I learnt something interesting about Virtual Volumes (VVols) last week. It relates to the way in which snapshots have been implemented in VVols. Historically, VM snapshots have left a lot to be desired. So much so, that GSS best practices for VM snapshots as per KB article 1025279 recommends having on 2-3 snapshots in a chain (even though the maximum is 32) and to use no single snapshot for more than 24-72 hours. VVol mitigates these restrictions significantly, not just because snapshots can be offloaded to the array, but also in the way consolidate and revert operations are implemented.
There are a couple of key concepts to understanding Virtual Volumes (or VVols for short). VVols is one of the key new storage features in vSphere 6.0. You can get an overview of VVols from this post. The first key concept is VASA – vSphere APIs for Storage Awareness. I wrote about the initial release of VASA way back in the vSphere 5.0 launch. VASA has changed significantly to support VVols, with the introduction of version 2.0 in vSphere 6.0, but that is a topic for another day. Another key feature is the concept of a Protocol Endpoint, a logical I/O…
Recently I published an article on Virtual Volumes (VVols) where I touched on a comparison between how migrations typically worked with VAAI and how they now work with VVols. In the meantime, I managed to have some really interesting discussions with some of our VVol leads, and I thought it worth sharing here as I haven’t seen this level of detail anywhere else. This is rather a long discussion, as there are a lot of different permutations of migrations that can take place. There are also different states that the virtual machine could be in. We’re solely focused on VVols…
Another hyper-converged storage company has just emerged out of stealth. Last week I had the opportunity to catch up with the team from SpringPath (formerly StorVisor), based in Silicon Valley. The company has a bunch of ex-VMware folks on-board, such as Mallik Mahalingam and Krishna Yadappanavar. Mallik and Krishna were both involved in a number of I/O related initiatives during their time at VMware. Let’s take a closer look at their new hyper-converged storage product.
I pushed this post out a bit as I know that there is a huge amount of information out there around virtual volumes already. This must be one of the most anticipated storage features of all time, with the vast majority of our partners ready to deliver VVol-Ready storage arrays once vSphere 6.0 becomes generally available. We’ve been talking about VVols for some time now. Actually, even I have been talking about it for some time – look at this tech preview that I did way back in 2012 – I mean, it even includes a video! Things have changed…
After a great VMworld 2014 in San Francisco, it’s nearly time for the European version which is once again in the beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain. I thought I’d put together a short post on some of my activities, Hopefully you can join me for some. Introduction to Virtual Volumes – vBrownBag session (Tuesday, October 14th at 2:15pm – Hang Space) I’m delighted to be joined by Nick Dyer of Nimble Storage for an overview of our forthcoming Virtual Volumes. I’ll be sharing our vision for VVols in the whole Software Define Storage story, and Nick will share with you…
Yesterday saw the release of vCloud Suite 5.8. While there are quite a few new enhancements to the VMware product line in this release, what really jumped out at me were the new PowerCLI cmdlets for Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM). SPBM is a critical component of VIrtual SAN (VSAN), and will play a major role in the Virtual Volumes (VVols) feature which has been tech previewed at VMworld 2014. VVols will enable our storage array partners to implement out Software Defined Storage vision – you can read more about there. So what are the new cmdlets for PowerCLI in…