GleSYS invests in next-generation all-flash storage platform

At GleSYS, we're continually striving to improve our services and today I'm delighted to announce that the VMware team have deployed a new storage platform that will deliver significantly higher performance to your applications.

I want to take this opportunity to talk a bit about some of the capabilities our new platform will deliver, and what this ultimately means for your VMware VPS running in GleSYS Cloud.

But first, let's take a step back and go over some of 'the basics'.

A quick introduction to storage for VMware environments

Let's start with some definitions:

An I/O operation is a general term that refers to a read or write operation on a storage device. The number of I/O operations issued per second is known as IOPS, and this is a common measurement of the performance of a storage platform.

Latency is a measurement of how long it takes for a single I/O operation to be completed. Latency can be measured from different points in the storage stack, but storage vendors typically measure the latency from when the array receives the I/O operation.

Now that we've gone over some of the basic terminology, let's follow the path of an I/O issued by a VM running in a VMware environment:

• The guest operating system issues a read or write command to the virtual hard drive
• The I/O operation is issued to the virtual SCSI adapter on the virtual machine
• The virtual scsi adapter forwards the I/O operation to the VMkernel
• The VMkernel processes the I/O operation before sending it to the physical HBA on the host
• The HBA transmits the I/O operation to the underlying storage

Several underlying storage technologies are supported in a VMware environment:

• DAS (Direct Attached Storage)
• SAN (Storage Area Networks accessed through iSCSI or Fibre Channel)
• NAS (Network Attached Storage accessed through NFS)

Shared storage platforms (SAN and NAS based) offer several advantages over direct attached storage, including the following:

• VMware HA (High Availability) which automatically restarts VMs on other physical hosts in the event of a hardware failure.
• VMware DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler) which automatically load balances VMs across other physical hosts within a cluster, ensuring that the VMs get the resources they need to run efficiently.

GleSYS invests in a new shared storage platform

We are committed to delivering the highest level of performance to our customers, while ensuring the stability and availability of our platform. That is why we have invested in a new SAN-based storage platform which allows us to support enterprise features such as VMware HA and DRS, in addition to delivering a first-class experience for our users.

Here are some of the capabilities our new storage platform delivers:

Performance:

>200,000 IOPS (4k 50% random write 50% random read), <1ms latency
We leveraged benchmarking tools such as fio, diskspd, and vdbench across multiple VMs to simulate real workload on our storage platform, and the results were really good. The platform in its current configuration could deliver over 200,000 IOPS for an extended duration, with less than 1ms latency, running a workload representative of our production environment.

Availability:

Dual controller architecture - Allows for non-disruptive upgrades and maintenance
No single points of failure - No downtime, no data loss, no worries.

Capacity:

Up to 5PB all-flash capacity!

VMware Integration:

Fully certified on VMware's Hardware Compatibility List
VAAI Support - vStorage APIs for Array Integration is a feature that can significantly improve performance for operations such as cloning, zeroing, deleting, etc.
VVol Support - Allows for offloading of VMware snapshots to the storage platform.
Provides insight into performance metrics across the host, network, and storage stack to assist with troubleshooting.

So how does this benefit my VMware VPS running in GleSYS Cloud?

1. Whether you're running a latency-sensitive DB server, a high traffic e-commerce site, or a throughput-driven file server, our new storage platform will meet your demands and exceed your expectations.

2. The integrity of your data is paramount to us, and therefore we've chosen a storage platform that employs multiple levels of protection to ensure your data is safe from corruption.

3. Native encryption (FIPS-certified) ensures your data is secure and protected against theft of array components such as disk drives.

4. Increased latency during backup windows is now a thing of the past! Activate backups in our control panel and be confident that there will be no performance impact to your application.

Conclusion

If you're curious about our new storage platform, then why not launch a VPS in our Falkenberg datacenter and perform your own tests? Let us know what you think by reaching out to us at support@glesys.se.