number of drives)

Advantages:
 Good performance: Read data transactions are very fast while write data transactions
are somewhat slower (due to the parity that has to be calculated).
 Very good data reliability: If a drive fails, you still have access to all data, even while the
failed drive is being replaced and the storage controller rebuilds the data on the new
drive.
Disadvantage:
This is complex technology. If one of the disks in an array using 4TB disks fails and is replaced,
restoring the data (the rebuild time) may take a day or longer, depending on the load on the array
and the speed of the controller. If another disk goes bad during that time, data are lost forever.

RAID 5 – Striping with distributed Parity

Ideal use
RAID 5 is a good all-round system that combines efficient storage with excellent security and
decent performance. It is ideal for file and application servers that have a limited number of data
drives.
RAID 6 – Striping and Double rotating Parity
RAID 6 can be seen as an extended RAID 5. It actually maintains 2 parity calculations which are
written to two drive, and like RAID 5 these are equally distributed offering the ability to even
recover from 2 failing drives.
Minimum number of required drives: 4 drives.

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Space efficiency:
Sum of the capacity of all drives – ( 2 x Sum of the capacity of all drives / number of drives
)
Advantages
- Good speed performance: Like with RAID 5, read data transactions are very fast.
- Higher reliability: If two drives fail, you still have access to all data, even while the failed drives
are being replaced. Therefore, RAID 6 is more secure than RAID5.
Disadvantages
- Write data transactions are slower than RAID 5 due to the additional parity data that have
to be calculated.
- The remaining capacity will be lower than RAID 5.

RAID 6 – Striping with double distributed parity

Ideal use RAID 6 is a good all-round system that combines efficient storage with excellent
security and decent performance. It is preferable over RAID 5 in file and application servers that
use many large drives for data storage.

Nested RAID configurations

Certain RAID variations can be combined, depending on your RAID controller of course, and are
referred to as “Nested RAID“.

Below an example of RAID 10 or RAID 1 + 0 … Data is written in parallel (RAID 0) and then
written mirrored (RAID 1).

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It is possible to combine the advantages (and disadvantages) of RAID 0 and RAID 1 in one single
system. This is a nested or hybrid RAID configuration. It provides security by mirroring all data on
secondary drives while using striping across each set of drives to speed up data transfers.

Other variations are RAID 0+1, RAID 50 (RAID 5 + RAID 0), RAID 100 (RAID 1 + RAID 0 + RAID
0), RAID 53 (RAID 5 + RAID 3) and RAID 60 (RAID 6 + RAID 0).
Positives
Custom RAID. You can configure your own fitting your own needs.
Negatives
Not all RAID controllers support this and the resulting storage capacity will be much lower than
other configurations.

RAID 10 – Nested RAID

JBOD (not RAID)

JBOD, or Just a Bunch Of Disks, is not a RAID variation, but most RAID controllers support it.
With JBOD, hard disks are stringed in a sequence, offering the sum
of the capacities of all hard disks in the string.
When writing data to the “array”, first disk 1 will be filled and when
full, disk 2 will be filled, etc.
There is no speed gain here, and when a drive fails in a JBOD, not
all data is lost, only the data on the defective drive.
For JBOD disks do NOT need to be of the same size.
Positives:
Simple and Cheap way of bundling different sized disks.
Negatives: No increase in speed or reliability. JBOD

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Distributed Storage and Replication

Introduction
With the popularity of smart phones and sensors, the volume of data being stored and analyzed
is growing rapidly, bringing about new business value. Distributed storage is often used to store
massive volumes of data, in which multiple hard drives, solid-state drives, and other storage
mechanisms are combined to be treated as a single storage. Storage capacity and performance
can be improved by adding more servers. In addition, simultaneously storing replicas of a single
data item on multiple servers increases the reliability of data.

Distributed Storage Definition:

Storing data on a multitude of standard servers (using servers local storage rather than using
dedicated storage device), which behave as one storage system although data is distributed
between these servers.

Fig1: Centralized Storage Vs Distributed Storage

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Centralized Storage Vs Distributed Storage

Centralized Storage

Distributed Storage

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Replication Mechanism
Replication in Cloud Computing refers to multiple storage of the same data to several different
locations by usually synchronization of these data sources. Replication in Cloud Computing is
partly done for backup and on the other hand to reduce response times, especially for reading
data requests.

Distributed Storage Example

BigTable is a distributed storage system, which is designed by Google, just as its name, it is
proposed to deal with data in large scale.

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Virtualized Storage
Storage Virtualization

Storage virtualization is the process of grouping the physical storage from multiple network
storage devices so that it looks like a single storage device.

The process involves abstracting and covering the internal functions of a storage device from
the host application, host servers or a general network in order to facilitate the application and
network-independent management of storage.

Storage virtualization can be implemented by using software applications or appliances.

The management of storage and data is becoming difficult and time consuming. Therefore, the
storage virtualization helps to:

1. Improved storage management in a heterogeneous IT environment.

2. Better availability and estimation of down time with automated management
3. Better storage utilization

Storage virtualization can be applied to:

1. Any level of a SAN.

2. A physical storage.
3. RAID groups.
4. Logical unit numbers (LUNs) and logical volumes.

Visualized Storage Creation

We know that physical disks reside at the bottom of the storage system, either centralized or
distributed. After RAID or replication is implemented, physical volumes are created on top of
these physical disks.

In most cases, the physical volumes are not directly mounted to upper-layer applications, for
example, OSs or virtualization systems.

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Therefore, typically, multiple physical volumes are combined into a volume group, and then the
volume group is virtualized into multiple logical volumes (LVs). The upper-layer applications use
the spaces of the LVs.

1. Traditional Storage System

2. Virtualized Storage

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Cloud Storage
Cloud storage Definition

Cloud storage is a cloud computing model in which data is stored on remote servers accessed
from the internet, or "cloud." It is maintained, operated and managed by cloud storage service
provider on storage servers that are built on virtualization techniques.

Cloud storage works through data center virtualization, providing end users and applications with
a virtual storage architecture that is scalable according to application requirements.

Creating Cloud Storage System

The cloud storage system stores multiple copies of data on multiple servers, at multiple
locations. If one system fails, then it is required only to change the pointer to the location, where
the object is stored.

In cloud computing, the virtualization program formats the LVs.

Vendors use different virtual file systems. For example, VMware uses Virtual Machine File
System (VMFS), and Huawei uses Virtual Image Manage System (VIMS). Both of them are
high-performance cluster file systems that deliver a capacity exceeding the limit of a single
system and allow multiple compute nodes to access an integrated clustered storage pool.

The minimum storage unit used by virtualization programs is logical unit number (LUN).

LUNs correspond to volumes. Each LUN represents an individual storage volume (it acts as
an identifier for a disk volume in the storage).

Storage Resource Pool: is a pool that pools the physical storage from different network storage
devices and makes it appear to be a single storage unit that is handled from a single console.

After virtualization is used, LUNs can be divided as:

1. Thick LUNs
2. Thin LUNs.
Thick LUNs Thin LUNs

Capacity - Once being created, get full storage - Get storage capacity on demand.
capacity from the storage pool. - Higher storage capacity utilization

- Less storage capacity utilization

Disk space does not apply to a thick LUN When data in a thin LUN is deleted,
reclamation (if data in a thick LUN is deleted, the space in the thin LUN can be released.
allocated capacity is occupied by the thick
LUN and cannot be used by other LUNs)

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Performance A thick LUN delivers higher performance A background formatting is required

for sequential reads/writes as it gets full each time the thin LUN expands
storage capacity from the beginning, but it capacity, In addition, capacity allocations
has some storage capacity wasted. may cause discontinuous disk storage
space, so it takes more time for
sequential reads/writes to find storage
locations. Which cause less
performance.
Application − High performance is required. - Moderate performance is required.
scenarios − Storage space utilization is more
− Storage space utilization is less concerned.
concerned.
− Costs are sensitive.
− Costs are insensitive.
− Required storage capacity is hard to
predict.

VM Disks

A VM consists of configuration files and disk files. Each VM disk corresponds to a disk file
where user data is stored.
If virtualized storage is used, all disk files are stored in the shared directory of the file system.
If non-virtualized storage is used, each disk file corresponds to a LUN.
From the perspective of users and OSs, either files or LUNs are the same as common hard
drives, which are displayed as hard drives among the hardware resources of the system.
When creating a VM, the administrator needs to create disks for the VM to store data. The disk
information corresponds to several lines in the configuration file.
VM disk files have their own fixed formats and there is many common VM disk format as shown
in the table:
Common VM disk formats
VM Disk File Format Supported Vendor, Product, or Platform
RAW All vendors

VMDK VMware

VHD Microsoft Hyper-V and Huawei FusionCompute

QCOW QEMU or KVM virtualization platforms

QED
VDI Oracle
Each vendor can use its own tool to convert other VM disk formats to formats that can be
used by its own products.

For example, Huawei Rainbow can convert third-party or open-source VM disks to the VHD
format.

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Storage Features of Huawei Virtualization Products

Storage Architecture of Huawei Virtualization Products

1. Storage Resources: it is the physical storage media that deliver storage space for
virtualization.
FusionCompute can use the storage resources from dedicated storage devices or the
local disks of hosts. Dedicated storage devices are connected to hosts through network
cables or optical fibers.

Storage resources that can be converted to datastores include:

 LUNs on SAN devices, including iSCSI storage devices and FC SAN storage devices
 File systems created on network attached storage (NAS) devices
 Storage pools on FusionStorage Block
 Local disks on hosts (virtualized)

2. Storage devices: In Huawei FusionCompute, these storage units are called storage
devices, include: LUNs, File systems, Storage pools, Local disks.

3. Datastores: FusionCompute uniformly converts storage resources into data stores.

4. Virtual disks: After data stores are associated with hosts, virtual disks can be created
for VMs.

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Creating Storage in Huawei

1. Before using datastores, you need to manually add storage resources. If the storage
resources are IP SAN, FusionStorage, or NAS storage, you need to add storage ports for
hosts in the cluster and use the ports to communicate with the service ports of centralized
storage controller or the management IP address of FusionStorage Manager. If the
storage resources are provided by FC SAN, you do not need to add storage ports.

2. After adding storage resources, you need to scan for these storage devices on the
FusionCompute portal to add them as datastores.
3. Datastores can be virtualized or non-virtualized.

4. You can use LUNs as datastores and connect them to VMs from the SAN without
creating virtual disks. This process is called raw device mapping (RDM). This
technology applies to scenarios requiring large disk space, for example, database server
construction. RDM can be used only for VMs that run certain OSs.

5. After adding data stores, you can create virtual disks for VMs.

Characteristics of Huawei VM Disks

After adding datastores, you can create virtual disks for VMs. Customers may have various needs
for using VMs, for example, they may want to share a VM disk to save more physical space.
Therefore, Huawei VM disks are classified into different types based on these requirements.

 Based on sharing type, VM disks are classified as non-shared disks and shared disks

− Non-shared: A non-shared disk can be used only by a single VM.

− Shared: A shared disk can be used by multiple VMs. If multiple VMs that use a shared
disk write data into the disk at the same time, data may be lost. Therefore, you need to
use application software to control disk access permissions.

 Based on the configuration mode, VM disks can be classified as common disks, thin
provisioning disks, and thick provisioning lazy zeroed disks.

− Common: The system allocates disk space based on the disk capacity.
The performance of the disks in this mode is better than that in the other two
modes, but the creation duration may be longer than that required in the other
modes.

− Thin provisioning: In this mode, the system allocates part of the configured
disk capacity for the first time, and allocates the rest disk capacity based on the
storage usage of the disk until the configured disk capacity is allocated. In this
mode, datastores can be overcommitted. It is recommended that the datastore
overcommit rate not exceed 50%. For example, if the total capacity is 100 GB,

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the allocated capacity should be less than or equal to 150 GB. If the allocated
capacity is greater than the actual capacity, the disk is in thin provisioning mode.

− Thick provisioning lazy zeroed: The system allocates disk space based on
the disk capacity. In this mode, the disk creation speed is faster than that in the
Common mode, and the I/O performance is between the Common and Thin
provisioning modes. This configuration mode supports only virtualized local disks
or virtualized SAN storage.

 Based on the Disk mode, VM disks can be classified as dependent disks,

independent persistent disks, and independent non-persistent disks.

− Dependent: A dependent disk is included in the snapshot. Changes are

written to disks immediately and permanently.

− Independent persistent: In this mode, disk changes are immediately and

permanently written into the disk, which is not affected by snapshots.

− Independent non-persistent: In this mode, disk changes are discarded after

the VM is stopped or restored using a snapshot.

If you select Independent persistent or Independent non-persistent, the system

does not take snapshots of the data on the disk when creating a snapshot for the
VM. When the VM snapshot is used to restore a VM, the VM disks are not
restored.

After a snapshot is taken for a VM, if disks on the VM are detached from the VM
and not attached to any other VM, the disks will be attached to the VM after the
VM is restored using the snapshot.

However, data on the disks will not be restored. If a disk is deleted after a
snapshot is created for the VM, the disk will not be attached to the VM after the
VM is restored using the snapshot.

Some disk types cannot be changed once they are set and some can be
changed. For example, disk modes can be converted.

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