storage domain
A storage domain is a logical grouping of physical storage (like drive groups) that allows for the organized management of data in IT environments. It can be used to partition storage for specific purposes, such as separating data by department, access frequency, or confidentiality level. In virtualization, it's a collection of images and virtual machine disks, which can be either a block device (SAN) or a file system (NAS).
Key functions and benefits
- Logical grouping: A storage domain creates a virtual storage pool from different drive groups, providing flexibility in how you group and manage data.
- Performance management: Assigning specific volumes to a storage domain can reduce I/O contention among volumes, improving performance.
- Policy enforcement: It allows administrators to assign different policies, such as those for deduplication or backups, to different sets of data.
Data security: Domains can be created to enforce confidentiality by grouping highly sensitive data separately.Virtualization support: In virtualization platforms like Red Hat Virtualization, storage domains are used to store virtual disks, templates, and snapshots for virtual machines.
Common examples
- A domain for "Customer Data" that is separate from a "Product Data" domain.
- A domain for high-performance applications that uses faster storage tiers.
- A domain for virtual machine backups that has a different policy than the domain for the live virtual machines.
- A domain that is specific to a particular department, such as the marketing department's files.