Storage Protocols, VMware and Religion

Funny, isn't it?  How most technology questions break into religious camps?

I've noticed that there's a fair amount of religion around which storage protocol is "better" for VMware: FC, NAS, iSCSI?

And, like most things, a fair amount of agnosticism might be appropriate.

How I Found Out About This

Someone sent me a bunch of NetApp marketing collaterals, and -- lo and behold! -- there's a quote from me from my blog, at least a year old, where I was wondering if NAS might have some advantages in some situations for VMware users.

This was edited and positioned in such a way that it appeared that I (and EMC!) was endorsing NAS above all other protocols in a VMware environment.

While I'm flattered that the marketing department at NetApp considers me an industry authority, it ain't true. 

Not even close.

Not to blame NetApp excessively (althought the temptation is there), I saw another quote on another vendors' material where I was talking about the benefits of iSCSI and VMware (yes, it was a iSCSI storage vendor that didn't have NAS or FC), and yet another quote where I was talking about FC and VMware (yes, from a storage vendor that had FC but didn't have strong offerings in the other categories.

So, what's up here?

Well, in some respects, it's the natural behavior of vendors.  If you're selling hammers, then everything is a nail, I guess.

And, if you're in the hammer-selling business, it's gotta be all about nails, right?

Well, EMC isn't in that position.  We've got very strong offerings (and market share leadership) in all three protocols.  We have hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, vice grips, saws, nice tool belts, people who can show you how to build things, etc. etc. etc.

We don't have to make it all about hammers, nor should we.

VMware Has Many Different Use Cases

I don't know if people fully comprehend this yet, but one way of thinking about VMware is a next-gen operating environment. 

Asking the question "what storage protocol is best for VMware" is like asking the same question around UNIX, Windows, Linux, et. al.

It really depends on what you're using it for, doesn't it?

Example: at the recent VMworld show, there was an excellent demo of a 16,000 user Exchange environment running on a single instance of ESX, with excellent performance.  IBM did the server work, EMC did the storage work.

For more details on the performance characteristics, check out Chad Sakac's presentation (as well as other useful materials) on this post.

That's a pretty beefy I/O load, if you think about it, and a pretty critical application.  Latency matters, IOPs matter, and -- in some cases -- bandwidth.  Ditto for the large workloads we're starting to see with Oracle, SAP, etc. running on VMware.

Fibre channel might be a useful choice for this sort of VMware deployment -- especially if you've already got a FC set up in your data center.  Could it potentially be done on iSCSI or NAS?  Perhaps -- I don't know.  But why try, especially if you've already invested in FC?

Let's take dev/test environments, something that VMware's Lab Manager is very popular with.  I'd be tempted to consider a NAS solution, simply because you'll have a lot of test vmdk images floating around, connectivity costs are low, performance is decent, file systems can potentially be easier to manage than LUNs, etc.

Or how about desktop virtualization with VDI?  I'd be tempted to do a cost-effective scale-out with smaller arrays using iSCSI.  Price point will be great, performance will be good, and the whole setup should be pretty easy to manage.

Now, Don't Start Howling At Me

Let me head off the inevitable. 

Yes, you could run a decent-sized database on iSCSI or NAS. 

Yes, you could do dev/test and Lab Manager on iSCSI or FC. 

Yes, you could do desktop VDI on FC or NAS.  Yes, yes, yes.

They all work just fine to differing degrees.  What's best depends more on you and your situation, rather than an arbitrary technology argument.

The Multi-Protocol Argument For VMware and Storage

Why should you be forced to choose the best storage protocol upfront? 

All EMC array products (DMX, CX) do all three -- native FC, native iSCSI, and (using Celerra) NAS as well.

Perhaps the place we've seen this line of thinking best play out has been with the recently introduced NS20, our entry-level "triple play" array.  In addition to NAS and iSCSI, it does "real" FC (not some hokey emulation).

It's been much more successful in the marketplace -- and much more quickly -- than we could have hoped for.  And, not surprisingly, the biggest use case for it is -- yes -- VMware.

Customer can present different workloads to it, and decide what makes sense for them -- iSCSI, NAS or FC -- all on the same array, at the same time. 

Obligatory Marketing Plug

Not surprisingly, we're doing a lot of customer awareness events with VMware and our partners these days. 

As an example, we've just launched a five-part webinar series with VMware on all the different things we've done together.  We'll be covering optimized storage, backup, replication, management, etc. in an advanced VMware environment for situations both very large and very small.

If you're interested, find out more here.

A Request, Please?

Hey all you NetApp guys!  Would you do me a big favor? 

Would you please update all those marketing slides to include the following:

"EMC believes that many customers will find a need for all three storage protocols in their VMWare environments -- iSCSI, NAS and FC -- just like we've found in the physical world." 

I know that, given your strong moral position on accurate marketing materials, you'll want to set the record straight.

Thanks, guys -- I appreciate it!

Comments

[Keith Norbie]

Chuck,

Love the blog. Most client partners situationally align the right solution to the right architecture and therefore products to fulfill. EMC does a great job in this area even though it's being run on VMware's agenda. I do think the analogy of pliers, screwdrivers, etc is a bit advanced. In 10 years we'll look back and laugh at what clunky stuff we're using today. Web 2.0, Cloud Computing, Managed Services, VI, and Thin-Frasturcture(a Chuck term) will all help us get to the "new house". Right now we're using customized tree branches, carved rocks, and magic fire.

A great question 10 years from now in hindsight will be "How much impact the new NetApp logo had."

[Chuck Hollis]

Hi Keith -- thanks for the kind thoughts.

You're right, if we imagine how we'll think about these things in 10 years, it will all end up looking fairly primitive.

Don't get me started on my thoughts regarding NetApp's "rebranding". I'm in rehab.

Thanks!

[Tom Joyce]

Hi Chuck. Good post. We find that the "new" VMware customer (a) cares a lot about which storage to use, (b) doesn't always understand storage very well, and (c) doesn't give a hoot about the interconnect protocol. They want three things, in order: (1) easy, (2) fast, (3) actually that's it, easy and fast. So when storage sales folks come at them with the IP vs FC thing, it's like they're talking Klingon. It probably matters, but they don't care that much.