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…
There was a time when VMFS was the only datastore that could be used with ESXi. That has changed considerably, with the introduction of NFS (v3 and v4.1), Virtual Volumes and of course Virtual SAN. However VMFS continues to be used by a great many VMware customers and of course we look to enhance it with each release of vSphere. This post will cover changes and enhancements to VMFS in vSphere 6.0.
OK – not storage improvements per-se, but I got into the habit of documenting our Microsoft Clustering Services (MSCS) improvements some time back, and habits die-hard. Many of our customers continue to run Microsoft Clustering Services (MSCS) on top of vSphere. This is well-recognized, and VMware continues to improve and add features around this for our customers. vSphere 6.0 is no different, with a selection of improved functionality around MSCS on vSphere.
We made a number of enhancements to Storage DRS in vSphere 6.0. This article will discuss the changes and enhancements that we have made. There is a white paper which discusses many of the previous limitations of Storage DRS interoperability and I’d recommend reviewing it. Although a number of years old, it highlights many of the Storage DRS interoperability concerns. As you will see, a great any of these have now been addressed, along with some pretty interesting feature enhancements.
Although most of my time is dedicated to Virtual SAN (VSAN) these days, I am still very interested in the core storage features that are part of vSphere. I reached out earlier to a number of core storage product managers and engineers to find out what new and exciting features are included in vSphere 6.0. The first feature is one that I know a lot of customers are waiting on – NFS v4.1. Yes, it’s finally here.
The embargo on what’s new in vSphere 6.0 has now been lifted, so we can now start to discuss publicly about new features and functionality. For the last number of months, I’ve been heavily involved in preparing for the Virtual SAN launch. What follows is a brief description of what I find to be the most interesting and exciting of the upcoming features in Virtual SAN 6.0. Later on, I will be following up with more in-depth blog posts on the new features and functionality.