Virtualization 3.0 is the eventual end-game for the data center. In this environment the host will become the ‘atomic’ element of the data center, with applications, storage and networking all centered on this single element, for the most part. Clearly, the host has, or will have, the CPU power to provide all these services but the way these services are deployed (via software and the hardware that they reside on) will have to change.
Virtualization has seen two distinct phases so far. The first was simple consolidation of servers. Once confidence in virtualization’s reliability was achieved this phase was an easy justification. The cost/benefit payback of virtualizing 100 physical servers onto a dozen or so physical host servers was obvious. While not all data centers are through this phase most have begun the virtualization journey and are looking for better ways to complete it.
The value of the next wave, the one we are now calling “host consolidation”, is also obvious. As discussed in our recent article “Increasing Rack Density” host servers represent a larger investment than stand-alone servers, so the more VMs that can be deployed per rack the more cost effective the virtualization project becomes. This phase will be defined by the reinvention of the physical host. The new host will be more densely packed so that less data center floor space is consumed.
The next phase of virtualization is just beginning for some data centers but will eventually be experienced by all. Virtualization 3.0 moves beyond server virtualization and host consolidation to the complete consolidation of all the layers of the data center (network, storage and server resources). The value to the data center will be even further reductions in cost and floorspace consumption but also simplified management, since all resources will be managed from a single access point and dynamically assigned as needed to given applications or users.
This ‘fluid’ data center will respond to the needs of the application and its users dynamically, even prior to the need being realized. The data center will evolve from a reactive entity addressing the needs of applications after the fact, to a proactive environment that’s constantly anticipating the demands of the environment.
A key change for the data center that results from the conversion to software defined servers, storage and networks is that the software that supports these environments may become more commoditized than the hardware that runs them. Today hypervisors are essentially free, many software defined storage applications are available in open source or are very cost effective and the emerging software defined network market looks to be equally competitive.
The irony is that as the software that drives the data center becomes more commoditized the hardware that hosts these servers may become less so. New demands will be placed on enterprise host hardware and affordable but custom designs will begin to appear. Legacy commodity server hardware designs were for a different era, one where there was multiple layers of resources (servers, networking, storage) and where power and floor space power were abundant.
In the modern era custom designed hardware may become more appealing than ever. This hardware will be specifically designed to better integrate emerging storage technologies (like SSD), reduce data center floor space consumption and support the demands of hosting more of the storage and network resources.
Modern hosts will likely need to leverage an iPhone-like development strategy, where commonly available off the shelf hardware and software is combined with custom designed hardware to provide a highly integrated host experience. In this environment the server network will be replaced by a private internal network that may not even be visible to the IT administrator. In similar fashion the storage network and storage devices may be integrated directly into the host with no external connections maintained by the IT staff.
Storage serves as a good early example of this trend. Something that is being called software defined storage. This next wave of storage removes the storage devices from the proprietary storage chassis that used to hold them captive. These devices will be placed inside these new highly customized and integrated chassis and be a mixture of flash storage and hard drive based storage.
The software within these modern hosts will work with the other similar hosts to provide a host side pool of storage for redundancy but with the intelligence to keep one copy of each VM’s data local to the host that houses that virtual machine. These modern hosts will also be able to granulize within that host moving the most heavily accessed virtual machine data to the embedded flash storage devices.
For IT vendors their users will be asking for a level of integration and consolidation that has not been seen before. Server vendors may need to move away from legacy designs built for the stand-alone server era to servers that include a tighter integration of compute, storage and networking.
The initial attempts at converging compute, storage and networking onto a single set of hosts have, for the most part, been pre-packaging efforts more than direct integration. The converged architecture typically is a partnership between a server vendor, a storage vendor and a network vendor with some pre-integration work included. These may reduce implementation time and reduce order errors but don’t reduce data center floor space concerns or day-to-day administration tasks.
Existing server vendors will be faced with either reinventing their current offerings or buying emerging companies that already provide these solutions. Existing storage vendors may be forced to host more than just storage services on their systems and start adding compute and networking. This level of integration may be outside of the capabilities of both organizations and they may go looking for a solution in the form of an emerging technology start-up.
The problem is that there are fewer emerging server hardware companies than there are emerging vendors in any other technology category. One exception is Nutanix. They have developed a highly consolidated host architecture that can provide all the services in a single, custom designed package. They have accomplished more than just pre-packaging but are providing a totally integrated solution that eliminates significant parts of the storage and network infrastructures.
Conclusion
Host consolidation through increased virtual machine density is well underway. However, this consolidation puts new demands on already strained legacy architectures. Customers looking for maximum virtual machine density should begin to explore converged architectures like Nutanix to achieve these goals. Doing so puts those organizations in excellent positions to also embrace the next wave of virtualization, consolidation of the storage and network resources.
Nutanix is a client of Storage Switzerland
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George Crump is the Chief Marketing Officer at VergeIO, the leader in Ultraconverged Infrastructure. Prior to VergeIO he was Chief Product Strategist at StorONE. Before assuming roles with innovative technology vendors, George spent almost 14 years as the founder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland. In his spare time, he continues to write blogs on Storage Switzerland to educate IT professionals on all aspects of data center storage. He is the primary contributor to Storage Switzerland and is a heavily sought-after public speaker. With over 30 years of experience designing storage solutions for data centers across the US, he has seen the birth of such technologies as RAID, NAS, SAN, Virtualization, Cloud, and Enterprise Flash. Before founding Storage Switzerland, he was CTO at one of the nation's largest storage integrators, where he was in charge of technology testing, integration, and product selection.
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