Dell Extends Virtualization to Managed I/O with Xsigo Alliance

The rapid growth of x86 virtualization has been driven primarily by the adoption of virtual machines, which have yielded proven operational benefits related to consolidation, availability, and manageability. Virtual machines give administrators unprecedented control over their processing resources by allowing multiple instances of operating systems to run simultaneously on a single server, and by simplifying the capture of an entire workload state so that it can be moved easily over a network for purposes of reliability and load-balancing. However, while virtual machines grant workloads independence from physical hardware, the hosts on which virtual machine are deployed still require physical connections to networks and storage. As virtualization starts to take hold at almost every level of IT, administrators now want to extend the benefits of virtualization to the I/O components of their physical systems as well.

A rapidly developing sub-discipline of virtualization is I/O infrastructure virtualization, which applies virtualization functions to storage and networking infrastructure, i.e. the SAN and LAN channels that connect workloads with the outside world and feed them data. I/O infrastructure virtualization introduces a layer of abstraction that decouples servers from details about physical LANs and SANs in the same way that virtual machines decouple operating systems from details about physical hardware. As a result, storage and network resources can be dynamically allocated to applications as needed with minimal intervention by administrative personnel who are responsible for managing storage and network infrastructure.

A variety of I/O infrastructure virtualization approaches have emerged in the past few years, and all of the leading server vendors now support some level of I/O infrastructure virtualization in their systems. Recently, Dell stepped up its attention to I/O infrastructure virtualization by announcing that it would offer Xsigo I/O Director as an option with its PowerEdge servers and PowerVault storage solutions. Dell had already offered Egenera PAN Manager software, one of the most mature I/O infrastructure virtualization solutions in the market. Egenera first introduced PAN Manager for its BladeFrame blade servers, but it has since licensed PAN Manager to other OEMs as well (including Fujitsu-Siemens in addition to Dell). PAN Manager virtualizes processing, storage and network resources, allowing them to be pooled and dynamically allocated to applications on demand. The PAN Manager interface provides a single point of control for allocating and deploying these resource pools, and it provides automated high availability and disaster recovery tools for shifting virtualized resources between hardware platforms in response to outages.

Xsigo and PAN Manager overlap for some virtualization functions, notably in their ability to virtualize MAC addresses and World Wide Names (WWNs), which are the unique identifiers that bind servers to LANs and SANs respectively. Virtualizing LAN and SAN connections can introduce dramatic savings in management costs, because it allows server managers to reconfigure virtual machine hosts with minimal intervention from LAN and SAN management teams. However, for the time being, Dell positions the Xsigo and Egenera technologies quite differently. Xsigo’s key strength is its ability to enable “managed I/O” with bandwidth guarantees for virtualized I/O. Xsigo’s technology allows administrators to carve up the available bandwidth in IP and Fiber Channel networks so that a specific server, class of servers, specific VM, or class of VMs, will be guaranteed access to a certain amount of bandwidth. By contrast, PAN Manager is primarily optimized for maintaining service levels by relocating workloads between hosts with a minimum of disruption. Therefore, the two technologies address the problem of maintaining service levels in virtualized workloads at different levels.

Dell is filling in its virtualization portfolio at a critical time, just as customers are starting to ponder the implications of applying virtualization across the datacenter, an endeavor in which I/O infrastructure virtualization will play a key role. Certain aspects of I/O virtualization will undoubtedly be addressed by Cisco, which already has a strong presence in the datacenter, and VMware, which is preparing to launch a major drive into that market. Like all the major systems providers, Dell partners with both of these companies. However, unlike other vendors such as HP and IBM, which have invested heavily in differentiated I/O infrastructure virtualization solutions (i.e. HP Virtual Connect and IBM Open Fabric Manager), Dell continues to maintain its approach of drawing on third-party technology to build its virtualization solutions.

Dell indicates that it will position I/O Director and PAN Manager at the high end for customers who need the highest level of control over virtualized resources, while it will target solutions from VMware and Cisco at more mainstream requirements. Dell also predicts that there is room for an entry solution targeting more rudimentary requirements, such as Scalent Virtual Operating Environment (V/OE), which allows software stacks to be rapidly reconfigured on servers without disrupting storage or network connections. The I/O infrastructure virtualization space will evolve very rapidly throughout this year, and the stakes are high for vendors to stake out positions in what could be the most dramatic restructuring of datacenter infrastructures since the arrival of PCs and client-server computing in the 1980s. Dell is addressing this opportunity the same way it has pursued all others before. It builds a precise understanding of the requirements in its key customer segments, and then leverages its economies of scale to drive the most innovative offerings from third parties into the market in the greatest volumes possible.

Comments

[Ken Oestreich]

In the infrastructure management space, it's been a battle between HP and IBM. Cisco will spoil the party. And Dell+Egenera have a powerful volume solution.

This space is the perfect complement to O/S virtualization. Let the games begin :)