xStack Storage DSN-Series SAN Arrays
VMware ESX 3.0.2 & 3.5
D-Link Systems, Inc. Page
4
December 2, 2009
The xStack Storage Series iSCSI SAN solution is designed for different sized customers and
varying environments and is easy to configure to provide storage to VMware hosts.
This document will describe the xStack Storage Series, document how to configure with
VMware, and then, using a database workload running on two virtual machines to demonstrate
usage.
The configuration shown in this paper represent a single, high-level view of the usage of the
xStack Storage array with a simple virtualization workload running on only 5 disks in each array.
Typical customer use scenarios will employ larger disk arrays supporting a variety of
applications, which may result in varying performance results.
xStack Storage Family
D-Link’s virtualized storage technology is revolutionizing the way small and medium enterprises
will manage their storage. Our virtualized storage pool eliminates the complexities associated
with managing traditional RAID. Best of all, D-Link’s iSCSI storage arrays are affordable.
Provision your storage from a single pool of available storage. There is no need to dedicate drive
groups or entire arrays to RAID types or manage individual LUNS. Wizard driven provisioning is
as simple as selecting a volume size and the appropriate application type from a menu. Seasoned
storage administrators have the option of defining volumes with more granularity if desired. The
advanced intelligence of the system allows for multiple virtual volumes with mixed RAID types
to coexist on the same drives. Each application can have a Quality of Service tailored to the needs
of the specific application. Application aware cache algorithms dynamically adjust to each
application, further optimizing performance. By eliminating RAID groups, volumes can span
across the total quantity of disks in the system, thereby further increasing performance. The
benefits of these features become increasingly critical in mixed workload and virtualized server
environments where multiple application types concurrently access the system resources.
All xStack Storage family
models are comprised of these features. And, all targets work with
either VMWare ESX 3.0.2 & 3.5 Server.