Virtualizing Storage for VMware Success

Overview Server virtualization has made day-to-day life a whole lot simpler for systems administrators; however, the benefits have not been shared by storage administrators and backup operators, who face new challenges as the result of data encapsulation. Storage infrastructure and operational practices that were designed for physical server architectures are not well suited to meet the demands of a virtual infrastructure.

Backup and disaster recovery practices have to change radically. New light needs to be shed on the importance of data protection and recovery time objectives (RTOs). Any consolidation effort also consolidates risk. With VMware the point of risk has shifted away from servers to shared storage. A RAID failure in a virtual infrastructure is catastrophic, as it potentially impacts dozens of virtual servers and applications. Any restore operation that requires data to be copied from another form of media can take days.

NetApp storage virtualization technologies solve these challenges and alleviate the burden on storage and backup teams. This article from NetApp's Tech OnTap newsletter describes how NetApp can:

• Cut storage costs by half or more
• Reduce VMware RTO to minutes
• Increase efficiency to decrease soft costs

If you've virtualized your servers but not your storage, you've only done half the job. Virtualizing your storage infrastructure is critical to addressing the unique storage needs of VMware.