Optimize Desktop Virtualization via Highly Manageable Scale Out Storage Clouds

Data

Center

SANInfra

structure

openBench Labs

Analysis:

Author: Jack Fegreus, Ph.D.Managing DirectoropenBench Labs

http://www.openBench.comSeptember 22, 2010

Optimize Desktop Virtualization via Highly Manageable Scale Out Storage Clouds

Analysis:

Jack Fegreus is Managing Director of openBench Labs and consults throughRidgetop Research. He also contributes to InfoStor, Virtual Strategy Magazine,and Open Magazine, and serves as CTO of Strategic Communications.Previously he was Editor in Chief of Open Magazine, Data Storage, BackOfficeCTO, Client/Server Today, and Digital Review. Jack also served as a consultantto Demax Software and was IT Director at Riley Stoker Corp. Jack holds a Ph.D.in Mathematics and worked on the application of computers to symbolic logic.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary 04

VDI Test Scenario 07

VDI Automation & ROI 12

Customer Value 16

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Table of Contents

DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING 2.0

Today, Forrester Research pegs the typical SMB IT organization as having two yearsof basic virtualization experience. Often based on DAS, rather than SAN, storage, theseinitial projects have proved to be successful in generating savings through hardwareconsolidation. For these sites, the next phase in adoption will focus on improvingmanageability and flexibility, which requires the adoption of shared storage and oftenrequires upgrades to network and server infrastructure.

The most dramatic changes,however, are yet to come. Thereal revolution in distributedcomputing starts with theadoption of hosted virtualdesktops. In a hosted desktopscenario, IT centralizes therunning of PC operating systemsand applications on virtualmachines (VMs) hosted onservers in the data center whilestreaming a display protocol to alight-weight client applicationthat can be run on variousdevices on the network.

Desktop virtualization buildson the notions of servervirtualization, which utilizes aphysical server to host multiplevirtual machines that run theirown server-class OS andapplications, which are typicallyin the form of backend services.In a desktop virtualizationscenario, however, the hosted

desktop VMs need to support a highly GUI-centric environment running interactiveclient applications. As a result, a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) introduces a

Executive Summary

Executive Summary

“For sites implementing a VOE, Xiotech provides Virtual View, asoftware module for ISE™ Manager, which integrates with VMware,

Hyper-V, and Citrix Xen hosts and allows IT administrators to centrallyconfigure and manage storage resources on every VM.”

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openBench Labs Test Briefing:Xiotech® Emprise™ 5000 ISE™-based Storage

1) Minimize Storage Management Costs: Host-based ISE Manager softwareaggregates the information from each ISE storage device into a virtual ISEcloud for centralized administration, which can be extended to include theability to drill down and manage the VMs running on a VMware, Hyper-V, orCitrix Xen server provisioned with storage from an ISE in the cloud.

2) Maximize Performance Automatically: Advanced firmware stripes data atthe disk head level, which eliminates the need for IT administrators to createdisk-centric storage pools and creates a low-latency environment thatfacilitates the IO characteristics of a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.Iometer Streaming I/O Benchmark: For a VM running Windows 7,streaming read I/O throughput averaged 370MB per second andstreaming write data average 175MB per second. Iometer I/O Operations Benchmark: With the low latency of the Emprise5000, 8KB reads and writes (80/20 percent mix), on a single VMsustained 3,500 IOPS with an average access time under 25ms, whiletwo VMs sustained an I/O load of 6,500 IOPS.

3) Improve I/O Scalability: Storage capacity and performance can be easilyexpanded by adding multiple Emprise 5000 systems. This adds local cacheand processing power via active-active Managed Reliability Controllers, whichlocally manage I/O processes.

4) Improve Storage Reliability: Intelligent Storage Element (ISE) technologyprovides autonomic self-healing to minimize storage-based service events.

number of new specialized technologies—from session brokering to display streaming—for IT administrators to support.

Centralizing virtual PC operations in a datacenter with hosted desktop VMs thathave applications and data residing securely on servers in the datacenter makesmanaging and securing desktops significantly easier for IT. This breaks the problemremediation model of a traditional PC environment, by ending the need to attend todispersed physical clients individually. To fully leverage such a scheme, however, evenmore advanced VDI solutions are needed to address such issues as virtual desktopprovisioning and the streaming of PC applications and disk images.

The potential impact of a VDI environment is staggering. In terms of today’s $150billion worldwide market in business PCs, Gartner pegs client systems deployed on VMsto be only around 500,000—not much more than a rounding error. Nonetheless, as ITfinds it conceptually easy to leverage existing infrastructure to offset VDI entry costs,Gartner projects the percent of new business PCs being deployed on VMs to rapidly riseto 40%. According to Gartner, IT in the US will lead this trend by migrating 30 percentof their installed base of desktop PCs to VMs by 2014. At that rate, the ranks of VMsrunning client systems will swell to over 18 million.

That rosy scenario for VDI is not without a dark side. IDG surveyed CIOsimplementing server virtualization and found that the percent of CIOs experiencing anincrease in the complexity of datacenter management rose to 67% from 47 percent at theend of 2008. That increase in perceived complexity raises a serious red flag for VDI, asbest practices call for deploying desktop VMs four to eight times more densely thanserver VMs. What makes dense deployment plausible is the sporadic nature of desktopPC usage. While dense VM deployment enhances the potential for significant costsavings, dense deployment also increases the need for IT to be prepared for resource-utilization storms involving I/O, memory, and CPU resources.

Whether to advance the manageability and flexibility of server virtualization or makethe transition from server to desktop virtualization, a SAN-based storage infrastructurethat can scale out in capacity and performance is pivotal for IT to maximize the returnon investment (ROI) of any virtualization or consolidation initiative. Storage resourcesare inextricably linked to the capital and operational expenses that IT must restructurecontinue to advance virtualization initiatives.

There are numerous formulas that rely on array controllers and disk spindles toensure reliability and throughput for DAS storage built on the traditional “Just a Bunchof Disks (JBOD)” model. In a virtual operating environment (VOE), however,hypervisors on host servers concentrate and randomize I/O from multiple VMs makinga hash of traditional read-ahead and caching algorithms and creating an absoluterequirement for hardware with minimal I/O latency. As a result, every Emprise 5000added to a SAN fabric provides more cache and I/O processing power to the SAN.

Xiotech redefines the notion of a storage building block with a radically different

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Executive Summary

construct from traditional JBOD and RAID storage. Dubbed ISE™ technology, Xiotechutilizes sealed multi-drive DataPacs, which contain specially matched Seagate FibreChannel (FC) drives with specialized firmware that provides detailed information aboutinternal disk structures. Using that detailed disk structure knowledge, DataPacs stripedata at the drive-head level. IT administrators never create or reformat a RAID array.With an ISE, RAID decisions are reduced to a simple virtualized RAID 5 or RAID 10check-off characteristic, which is assigned to a virtual volume as it is created. Gone areall I/O bandwidth issues associated with ports, controllers, spindles and RAID levels.

For IT’s bottom line, the most powerful impact of ISE technology, however, comes inthe form of autonomic self-healing storage that is service avoidant. Xiotech matches thespecialized drive firmware used in a DataPac with specialized firmware on ManagedReliability Controllers (MRCs), which have the ability to monitor and reduce the rate atwhich DataPac components fail by repairing many component failures in-situ andmitigating the impact of any failures that cannot be repaired. MRC remedialreconditioning extends to remanufacturing disks through head sparing anddepopulation, reformatting low-level track data, and rewriting servo and data tracks.

To further simplify SAN management, an ISE isolates the function of its two externalFC ports from that of its two internal MRCs. No notion of MRC array ownership isexposed on the SAN. This allows the ISE to maximize external SAN fabric traffic andinternal data access independently. All host servers are provided with a view of the ISE ashaving two active MPIO ports ready to accept FC data frames. As a result, a typicalserver configuration with two FC ports has four paths for balancing fabric traffic.

Internally, the ISE optimally redirects the balanced read and write I/O requestsarriving at the FC ports to the two MRCs in order to maximize internal throughput forthe DataPacs. As a result, a Xiotech ISE slashes operating costs by eliminating all of thedevice-management tasks that IT administrators normally perform to maintain andoptimize the performance of standard JBOD-based storage resources. In addition, theISE’s heal-in-place technology allows the Emprise 5000 to reach reliability levels that areimpossible for standard storage arrays. As a result, Xiotech is able to provide IT andOEM users with a five-year warranty that eliminates storage service renewal costs.

To further simplify storage-resource scale out and lower IT operating costs, Xiotechprovides host-based software dubbed, ISE Manager, which aggregates all localinformation resident at each ISE into a single virtual ISE cloud. More importunately forsites implementing a VOE, Xiotech provides Virtual View, a software module for ISEManager, which integrates with VMware, Hyper-V, and Citrix Xen hosts and allows ITadministrators to centrally configure and manage storage resources on every VM.

Executive Summary

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PROVISIONING FOR HIGH I/O THROUGHPUT

With servervirtualization rated thebest way to optimizeresource utilization andminimize the costs of IToperations, many SMBsites now typically runfour to eight server VMson a host server inproduction environments.As a result, each hostmust be capable ofdelivering a very high I/Othroughput load via alimited number ofphysical connections.

To provide a VOEfoundation, we used twoservers running MSWindows 2008 Server R2with Hyper-Vvirtualization to host ourvirtual desktopinfrastructure. Each hostserver was equipped witha two quad-core CPUs,8GB RAM, and a dual-port QLogic QLE24624Gbps Fibre ChannelHBA. With the exceptionof a local disk for the OS,all storage on eachHyper-V VOE host wasprovisioned from a single

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VDI Test Scenario

VDI Test Scenario

“To simplify the provisioning of VOE hosts and the VMs running onthose hosts, Xiotech provides host-based software—dubbed ISE

Manager—that aggregates information from each ISE-based storagedevice into a virtual ISE cloud.”

Xiotech Emprise 5000.

Within our Hyper-V environment, we conservatively hosted 5 server VMs to supporta VDI infrastructure created with Citrix® XenDesktop™ Enterprise Edition. In particular,we used three VMs running 32-bit implementations of Windows Server 2003 to supportthree Citrix functions: The Desktop Delivery Controller (DDC), which brokers theassignment of desktop VMs to users, the Citrix License Server, and the ProvisioningService (PvS), which streams a single OS disk image to multiple VMs.

A fourth VM running Windows Server 2003 supported a domain controller for ourVDI environment. In addition to Active Directory, this server provided DHCP and DNSservices to all VMs in the XenVDI domain. We used a fifth VM running Windows 2008R2 to host MS System Center for Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). Finally, we usedthis VM server infrastructure to support a collection of ten desktop VMs runningWindows 7 Enterprise with either a dedicated system disk or a system disk that wasstreamed from the PvS server.

VOE STORAGE SCALE OUT

To anchor the FC SANfabric in our VDI testingscenario, we utilized aXiotech Emprise 5000system with two“Balanced” DataPacs.Xiotech provides DataPacstuned to supporttransaction processing,data archiving, or multi-purpose—balanced—computing.

The two balancedDataPacs yielded acombined raw storagecapacity for our Emprise5000 of 8.7TB. We wereable to provision thatstorage in a mix of RAID-5 and RAID 10 logicalvolumes, whichdetermines the actual

volume of storage deployed at host systems.

Traditional core-driven SAN fabrics are characterized by a large number of physicalservers and a small number of storage devices. A VOE, however, presents a very differentSAN topology. In a typical VOE scenario, lightly loaded servers are converted into VMs

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VDI Test Scenario

HYPER-V STORAGE RESOURCES

Using the Web GUI on our ISE, we provisioned a 1TB volume to store VMs and a 500GB volumefor use on each of our Hyper-V hosts. In addition we provisioned an 800GB volume on our host,Dell1900VMb, to provide storage for a domain-wide library that would be created on a VMrunning MS System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

and consolidated on a small number of VOE hosts. In turn, the small collection of hostservers drive the I/O load within the SAN creating an edge-driven topology.

More importantly, IT Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for business applicationsrunning on servers that have been converted into VMs must now take into account theinteractions of multiple consolidated VMs. Even more vexing for IT is the problempresented by multiple VMs fluidly moving within a group of VOE hosts in order tobalance CPU, memory, and I/O loads. This situation is further exacerbated in a VDIscenario as the density of desktop VMs deployed on host servers is invariably severaltimes greater than the density of server VMs,

To simplify theprovisioning of VOE hostsand the VMs running onthose hosts, Xiotechprovides host-basedsoftware—dubbed ISEManager—that aggregatesinformation from eachISE-based storage deviceinto a virtual ISE cloud.This architecture directlyenhances manageability ina scale-out environment.What’s more, the VirtualView module for ISEManager providessignificant operationalsavings for ITadministrators in anyVOE with a singleEmprise 5000.

Virtual View for ISEManager integrates withthe host servers andmanagement consoles in a

VOE running VMware, Hyper-V and Citrix Xen. As a result, Virtual View provides ITadministrators with the ability to manage all ISE-based volumes imported by a VOE hostand then drill down on the VMs supported by that host. In this way, IT administratorsgarner a single-pane-of-glass interface through which they can configure and managestorage resources for both VOE hosts and their resident VMs.

BREAKING PERFORMANCE BOTTLENECKS

In addition to needing improved VOE manageability, IT at SMB sites is oftenconstrained from evolving into the next stage of virtualization by the need to deliver

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VDI Test Scenario

XIOTECH ISE VM VIEW

Within Xiotech’s ISE Manager, Virtual View provides administrators with the means to globallyconfigure storage volumes on VMs residing on hosts provisioned with storage volumes that wereimported from an ISE. Having provisioned an 800BG volume (F: on Dell1900VMb) specifically foruse by oblVD-VMM, our VM running System Center Virtual Machine Manager, we were able toconfigure a volume on that VM that resided on that specific host volume.

sufficiently high levels of application performance with respect to CPU, memory, andstorage resources within their VOE. When resource constraints are storage centric,critical business continuity applications, such as backup and replication, are negativelyimpacted as throughput bottlenecks extend backup windows for multiple VMsconsolidated on a host server.

With multiple VMs consolidated on a limited number of hosts, storage throughputbottlenecks cascade over multiple VMs, which puts a high premium on storage deviceswith low I/O latency. This is a particular strong point for the Emprise 5000 and its ISEtechnology, which presents a proprietary DataPac as a virtual super disk.

Using two virtual SCSIdisks attached to a VMrunning Windows 7,openBench Labs ran Iometerto stream full-duplex large-block (128KB) reads andwrites. Each of the virtualdisks was backed by adistinct volume on the hostserver. Throughput for boththe read and write I/Ostreams averaged 475MB persecond. As a result, combinedfull-duplex throughputmaintained a steady-statelevel of 950MB per second.This result is double the levelof sequential throughput thatis required to support suchspecialized workstation andserver applications as HDvideo editing, multi-dimensional On LineAnalytical Processing(OLAP), data mining, anddisaster recovery operations.

On the other hand, small-block (8KB) random accessI/O is especially importantfor database-driven server

applications. To set the bar for VM support of transaction processing (TP) applicationsbuilt on databases such as SQL Server and Oracle, we used Iometer with the same VMand virtual SCSI disks.

VDI Test Scenario

HYPER-V VM SEQUENTIAL I/O

To assess potential I/O performance of server and desktop VMs in our Hyper-Venvironment, we ran Iometer on a VM hosted on the Hyper-V host dubbed Dell1900VMb. Inthis test, we simultaneously launched a stream of 128KB read requests and a stream of128KB write requests on separate virtual SCSI disks. Each test disk on the desktop VM wasbacked by a separate volume imported from the Emprise 5000 by the host. Read and writerequests were equally balanced over both FC ports on the host server and the Emprise5000. The bottom line for performance was an I/O throughput level of 950MB per second fora single VM.

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In our TP benchmark tests, we started with a single I/O stream that mixed 80 percentread requests with 20 percent write requests. As we observed during our large-blocksequential access test, small-block TP requests were equally balanced across all FC portson our SAN fabric. More importantly, on this test, we sustained 4,000 IOPS with anaverage access time of less than 12ms. We were then able to scale our benchmark nearlylinearly with two streams to separate virtual drives on our VM, as we maintained anaverage access time of less than 20 ms while sustaining over 7,000 IOPS.

DESKTOP CONNECTIONS

The I/Othroughputperformanceof Hyper-V-VMs is asignificantplus for ITwhen settingup a VDIenvironment.Thesporadicnature ofdata accesspatternsgeneratedby desktopapplicationsis central tothe problemof setting upstorage for aVDI. Unlikeserverapplications,which are

often tuned for specific data handling, such as I/O streaming or random TP processing,desktop applications seldom optimize for I/O and rely on standard sequential file accessusing 8KB data blocks. As a result, I/O patterns for desktop applications produceminimal I/O stress and generate I/O loads that are well within the boundaries of moststorage systems.

Within a virtual desktop infrastructure, however, the traditional desktop I/Outilization pattern scales in a way that leaves desktop VMs prone to severe degradationduring unforeseen I/O storms. While I/O storms are sporadic events, they are statisticallypredictable. In particular, these events occur when multiple users simultaneouslyimplement administrative processes such as logging in, running a virus scan, or updating

VDI Test Scenario

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WINDOWS 7 VM BUSINESS DESKTOP

We tracked I/O demands of desktop VMs while running a number of typical business applications. In all cases,work on desktop VMs, such as obl-VD1, put little stress on our Emprise 5000. Even while opening and rebuilding alarge MS Access database, throughput spiked at 50MB per second and averaged 15MB per second.

While video performance was extraordinary with the ICA protocol, more important for business processing was theautomatic setup of all drives on the initiating PC as mapped network drives on the VM desktop.

software on line.

Meeting the irregular nature of I/O patterns in a VDI demands that IT plan for VDIstorage that can scale performance with respect to peak I/O activity, rather than typical useractivity. In particular, as IT administrators densely provision multiple desktops VMs on aVOE host, the aggregate I/O load takes on the characteristics of random 8KB I/O requests.As a result, IT decision makers need to put a premium on highly-adaptive, low-latency,storage systems, such as the Emprise 5000 with its ISE technology, that can respond tosudden disruptive changes in I/O processing.

Customer Value

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VIRTUAL MACHINE FARMS

The key to garnering a positive ROI on any VDI initiative rests in simplifying themanagement and optimizing the utilization of storage, CPU, and memory, and resources.By far, the greatest payback for any VDI initiative will come out of improvements in themanagement and utilization of storage resources.

Within a Citrix VirtualDesktop Infrastructure, thecentral component is the CitrixDesktop Delivery Controller(DDC), which brokers userrequests for desktop access. Thekey mechanism in this schemeis that of a farm, which consistsof administrators, systems thatare running the DDC, anddefined groups of desktop VMs,which can be managed as singleobject.

When an IT administratorcreates a desktop VM group,the desktop VMs are associatedwith end users or end-usergroups via Active Directory. Inthis assignment process, anadministrator can explicitlyassign a desktop VM to an enduser; allow the automatic

creation of a permanent link to an end user on first use of the VM; or configure theDesktop Delivery Controller to randomly allocate a VM to an end user at each logon.Within the context of this role as a session broker, the Desktop Delivery Controller alsostarts and stops desktop VMs based on user demand and configuration rules created byIT administrators.

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VDI Automation & ROI

VDI Automation & ROI

“Akey part of the Citrix Provisioning Services value proposition isthe utilization of SQL Server to maintain and stream a disk image,

which is dubbed a vDisk and used by all of the members of a DesktopGroup associated with a Desktop Delivery Controller as a boot disk.”

XEN DESKTOP CONNECTION BROKER

For our tests we created two desktop VM groups. The first group, dubbed MyPCpool,contained conventional VMs. Each of these VMs booted from a virtual disk (vDisk) that wascreated and configured for exclusive use by that VM. VMs in the second group, vdiVDGroup,all booted over the network using a shared vDisk image streamed from the server runningCitrix Provisioning Services.

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End users request desktop services via the Citrix Online or Web Plugin utilities,which are installed on any system that will function as a client. The end user provides theInternet address of a server running DDC and Active Directory credentials.Alternatively, the Citrix Plugin can be configured to automatically pass the user’scredentials established on the client device. Based on the login information provided bythe Citrix Plugin, DDC returns a list of Desktop Groups, which are pools of VMs that areavailable for that user. In turn the Citrix Plugin displays the list of available DesktopGroups as part of its user interface.

When the end user chooses a Desktop Group, the Desktop Delivery Controllerbrokers a connection with the host server for an appropriate desktop VM. The hostserver starts the VM and ICA communications are established between the Citrix Pluginand the Virtual Desktop Agent that is running on the VM.

STREAMING AUTOMATION

The Citrix VDI architectures alsoprovides a mechanism to automaticallycreate and provision a group of virtualdesktops using a single common diskimage that is used to boot each desktopVM in the designated group. Thismethod of provisioning optimizesstorage utilization, simplifies OS changeand security management tasks, andprovides end users with a clean virtualdesktop each time they log on.

Automating Citrix ProvisioningServices (PvS) in a Hyper-Venvironment requires running MSSystem Center Virtual Machine Manager(SCVMM). In addition, to enable CitrixDDC and PvS to use Hyper-V andSCVMM, the SCVMM managementconsole must be installed on a severbefore installing either Citrix module.

In our test case, we created a single75GB vDisk from which we booted 10diskless VMs saving 350GB of storage. Byusing a dynamic rather than fixed vDisk,we further reduced the size of the boot

image to just 18GB and increased storage capacity savings to 570GB.

Nonetheless, the big contribution to ROI, however, does not come from the substantialspace savings and storage optimization. By using a common boot disk, we could update

VDI Automation & ROI

AUTOMATED DESKTOP PROVISIONING

After creating a copy of a VM system disk in the PvSStore, we were able toassign that image to a PvS device collection, vdiVDGroup, that automaticallyconfigured VMs to boot from that image and placed those VMs into acorresponding DCC desktop group.

and refresh the operating system or any applications installed on all of the VMs in thevdiDTGroup desktop group on the DCC updating the VM that served as the template andthen updating the image of that VM’s boot disk.

More importantly, usingthe diskless VM model withCitrix Provisioning Servicessignificantly changes I/Othroughput characteristics.All data must now passthrough SQL Server with allcommunications between thedesktop VM and SQL Servermoving over the LAN. Asmore VMs utilize vDisks astheir boot devices, I/O accessand throughput for SQLServer data storesmaintaining these devicesbecome critical issues formaintaining site operations.

What’s more, SQL Serverconstantly updates internaltables with on-goingoperations-orientedmetadata. This makes itessential for IT to providethese database servers withfast highly reliable storage inorder to support a quick

recovery time should a database become corrupted. In particular we were able toleverage the ability of the Emprise 5000 to support full-duplex streaming of data and runbackups of the PvS database of boot images at upwards of 180MB per second.

VDI Automation & ROI

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PVS DATABASE BACKUP

On the Hyper-V host, we leveraged the throuput capabilities of the Emprise 5000 to backup the full PvSStore at upwards of 190MB per second.

BETTER BUILDING BLOCKS

Xiotech’s ISE technology provides an innovative solution for improving the reliabilityand performance of disk-based storage systems. By approaching disk drives as a grid ofstorage surfaces, Xiotech has enabled the controllers in the Emprise 5000 to go beyondsimply accessing data and actively manage component reliability.

More importantly, Xiotech’s change tothe underlying technology of storagesystems transforms the notion of a basicstorage building block for both IT andOEM users in a way that makes storageprovisioning synergistic with the ServiceLevel Agreements (SLAs) set up betweenIT and Line of Business divisions. Thesophisticated characteristics of ISEtechnology rather than simple electronicspecifications, define building blocks thatare application-centric rather thanconnection-centric.

The Emprise 5000 storage systembuilds on ISE technology to eliminate theneed for maintenance intervention by ITadministrators and to provide near-linearscaling of application throughput metricsas the number of storage systemsincreases. What’s more, ISE Manager

software provides the means to manage multiple Emprise 5000 devices as a single logicalcloud. As a result, IT administrators are able to deploy multiple Emprise 5000 systems, tocost-effectively meet and support Service Level Agreements for multiple application-centric environments, including Virtual Operating Environments for both servers anddesktop systems.

While reducing OpEx and CapEx costs are the critical divers in justifying theacquisition of storage resources, those resources must first and foremost meet theperformance metrics needed by end-user organizations and frequently codified in SLAs.In terms of common SLA metrics, our benchmarks for a single Emprise 5000 reachedlevels of performance that should easily meet the requirements of most applications.

Customer Value

Customer Value

“Host-based ISE Manager software enables multiple Emprise 5000units to be managed as a single ISE cloud, which includes

provisioning VMs on VMware, Hyper-V, or Citrix Xen host servers.”

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XIOTECH EMPRISE 5000 FEATURE BENEFITS1) Application-centric Storage: DataPacs tuned to application needs

define the base storage unit rather than individual disk drives.

2) Minimize Storage Management Costs: Host-based ISE Managersoftware enables multiple Emprise 5000 units to be managed as asingle ISE cloud, which includes provisioning VMs on VMware,Hyper-V, or Citrix Xen host servers.

2) Autonomic Self-healing Storage System: Integrated firmware ondrives and controllers allows fine-grain data access to be defined atthe level of drive heads in order to boost I/O throughput andautomatically repair and rebuild drives in-situ.

3) High Streaming Throughput: Running with Balanced DataPacs,openBench Labs benchmarked streaming read performance at380MB per second and streaming write performance at 175MB persecond on VMs running Windows 7.

4) Linear Scaling of IOPS: Using random 8KB I/O requests in an 80/20mix of reads and writes sustained 3500 IOPS with an averageresponse time of less than 25ms. Using two VMs on separateDataPacs, performance scaled to 6,500 IOPS.