AZ-800 Administering Windows Server Hybrid Core Infrastructure Exam

Provision and Optimize Storage Pools and Virtual Disks

Provisioning and optimizing storage pools and virtual disks is essential for building a resilient and high-performing hybrid storage environment. Storage pools are groups of physical disks that you can manage as a single unit. From these pools, you create virtual disks that appear to the operating system like normal disks but offer flexibility in resiliency and performance. Planning your pool and disk layout ensures you can handle failures and maintain throughput.

Database workloads such as SAP HANA rely on very low storage latency even though most data is in memory. Critical operations like transaction log writes and crash recovery still depend on disk performance. To meet these needs, use Azure premium storage tiers like Premium SSD v1/v2, Ultra Disk, or Azure NetApp Files. These choices keep latency low and ensure your database remains responsive under load.

When selecting storage types, it’s important to balance cost, performance, and capacity. Consider:

• Azure storage type based on workload requirements and cost constraints.
• VM I/O throughput and IOPS limits, which vary by VM size.
• Avoid configurations that exceed your VM’s maximum throughput, as this can create bottlenecks.

To boost IOPS or throughput, you can use disk striping or data partitioning. Disk striping spreads data across multiple disks to improve speed, often set up with tools like LVM or MDADM in Windows Server. However, SAP HANA’s built-in partitioning can simplify management by automatically distributing data volumes across Azure disks. Both approaches help you scale performance without adding complexity.

In a Kubernetes environment, storage provisioning can be handled in two ways:

• Static provisioning uses pre-created SMB or NFS shares that administrators manage manually.
• Dynamic provisioning relies on StorageClass objects that automate volume creation when needed.
  Finally, cloud tiering with Azure Stack Edge Pro allows hot data to remain local while colder data moves to cloud storage. This hybrid approach balances local performance with scalable cloud capacity.

Conclusion

Configuring and managing Storage Spaces in hybrid deployments involves creating flexible storage pools and virtual disks that meet performance and resiliency goals. You must choose the right Azure storage types and size VM I/O resources to support workloads like SAP HANA. Techniques such as disk striping and partitioning help optimize throughput, while Kubernetes provisioning options and cloud tiering enable seamless integration between on-premises and cloud storage. By following these practices, you ensure balanced throughput, fault tolerance, and efficient use of resources in a hybrid Windows Server environment.