iSCSI on vSAN Stretched Cluster

vSAN readers will most likely be aware that we introduced support for iSCSI on vSAN way back in vSAN 6.5. That is to say, we had the ability to create iSCSI targets and LUNs using vSAN objects, and present the LUNs to external iSCSI initiators. That release also supported Persistent Group Reservations (PGRs) but it did lack transparent failover. We followed this up with an enhancement in vSAN 6.7 which enabled transparent failover. This enabled support for features like Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) to work on iSCSI on vSAN, if using shared disk mode as it uses reservations on…

What’s in the vSphere and vSAN 6.7 release?

Today VMware unveils vSphere version 6.7, which also includes a new version of vSAN. In this post, I am going to highlight some of the big-ticket items that are in vSphere 6.7 from a core storage perspective, and also some of the new feature that you will find in vSAN 6.7. I’ll also cover some of the new enhancements coming in Virtual Volumes (VVols).

Upcoming VMUG webinar – vSphere 6.5 Core Storage

A quick note to let you know that I am co-presenting on an upcoming VMUG webinar with my good pal, Cody Hosterman, from Pure Storage. The subject is vSphere 6.5 Core Storage, and this is very much the same topic that we presented at VMworld 2017. We will cover new limits, deed dive into VMFS-6 and VAAI enhancements (including automated UNMAP), cover what’s new in NFS and iSCSI, and then finish with an overview of what we’ve done in the NVMe space. The webinar takes place on Thursday, November 16, 2017 at 11:00 AM US Central Standard Time. Cody and…

VMworld 2017 Session on vSphere 6.5 Core Storage now on YouTube

A quick note to let you know that the session that I delivered on day 1 of VMworld 2017 is now available on YouTube. The session is entitled “A Deep Dive into vSphere 6.5 Core Storage Features and Functionality” and I delivered this with Cody Hosterman of Pure Storage. Judging by the feedback, and the number of passing comments I received in the hallways at VMworld over the past 2 days, it seems that this session was very well received indeed. Hope you like it.

Virtually Speaking Podcast Episode #34 – Core Storage

Many readers will be aware that John Nicholson and Pete Fletcha of the VMware Storage and Availability Tech Marketing team run a weekly podcast show called  Virtually Speaking. This week I am back as a guest on their show, alongside Cody Hosterman of Pure Storage. We discuss a lot of the new core storage features in vSphere 6.5, which were detailed in a co-produced white paper that we recently created. You can read about how to get the white paper here. You can listen to the podcast through the player below. I hope you enjoy it.

Determining if an array supports automated unmap in vSphere 6.5

Many of you will be aware of the new core storage features that were introduced in vSphere 6.5. If not, you can learn about them in this recently published white paper. Without doubt, the feature that has created the most amount of interest is automated unmap (finally, I hear you say!). Now a few readers have asked about the following comment in the automated unmap section. Automatic UNMAP is not supported on arrays with UNMAP granularity greater than 1MB. Auto UNMAP feature support is footnoted in the VMware Hardware Compatibility Guide (HCL). So where do you find this info in…

vSphere 6.5 Core Storage White Paper Now Available

I’m delighted to announce the availability of a new vSphere 6.5 core storage white paper. The paper covers new features such as VMFS-6 enhancements, policy driven Storage I/O Control, policy driven VM Encryption, NFS and iSCSI improvements and of course new limit increases in vSphere 6.5. There are too many VMware folks to thank for putting this paper together, but you’ll find them all listed in the acknowledgements section. I do want to mention one person however; a very special thanks to Cody Hosterman of Pure Storage who spent a lot of time testing many of these new features, and…