Toby Smith Stock Review

[MLD38]

Virtualization: data transfer speeds, etc

Virtualization, bandwidth intensive applications, and an upgrade cycle are essential for corporate spending in an effort to reduce IT budgets and push for higher productivity levels.


The Virtues of Virtualization
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071130_755713.htm?campaign_id=yhoo
...S&P says spending on virtualization software and services is likely to skyrocket, with VMWare, Citrix, and Dell's EqualLogic leading the race...
...Virtualization typically refers to a single computer safely running multiple operating systems and applications simultaneously. Virtualization can reduce the number of servers and related information-technology hardware in the data center, resulting in cost savings in real estate and electricity....
..."Virtualization is an evolutionary step in the information life-cycle management process, enhancing the management of complex disparate applications and the vast amounts of unstructured data being created by consumers and at the enterprise level"...



Virtual environment & capability to accelerate data with zero tolerance for WAN congestion:

acceleration and latency mitigation

http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=6530

...“One of the forthcoming mandates that businesses will adopt will be a virtual environment based on Terminal Services over RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) migrating eventually to a Virtual Desktop Integration platform,....

...for Terminal Services to be properly deployed as a best practice, it needs to have the capability to accelerate data and have zero tolerance for WAN congestion....




Dec 2006: Virtualization Mistakes and Customer Demands for Higher Bandwidth
http://weblog.infoworld.com/virtualization/archives/2006/12/virtualization_19.html
...To make the most out of your virtualization environment, the key is to set it up properly from the very beginning. In order to do that, you should avoid some of the common blunders found in virtualization implementation. Once you get your virtualization environment up and running, you might find that you are bandwidth limited. Many satisfied virtualization customers are finding that out as we speak. And QLogic and Emulex are trying to help...


Nov 19, 2007: transport of large volumes of data
http://www.gridtoday.com/grid/1893496.html
..."two demonstrations at the SC07 Conference in Reno, Nev. to show leading-edge capabilities designed for the high-bandwidth needs of the research community worldwide. The demonstrations involve the transport of large volumes of data at rates significantly in excess of 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) by infrastructure built to support the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), over a 40 Gbps network and the use of Generalized Multi Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) User to Network Interface (UNI) signaling between routers and optical systems to provision bandwidth on demand"....
...Over the course of the two-day SC07 exhibition session, each participating organization
-- Caltech, ESnet, Fermilab, Infinera, Internet2, Juniper Networks, and Level 3 Communications --
leveraged its unique networking, computation, and storage capabilities to support the demonstration....
Infinera's Digital Optical Networking systems
...use bandwidth virtualization to enable 40 Gbps services to travel over existing optical infrastructures,...



Cisco boosts bandwidth with 'virtualized' switches
http://www.news.com/Cisco-boosts-bandwidth-with-virtualized-switches/2100-1033_3-6217994.html
includes
...paired with a software engine that enables the "virtualization" of the switching hardware, by combining multiple switches to act as one node on the network...
...combining the switches multiplies the bandwidth on the network--which can reach 1.44Tbps (terabits per second)--because those that are virtualized are seen as a single node with one IP address. The management of multiple switches is also simplified...


Nov 19, 2007, Opinion: What you don't virtualize can hurt you
...Congested networks can quickly mitigate whatever initial benefits virtualization delivers...
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Storage&articleId=9049940&taxonomyId=19
...In the frenzy to virtualize servers, companies are forgetting to virtualize an important and yet critical component of their infrastructures: the network addresses and I/O of the Ethernet and Fibre Channel cards on the physical servers that host virtual machines (VMs)....
Virtualized Ethernet and Fibre Channel cards or their I/O is easy to overlook.
...Administrators may correctly assume that there is ample bandwidth on the server's Ethernet and Fibre Channel cards to support the normal workload of the multiple VMs it hosts. The problem is that VM workloads can become abnormal. Spikes in read or write I/O on one VM may immediately adversely affect the I/O performance of other VMs hosted by that physical server. Equally problematic are backups, especially full server backups. Backing up a single VM can quickly congest network pipes and degrade the performance of other VMs on that server....
There are two new ways that companies can use to address this issue:
One is to use intelligent Ethernet network interface cards (NIC) and Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBA) that create virtual NICs and virtual HBAs.
...These cards assign specific virtual NICs and virtual HBAs to each VM, which then logs into Ethernet or Fibre Channel networks using these unique IDs. Administrators may then set policies that limit that VM's bandwidth consumption based on these VM identifiers.
The other option is to eliminate these cards entirely by using InfiniBand.
...InfiniBand virtualizes Ethernet and Fibre Channel I/O, creates virtual NICs and HBAs like intelligent Ethernet and Fibre Channel cards, and delivers more than twice the effective bandwidth of either Ethernet or Fibre Channel cards....
Server virtualization makes sense from a lot of different perspectives,
...but congested networks can quickly mitigate whatever initial benefits virtualization delivers. By using intelligent Ethernet or Fibre Channel cards or virtualizing their I/O with InfiniBand, companies can reap the full benefits of virtualization without some of its unexpected surprises....

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In 2006, there seemed to be several service forums regarding Virtualization and slow data/file transfer speeds.
I do not know if that is still a problem or not.

There was a patent issued 2002-2003 for Wire-speed data transfer in a storage virtualization controller
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20030149848.html
....A storage virtualization controller for transferring data between a host and a storage device at a wire-speed data transfer rate. A downstream processing element adapted for connection to the storage device is configurable coupled to an upstream processing element adapted for connection to the host. A central processing element coupled to the upstream processing element grants permission to the upstream processing element to transfer the data at the wire-speed rate without further involvement by the central processing element...