Block Storage and Object Storage are two methods of data storage. Let’s see in detail what it is and what services they offer.

It is very important to understand what the Block storage and Object storage is as they play a key role when it comes to optimizing the use of Cloud services, particularly in storage and the creation of local infrastructure projects. See below what it is in the detail.

Block Storage

The block storage is a storage type of data used in environments of Storage Area Network (SAN), which provides data storage volumes in those blocks. Each block is configured as a single hard disk and is configured as a single hard disk and is configured by the administrator. These blocks are controlled by the operating system and are generally called by the Fibre Channel (FC), Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) or iSCSI protocols.

Because volumes are treated individually as hard drives, the Block Storage works well by storing a variety of applications such as file systems and databases. While storage devices tend to be complex and expensive, the Block Storage tends to be more flexible and provides better performance.

The block storage devices offer a storage capacity fixed. Each volume can be treated as an independent disk drives controlled by an external source. This device can be mounted by the host operating system as if it were a physical disk. The most common examples of Block Storage are San, iSCSI and local disks. They system of Block Storage is the one most commonly used for most applications and can be local or via the network. The devices are usually formatted with a file system FAT32, NTFS, EXT3 and EXT4.

When using the Block Storage?

The block storage is ideal for databases as they require high I/O performance and low latency connections feature. It can be used for RAID volumes where multiple disks are combined. Each application that needs processing as Java, PHP and .Net need of Block Storage, ditto for critical applications such as Oracle, SAP, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint.

Object Storage

The object storage is a tool for archiving data between cloud computing.

Object storage and block storage represent the two storage services in the cloud. Above we focused on the Block storage; we have seen how it works and what the solutions available in the Cloud are. Now, we will focus, instead, on the object storage.

The Object Storage is an architecture that manages the data as objects, in contrasts to other storage architecture like file system, which provides the management of data according to a hierarchy of files treated as blocks within individual sectors. Each Object typically includes the data, a variable amount of metadata and a globally unique identifier. The Objet Storage can be implemented in multiple levels and includes the device level, the system level and the interface level.

The data held on devices Object Storage can be accesses directly through the API or http/https, can store any type of data, photos, videos and log files. This type of storage ensures that data is not lost. Data stored in this way can be replicated across multiple data centers and offer simple interface for Web access.

Object storage applications

A simple to use the Object Storage may be represented by the use of service as a means of storage for developers who work with large quantities of media and need unlimited storage. The Object Storage, in fact, become gradually more and more attractive as soon as the data to be archived increased dramatically, as happens to with eNlight Cloud Services that allow users to upload media files (especially video).

Storage of unstructured data such as music, pictures and video, but also backup, database dump and log files are the most common cases of use of the Object Storage.

1. Summary
2. Creating a virtual switch
3. Connection sharing

Summary

When you work in VMware Player or Workstation, it is possible to connect a VM in NAT network level. This allows the VM to hide on the physical host, while you can enjoy access to the local network that is connected to the physical host.

But when you work in Hyper-V, this possibility isn’t integrated. It can be a problem especially Hyper-V can be installed on client version of Windows, i.e. to say from Windows 8. In general with its workstation that acts as Hypervisor, it may connect to various networks (especially if it’s a laptop). In some cases, the network connection is complicated. Specifically on the command line when to authenticate to a proxy for a web page and that one has no GUI.

To work around this limitation and enjoy the NAT under Hyper-V, we will see here a whole technical functional flow.

The aim is to create a new virtual switch “Internal” in the Hyper-V console, and then make a connection between the virtual and physical network card connected through connection sharing concept. Then simply put a virtual machine on the new virtual switch that will be called “NAT” and will get a DHCP address by, and will access the LAN through NAT!

Creating a Virtual Switch

1. Open the Hyper-V Manager, and on the right pane in the “Actions” Click “Virtual Switch Manager”.
2. Click on “New Virtual Network Switch” and select “Internal”.

Name this virtual switch as desired and press “OK”. Calling it “NAT” sounds like a good name 🙂 !

The first stage is complete, move to the suite.

Connection Sharing

1. On your host, go to Control Panel and click “Network and Sharing Center”.
2. Select the card you want to make the connection (to connect “NAT”), such as “Wi-Fi”.
3. Double-Click the “Name of the Connection”.
4. The tab “Sharing – “enable” – Allow for other network users to connect through the Internet connection of your computer.
5. Select “vEthernet” (NAT) which is the virtual that has just been created.

Note: This configuration uses the principle of hosted networks.

Confirm the configuration and close the network properties.

Note: If you enable sharing on your Wi-Fi card, it will reconfigure the share on the Ethernet 
Network Card you should need to user it. The rocker is not automatic and sharing can be active
only one card for the same network.

It only remains to connect the virtual machine on the virtual switch called “NAT” and done!

We can also see from this virtual machine, the DHCP is active and that address is received, while checking that one is output from the Wi-Fi network adapter to ping the Internet.

• Introduction
• Type 1 Hypervisor
• Type 2 Hypervisor

Hypervisors are increasingly present in enterprise architecture since the virtualization growth started and was quickly adapted by the industries. There are many solutions and more or less expensive, but when it comes to the hypervisor, there are only two types. Isn’t this surprising to you? Anyway, your server must have a hardware technology supporting Intel-VT or AMD-V to virtualize power.

Type 1

It is a system that installs directly on the server hardware layer. These systems are alleviated so as to “focus” on the management of guest operating systems is to say, those used by the virtual machines they contain. This releases the greatest possible resources for virtual machines. However, it is possible to execute only one hypervisor on both the servers.

Among type 1 hypervisors there are systems like Xen, VMware ESX and Proxmox.

Type 2

Here, it is software that installs and runs on an operating system already in place. Therefore, more resources are used for rotating the hypervisor and the operating system that supports it, there is therefore less resources available for the virtual machines. Interesting thing that can be found is the ability to run multiple hypervisors simultaneously as they are not related to the hardware layer.

Among the type 2 hypervisor, we find VMware Player, VMware Workstation and VirtualBox VirtualPC.