Advancing Integration of Microsoft Hyper-V and Dell EqualLogic Virtualized SANs

Virtualization has become an essential data center technology, allowing IT administrators to consolidate server infrastructure and reduce costs while enhancing service levels. Today, many organizations are advancing toward the next step, which is to couple storage virtualization with server virtualization in a highly available, scalable, and manageable environment. Building the foundation for these next-generation data center infrastructures requires well-integrated server and storage virtualization platforms.

With Microsoft^®  Windows Server^®  2008 Hyper-V^TM  technology, server virtualization has the potential to become increasingly widespread, reaching a wide range of organizations. Hyper-V is a simplified virtualization platform integrated directly into Dell-supported Microsoft Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition operating systems. Dell supports Hyper-V on systems designed to support virtualization workloads, including a broad range of current- and previous-generation Dell^TM PowerEdge^TM  servers.

Dell EqualLogic^TM  PS Series Internet SCSI (iSCSI) storage area network (SAN) arrays can provide a cost-effective platform to help simplify storage virtualization in Hyper-V environments—including high availability, enterprise-caliber reliability and management, ease of deployment, and integration with Hyper-V. Dell and Microsoft have worked together on several advanced integration features: the innovative Dell EqualLogic Multipath I/O device-specific module is designed to automatically optimize server-to-storage connections, while Dell EqualLogic Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition helps provide data protection and rapid recovery for Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server^® environments. This integration enables Dell EqualLogic PS Series iSCSI SAN arrays to complement Microsoft Hyper-V, helping provide the storage capabilities needed to complete the next-generation data center.

By Stanley L. Stevens and Darren W. Miller

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