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Preparing The Infrastructure For Virtualization

Virtualization infrastructure, at least at the server level, is sometimes used. In addition, the concept has been extended to the user, software, networking, security, storage and of course desktop virtualization (VDI). 

Virtualization infrastructure, to understand all these concepts, we must first of all have an infrastructure that is divided into several parts and key components.

The first part is the Hypervisor, which is fully explained in the previous section. Some other important areas here are the processor, memory, and various network modes, and a few more to consider below:

Networking, LAN optimization and WAN

Desktop virtualization (VDI) can consume a lot of resources and therefore increase data traffic over network cabling. Having a central switch infrastructure can solve this problem, as this infrastructure allows network administrators to create specific rules and develop specific measures for data traffic flow.

Adjust Service Quality Score (QoS) for desktop virtualization (VDI) specific traffic, as they can help eliminate data dissemination, ensuring that traffic is properly allocated to network priorities. It is also important for data-driven traffic to know where the user is located, and to optimize their user experience based on specific metrics.

Another important point is the issue of storage. Large organizations have a large amount of information controllers. Smaller organizations, on the other hand, use only one controller. Regardless of the number of storage controls available, their appropriate size needs to be considered for desktop virtualization (VDI).

To prevent downtime or overcrowding, organizations should look at IOPS requirements for their own images. To resolve processing issues, network administrators should consider issues such as Flash technologies (NetAPP, Fusion-IO, XtemlO) or SDD technologies (Violin, Nimbus), under which they can greatly contribute to offload workflow in the network. . In addition, intermediate platforms such as Atlantis ILIO running on a virtual machine can utilize large amounts of RAM as the main storage repository.

Familiarity with various file systems

File systems are differentiated according to their function. Some of the most common are listed below.

  • Virtual Machine File System (VMFS);
  • Network File System (NFS);
  • New Technology File System (NTFS);
  • Raw device modeling (RDM);

Now let’s look at each of these in detail.

Virtual Machine File System (VMFS)

Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) is a file system designed to fit virtual machines. It is a cluster of file systems and can run on multiple servers simultaneously. This helps to connect to any file system at any time, where the system can connect to any of the VMware-preferred items. Most VMware providers work with other filesystems, but the default choice here is VMFS.

Network File System (NFS)

The Network File System (NFS) is a system originally developed by SUN, but is now recognized as an open standard system. This system is commonly used in Linux and Unix operating systems. This system is a distributed file system. It can run on a server and use information shared on the network by multiple virtual machines.

New Technology File System (NTFS)

New Technology File System (NTFS) is a standard file structure developed for the Windows NT version. It is used to recover and store files on users’ hard disks.

Raw device modeling (RDM)

Raw device modeling (RDM) system helps each file in the Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) to act as a proxy for each (new) raw device. It allows the virtual machine to access as well as use the storage device.

Choose between different types of storage for virtualization infrastructure

All storage devices are divided into three main categories, which include the following:

  • Direct Attached Storage systems;
  • Network Attached Storage;
  • Local Storage System (SAN)

Now let’s look at each of these in detail.

Direct Connection Storage Systems (Dircect Attached Storage);

A direct connection storage system, or DAS, is actually the hard drive that is now installed on your computer. We can have one or more local hard drives in any computer system. This system is mostly used for small virtualized systems. This solution is suitable for when the number of virtual machines hosted is slow.

This is the simplest and cheapest way to store. With this method, you can also connect external hard drives to the system, and any virtual machine hosted on the external hard drive will be executable in this way, this is the simplest and easiest way to run virtual machines.

For example, a server that has local hard drives can be named. This type of hypervisor can not hold more than 10 to 20 virtual machines. An example device here is HPE servers that can support up to eight local hard drives, as shown in the image below.

Virtualization infrastructure

Network Attached Storage;

Network-connected storage systems, or NAS for short, are any servers that can share their storage resources with other networks; in fact, they act like a file server in the simplest possible way. Network Attached Storage Shares files over the network.

Some of the most important protocols used in this field are SMB, NFS, CIFS and TCP / IP. When you access files on a file server in your Windows operating system, you are actually using NAS.

NAS uses Ethernet communications to share files on the network. The NAS device has an IP address that can be tracked and accessed on the network through the same IP address. The largest suppliers of NAS systems are QNAP and Lenovo.

Virtualization infrastructure

The image below shows how the NAS works.

Virtualization infrastructure

Local storage system (SAN) in virtualization infrastructure

Local storage systems allow multiple servers to share their own storage resources; If the resources are local, they allow direct connection to storage resources. A standard dedicate network, fiber optics, has been developing here that allows blocks between servers and storage to move at the highest speed.

They use dedicated switches as well as fiber-based cabling systems that separate them from daily traffic and prevent intra-organizational communication lines from being occupied.

However, if the SCSI protocol is implementing properly, it will be possible to connect bass adapters to host servers and disk systems.

Virtualization infrastructure

The image below shows how the SAN works.

Virtualization infrastructure

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