Virtualization has been effective in providing performance isolation and proportional allocation ... more Virtualization has been effective in providing performance isolation and proportional allocation of resources, such as CPU and memory between VMs by using automated distributed resource schedulers and VM migration. Storage VMotion allows users to migrate virtual hard disks from one data store to another without stopping the virtual machine. There is a dire need for an automated tool to manage storage resources more effectively by doing virtual disk placement and load balancing of workloads across multiple data stores. This problem 1 is quite challenging because it requires modeling both VM workloads and characterizing underlying devices. Furthermore, device characteristics such as number of disks backing a LUN, disk types etc. are hidden from the hosts by the virtualization layer at the array.
Server virtualization is accelerating the already existing need for shared storage area network (... more Server virtualization is accelerating the already existing need for shared storage area network (SAN) infrastructure for the associated benefits of migration, flexible management and economies of sharing. Understanding the characteristics of a workload in terms of access locality, IO sizes, read write ratio etc. is crucial for effective placement and consolidation. The lack of visibility into workload details and placement often leads to design inefficiencies and overprovisioning.
Rapid adoption of virtualization technologies has led to increased utilization of physical resour... more Rapid adoption of virtualization technologies has led to increased utilization of physical resources, which are multiplexed among numerous workloads with varying demands and importance. Virtualization has also accelerated the deployment of shared storage systems, which offer many advantages in such environments. Effective resource management for shared storage systems is challenging, even in research systems with complete end-to-end control over all system components. Commercially-available storage arrays typically offer only limited, proprietary support for controlling service rates, which is insufficient for isolating workloads sharing the same storage volume or LUN.
Virtualization has been effective in providing performance isolation and proportional allocation ... more Virtualization has been effective in providing performance isolation and proportional allocation of resources, such as CPU and memory between VMs by using automated distributed resource schedulers and VM migration. Storage VMotion allows users to migrate virtual hard disks from one data store to another without stopping the virtual machine. There is a dire need for an automated tool to manage storage resources more effectively by doing virtual disk placement and load balancing of workloads across multiple data stores. This problem 1 is quite challenging because it requires modeling both VM workloads and characterizing underlying devices. Furthermore, device characteristics such as number of disks backing a LUN, disk types etc. are hidden from the hosts by the virtualization layer at the array.
Server virtualization is accelerating the already existing need for shared storage area network (... more Server virtualization is accelerating the already existing need for shared storage area network (SAN) infrastructure for the associated benefits of migration, flexible management and economies of sharing. Understanding the characteristics of a workload in terms of access locality, IO sizes, read write ratio etc. is crucial for effective placement and consolidation. The lack of visibility into workload details and placement often leads to design inefficiencies and overprovisioning.
Rapid adoption of virtualization technologies has led to increased utilization of physical resour... more Rapid adoption of virtualization technologies has led to increased utilization of physical resources, which are multiplexed among numerous workloads with varying demands and importance. Virtualization has also accelerated the deployment of shared storage systems, which offer many advantages in such environments. Effective resource management for shared storage systems is challenging, even in research systems with complete end-to-end control over all system components. Commercially-available storage arrays typically offer only limited, proprietary support for controlling service rates, which is insufficient for isolating workloads sharing the same storage volume or LUN.
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Papers by Irfan Ahmad