Storage for the virtualized environment – presented as file or block based resources, accessed through storage repositories or directly attached to virtual machines – must be configured on the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance ZS7-2, which is installed inside the appliance base rack. Co-engineered with Oracle Private Cloud Appliance, the ZFS storage appliance adds the extreme performance and efficiency required by demanding enterprise applications and unpredictable cloud workloads. It adds a usable capacity of 200TB to the system and leverages the high bandwidth and low latency of the appliance Ethernet fabric.

The storage resources are accessed through the dedicated internal storage network, which is a redundant 40Gbit Ethernet connection between the spine switches and the storage appliance. All four storage controller interfaces are bonded into one datalink.

The Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance ZS7-2 is physically connected to the spine switches through a redundant 40Gbit Ethernet connection. All four storage controller interfaces are bonded using LACP into one datalink. This way of connecting compute and storage hardware provides excellent performance and flexibility. Flexible storage provisioning is critical to support the diverse workloads of a private cloud environment. Virtual disks in an Oracle VM repository are a convenient way to provide disk space to a virtual machine. However, many configurations also require shared storage in the form of mounted NFS volumes, and in some cases a directly attached iSCSI physical disk is preferable. The storage architecture of Oracle Private Cloud at Customer enables any desired combination.

The default storage configuration consists of a 100TB LUN-based storage repository presented to the hypervisor, and a 50TB NFS share accessible to virtual machines through a custom network. The remaining space of the 200TB capacity is held in reserve for the provisioning of iSCSI LUNs or additional repositories. Further allocation of storage resources is managed within Oracle Enterprise Manager. Note that the customer may select a different storage configuration prior to system initialization.

The Oracle Private Cloud at Customer subscription can be expanded to include additional storage. Customers who need more disk space for their workloads can add high-capacity and/or high-performance storage to their subscription. The extra disk shelves – up to 14 outside of the base rack – are installed in a separate rack, and are connected to, and managed by the pair of controllers already present inside the base rack.