VVOL Archives

February 2, 2015November 26, 2023

VMware announces vSphere V6 and associated virtualization technologies

server storage I/O trends

VMware has announced version 6 (V6) of its software defined data center (SDDC) server virtualization hypervisor called vSphere aka ESXi. In addition to a new version of its software defined server hypervisor along with companion software defined management and convergence tools.

VMware

VMware vSphere Refresh

As a refresh for those whose world does not revolve around VMware, vSphere and software defined data centers (believe it or not there are some who exist ;), ESXi is the hypervisor that virtualizes underlying physical machines (PM’s) known as hosts.

The path to software defined data center convergence

Guest operating systems (or other hypervisors using nesting) run as virtual machines (VM’s) on top of the vSphere hypervisor host (e.g. ESXi software). Various VMware management tools (or third-party) are used for managing the virtualized data center from initial configuration, configuration, conversion from physical to virtual (P2V) or virtual to virtual (V2V) along with data protection, performance, capacity planning across servers, storage and networks.

virtual machines

VMware vSphere is flexible and can adapt to different sized environments from small office home office (SOHO) or small SMB, to large SMB, SME, enterprise or cloud service provider. There are a free version of ESXi along with paid versions that include support and added management tool features. Besides the ESXi vSphere hypervisor, other commonly deployed modules include the vCenter administration along with Infrastructure Controller services platform among others. In addition, there are optional solution bundles to add support for virtual networking, cloud (public and private), data protection (backup/restore, replication, HA, BC, DR), big data among other capabilities.

What is new with vSphere V6

VMware has streamlined the installation, configuration and deployment of vSphere along with associated tools which for smaller environments makes things simply easier. For the larger environments, having to do less means being able to do more in the same amount of time which results in cost savings. In addition to easier to use, deploy and configure, VMware has extended the scaling capabilities of vSphere in terms of scaling-out (larger clusters), scaling-up (more and larger servers), as well as scaling-down (smaller environments and ease of use).

cloud virtual software defined servers

Compute: Expanded support for new hardware, guest operating systems and general scalability in terms of physical, and virtual resources. For example increasing the number of virtual CPU (vCPUs), number of cluster nodes among other speeds and feeds enhancements.

Storage: This is an area where several enhancements were made including updates for Storage I/O controls (Storage QoS and performance optimizations) with per VM reservations, NFS v4.1 with Kerberos client, Virtual SAN (VSAN) improvements (new back-end underlying file system) as well as new Virtual Volumes (vVOLs) for Storage Policy Based Management.
Availability: Improvements for vMotion (ability to live move virtual machines between physical servers (vmware hosts) including long distance fault-tolerance. Other improvements include faster replication, vMotion across vCenter servers, and long distance vMotion (up to 100ms round trip time latency).
Network: Network I/O Control (NIOC) provides per VM and dat (VM and data repository) bandwidth reservations for quality of service (QoS) performance optimization.
Management: Improvements for multi-site, virtual data centers, content-library (storage and versioning of files and objects including ISOs and OVFs (Open Virtualization Format files) that can be on a VMFS (VMware File System) dat or NFS volume, policy-based management and web-client performance enhancements.

What is vVOL?

The quick synopsis of VMware vVOL’s overview:

Higher level of abstraction of storage vs. traditional SCSI LUN’s or NAS NFS mount points
Tighter level of integration and awareness between VMware hypervisors and storage systems
Simplified management for storage and virtualization administrators
Removing complexity to support increased scaling
Enable automation and service managed storage aka software defined storage management

How data storage access and managed via VMware today (read more here)

vVOL’s are not LUN’s like regular block (e.g. DAS or SAN) storage that use SAS, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, IBA/SRP, nor are they NAS volumes like NFS mount points. Likewise vVOL’s are not accessed using any of the various object storage access methods mentioned above (e.g. AWS S3, Rest, CDMI, etc) instead they are an application specific implementation. For some of you this approach of an applications specific or unique storage access method may be new, perhaps revolutionary, otoh, some of you might be having a DejaVu moment right about now.

vVOL is not a LUN in the context of what you may know and like (or hate, even if you have never worked with them), likewise it is not a NAS volume like you know (or have heard of), neither are they objects in the context of what you might have seen or heard such as S3 among others.

Keep in mind that what makes up a VMware virtual machine are the VMK, VMDK and some other files (shown in the figure below), and if enough information is known about where those blocks of data are or can be found, they can be worked upon. Also keep in mind that at least near-term, block is the lowest common denominator that all file systems and object repositories get built-up.

How VMware data storage accessed and managed with vVOLs (read more here)

Here is the thing, while vVOL’s will be accessible via a block interface such as iSCSI, FC or FCoE or for that matter, over Ethernet based IP using NFS. Think of these storage interfaces and access mechanisms as the general transport for how vSphere ESXi will communicate with the storage system (e.g. their data path) under vCenter management.

What is happening inside the storage system that will be presented back to ESXi will be different than a normal SCSI LUN contents and only understood by VMware hypervisor. ESXi will still tell the storage system what it wants to do including moving blocks of data. The storage system however will have more insight and awareness into the context of what those blocks of data mean. This is how the storage systems will be able to more closely integrate snapshots, replication, cloning and other functions by having awareness into which data to move, as opposed to moving or working with an entire LUN where a VMDK may live.

Keep in mind that the storage system will still function as it normally would, just think of vVOL as another or new personality and access mechanism used for VMware to communicate and manage storage. Watch for vVOL storage provider support from the who’s who of existing and startup storage system providers including Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HDS, HP, IBM, NetApp, Nimble and many others. Read more about Storage I/O fundamentals here and vVOLs here and here.

What this announcement means

Depending on your experiences, you might use revolutionary to describe some of the VMware vSphere V6 features and functionalities. Otoh, if you have some Dejavu moments looking pragmatically at what VMware is delivering with V6 of vSphere executing on their vision, evolutionary might be more applicable. I will leave it up to you do decide if you are having a Dejavu moment and what that might pertain to, or if this is all new and revolutionary, or something more along the lines of technolutionary.

VMware continues to execute delivering on the Virtual Data Center aka Software Defined Data Center paradigm by increasing functionality, as well as enhancing existing capabilities with performance along with resiliency improvements. These abilities enable the aggregation of compute, storage, networking, management and policies for enabling a global virtual data center while supporting existing along with new emerging applications.

Where to learn more

If you were not part of the beta to gain early hands-on experience with VMware vSphere V6 and associated technologies, download a copy to check it out as part of making your upgrade or migration plans.

Check out the various VMware resources including communities links here
VMware vSphere Hypervisor getting started and general vSphere information (including download)
VMware vSphere data sheet, compatibility guide along with speeds and feeds (size and other limits)

VMware Blogs and VMware vExpert page

Various fellow VMware vExpert blogs including among many others vsphere-land, scott lowe, virtuallyghetto and yellow-bricks among many others found at the vpad here.

StorageIO Out and About Update – VMworld 2014 (with Video)
VMware vVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals (Storage I/O overview and vVOL, details Part I and Part II)
How many IOPs can a HDD or SSD do in a VMware environment (Part I and Part II)
VMware VSAN overview and primer, DIY converged software defined storage on a budget

Wrap up and summary

Overall VMware vSphere V6 has a great set of features that support both ease of management for small environments as well as the scaling needs of larger organizations.

Ok, nuff said, for now…

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

August 31, 2014November 26, 2023

August 2014 Server and StorageIO Update newsletter

Welcome to the August 2014 edition of the StorageIO Update (newsletter) containing trends perspectives on cloud, virtualization, software defined and data infrastructure topics. This past week I along with around 22,000 others attended VMworld 2014 in San Francisco. For those of you in Europe, VMworld Barcelona is October 14-16 2014 with registration and more information found here. Watch for more post VMworld coverage in upcoming newsletters, articles, posts along with other industry trend topics. Enjoy this edition of the StorageIO Update newsletter and look forward to catching up with you live or online while out and about this fall.

Greg Schulz @StorageIO

August 2014 Industry trend and perspectives

StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspectives

The following is a synopsis of some StorageIOblog posts, articles and comments in different venues on various industry trends, perspectives and related themes about clouds, virtualization, data and storage infrastructure topics among related themes.

StorageIO comments and perspectives in the news

StorageIO in the news

Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI) remains a popular industry and IT customer topic, not to mention being one of the favorite themes of Solid State Device (SSD) vendors. SSD component and system solution vendors along with their supporters love VDI as the by-product of aggregation (e.g. consolidation) which applies to VDI is aggravation. Aggravation is the result of increased storage I/O performance (IOP’s, bandwidth, response time) from consolidating the various desktops. It should not be a surprise that some of the biggest fans encouraging organizations to adopt VDI are the SSD vendors. Read some of my comments and perspectives on VDI here at FedTech Magazine.

Speaking of virtualizing the data center, software defined data centers (SDDC) along with software defined networking (SDN) and software defined storage (SDS) remain popular including some software defined marketing (SDM). Here are some of my comments and perspectives moving beyond the hype of SDDC.

FCIA Fibre Channel Industry Association

Recently the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) who works with the T11 standards body of both legacy or classic Fibre Channel (FC) as well as newer FC over Ethernet (FCoE) made some announcements. These announcements including enhancements such as Fibre Channel Back Bone version 6 (FC-BB-6) among others. Both FC and FCoE are alive and doing well, granted one has been around longer (FC) and can be seen at its plateau while the other (FCoE) continues to evolve and grow in adoption. In some ways, FCoE is in a similar role today to where FC was in the late 90s and early 2000s ironically facing some common fud. You can read my comments here as part of a quote in support of the announcement , along with my more industry trend perspectives in this blog post here.

Buyers guides are popular with both vendors, VAR’s as well as IT organizations (e.g. customers) following are some of my comments and industry trend perspectives appearing in Enterprise Storage Forum. Here are perspectives on buyers guides for Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS), Unified Data Storage and Object Storage. EMC has come under pressure as mentioned in earlier StorageIO update newsletters to increase its shareholder benefit including spin-off of VMware. Here are some of my comments and perspectives that appeared in CruxialCIO. Read more industry trends perspectives comments on the StorageIO news page.

StorageIO video and audio pod casts

StorageIOblog post
StorageIO audio podcasts are also available via
and at StorageIO.tv

StorageIOblog posts and perspectives

StorageIOblog post

Despite being declared dead, traditional or classic Fibre Channel (FC) along with FC over Ethernet (FCoE) continues to evolve with FC-BB-6, read more here.

VMworld 2014 took place this past week and included announcements about EVO:Rack and Rail (more on this in a future edition). You can get started learning about EVO:Rack and RAIL at Duncan Epping (aka @DuncanYB) Yellow Bricks site. VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) is at the heart of EVO which you can read an overview here in this earlier StorageIO update newsletter (March 2014).

VMware VSAN example

Also watch for some extra content that I’m working on including some video podcasts articles and blog posts from my trip to VMworld 2014. However one of the themes in the background of VMworld 2014 is the current beta of VMware vSphere V6 along with Virtual Volumes aka VVOL’s. The following are a couple of my recent posts including primer overview of VVOL’s along with a poll you can cast your vote. Check out Are VMware VVOL’s in your virtual server and storage I/O future? and VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals (Part 1) along with (Part 2).

StorageIO events and activities

Server and StorageIO seminars, conferences, web cats, events, activities

The StorageIO calendar continues to evolve including several new events being added for September and well into the fall with more in the works including upcoming Dutch European sessions the week of October 6th in Nijkerk Holland (learn more here). The following are some upcoming September events. These include live in-person seminars, conferences, keynote and speaking activities as well as on-line webinars, twitter chats, Google+ hangouts among others.

Sep 25 2014	MSP CMG	Server and StorageIO SSD industry trends perspectives and tips	TBA 9:30AM CT
Sep 18 2014	InfoWorld	Hybrid Storage In Government	Webinar 2:30PM ET
Sep 18 2014		Converged Storage and Storage Convergence	Webinar 9AM PT
Sep 17 2014		Data Center Convergence	Webinar 1PM PT
Sep 16 2014		Critical Infrastructure and Disaster Recovery	Webinar Noon PT
Sep 16 2014	Starwind Software	Software Defined Storage and Virtual SAN for Microsoft environments	Webinar 1PM CT
Sep 16 2014	Dell BackupU	Exploring the Data Protection Toolbox – Data and Application Replication	Google+ 9AM PT
Sep 2 2014	Dell BackupU	Exploring the Data Protection Toolbox – Data and Application Replication	Online Webinar 11AM PT

Note: Dates, times, venues and subject contents subject to change, refer to events page for current status

Click here to view other upcoming along with earlier event activities. Watch for more 2014 events to be added soon to the StorageIO events calendar page. Topics include data protection modernization (backup/restore, HA, BC, DR, archive), data footprint reduction (archive, compression, dedupe), storage optimization, SSD, object storage, server and storage virtualization, software defined, big data, little data, cloud and object storage, performance and management trends among others.

Vendors, VAR’s and event organizers, give us a call or send an email to discuss having us involved in your upcoming pod cast, web cast, virtual seminar, conference or other events.

Server and StorageIO Technology Tips and Tools

Server and StorageIO seminars, conferences, web cats, events, activities

In addition to the industry trends and perspectives comments in the news mentioned above, along with the StorageIO blog posts, the following are some of my recent articles and tips that have appeared in various industry venues.

Storage Acceleration

Over at the new Storage Acceleration site I have a couple of pieces, the first is What, When, Why & How to Accelerate Storage and the other is Tips for Measuring Your Storage Acceleration.
Meanwhile over at Search Storage I have a piece covering What is the difference between a storage snapshot and a clone? and at Search Cloud Storage some tips about What’s most important to know about my cloud privacy policy?. Also with Software Defined in the news and a popular industry topic, I have a piece over at Enterprise Storage Forum looking at Has Software Defined Jumped the Shark? Check out these and others on the StorageIO tips and articles page.

StorageIO Update Newsletter Archives

Click here to view earlier StorageIO Update newsletters (HTML and PDF versions) at www.storageio.com/newsletter. Subscribe to this newsletter (and pass it along) by clicking here (Via Secure Campaigner site). View archives of past StorageIO update news letters as well as download PDF versions at: www.storageio.com/newsletter

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

August 24, 2014June 13, 2021

VMware VVOLs and storage I/O fundementals (Part 2)

VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals (Part II)

Note that this is a three part series with the first piece here (e.g. Are VMware VVOL’s in your virtual server and storage I/O future?), the second piece here (e.g.VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals Part 1) and the third piece here (e.g. VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals Part 2).

Picking up from where we left off in the first part of the VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals, lets take a closer look at VVOL’s.

First however lets be clear that while VMware uses terms including object and object storage in the context of VVOL’s, its not the same as some other object storage solutions. Learn more about object storage here at www.objectstoragecenter.com

Are VVOL’s accessed like other object storage (e.g. S3)?

No, VVOL’s are accessed via the VMware software and associated API’s that are supported by various storage providers. VVOL’s are not LUN’s like regular block (e.g. DAS or SAN) storage that use SAS, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, IBA/SRP, nor are they NAS volumes like NFS mount points. Likewise VVOL’s are not accessed using any of the various object storage access methods mentioned above (e.g. AWS S3, Rest, CDMI, etc) instead they are an application specific implementation. For some of you this approach of an applications specific or unique storage access method may be new, perhaps revolutionary, otoh, some of you might be having a DejaVu moment right about now.

VVOL is not a LUN in the context of what you may know and like (or hate, even if you have never worked with them), likewise it is not a NAS volume like you know (or have heard of), neither are they objects in the context of what you might have seen or heard such as S3 among others.

VMware ESXi basic storage I/O
VMware ESXi storage I/O, IOPS and data store basics

Here is the thing, while VVOL’s will be accessible via a block interface such as iSCSI, FC or FCoE or for that matter, over Ethernet based IP using NFS. Think of these storage interfaces and access mechanisms as the general transport for how vSphere ESXi will communicate with the storage system (e.g. their data path) under vCenter management.

VMware VVOL basics
VMware VVOL concepts (in general) with VMDK being pushed down into the storage system

Think in terms of the iSCSI (or FC or something else) for block or NFS for NAS as being the addressing mechanism to communicate between ESXi and the storage array, except instead of traditional SCSI LUN access and mapping, more work and insight is pushed down into the array. Also keep in mind that with a LUN, it is simply an address from what to use Logical Block Numbers or Logical Block Addresses. In the case of a storage array, it in turn manages placement of data on SSD or HDDs in turn using blocks aka LBA/LBN’s In other words, a host that does not speak VVOL would get an error if trying to use a LUN or target on a storage system that is a VVOL, that’s assuming it is not masked or hidden ;).

What’s the Storage Provider (SP)

The Storage Provider aka SP is created by the, well, the provider of the storage system or appliance leveraging a VMware API (hint, sign up for the beta and there is an SDK). Simply put, the SP is a two-way communication mechanism leveraging VASA for reporting information, configuration and other insight up to VMware ESXi hypervisor, vCenter and other management tools. In addition the storage provider receives VASA configuration information from VMware about how to configure the storage system (e.g. storage containers). Keep in mind that the SP is the out of band management interface between the storage system supporting and presenting VVOL’s and VMware hypervisors.

What’s the Storage Container (SC)

This is a storage pool created on the storage array or appliance (e.g. VMware vCenter works with array and storage provider (SP) to create) in place of using a normal LUN. With a SP and PE, the storage container becomes visible to ESXi hosts, VVOL’s can be created in the storage container until it runs out of space. Also note that the storage container takes on the storage profile assigned to it which are inherited by the VVOLs in it. This is in place of presenting LUN’s to ESXi that you can then create VMFS data stores (or use as raw) and then carve storage to VMs.

Protocol endpoint (PE)

The PE provides visibility for the VMware hypervisor to see and access VMDK’s and other objects (e.g. .vmx, swap, etc) stored in VVOL’s. The protocol endpoint (PE) manages or directs I/O received from the VM enabling scaling across many virtual volumes leveraging multipathing of the PE (inherited by the VVOL’s.). Note that for storage I/O operations, the PE is simply a pass thru mechanism and does not store the VMDK or other contents. If using iSCSI, FC, FCoE or other SAN interface, then the PE works on a LUN basis (again not actually storing data), and if using NAS NFS, then with a mount point. Key point is that the PE gets out-of-the-way.

VVOL Poll

What are you VVOL plans, view results and cast your vote here

Wrap up (for now)

There certainly are many more details to VVOL’s. that you can get a preview of in the beta, a well as via various demos, webinars, VMworld sessions as more becomes public. However for now, hope you found this quick overview on VVOL’s. of use, since VVOL’s. at the time of this writing are not yet released, you will need to wait for more detailed info, or join the beta or poke around the web (for now). Also if you have not seen the first part overview to this piece, check it out here as I give some more links to get you started to learn more about VVOL’s.

Keep an eye on and learn more about VVOL’s. at VMworld 2014 as well as in various other venues.

IMHO VVOL’s. are or will be in your future, however the question will be is there going to be a back to the future moment for some of you with VVOL’s.?

What VVOL questions, comments and concerns are in your future and on your mind?

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

August 24, 2014March 8, 2022

VMware VVOLs storage I/O fundementals (Part 1)

VMware VVOL’s storage I/O fundamentals (Part I)

Some of you may already be participating in the VMware beta of VVOL involving one of the initial storage vendors also in the beta program.

Ok, now let’s go a bit deeper, however if you want some good music to listen to while reading this, check out @BruceRave GoDeepMusic.Net and shows here.

Taking a step back, digging deeper into Storage I/O and VVOL’s fundamentals

Instead of a VM host accessing its virtual disk (aka VMDK) which is stored in a VMFS formatted data store (part of ESXi hypervisor) built on top of a SCSI LUN (e.g. SAS, SATA, iSCSI, Fibre Channel aka FC, FCoE aka FC over Ethernet, IBA/SRP, etc) or an NFS file system presented by a storage system (or appliance), VVOL’s push more functionality and visibility down into the storage system. VVOL’s shift more intelligence and work from the hypervisor down into the storage system. Instead of a storage system simply presenting a SCSI LUN or NFS mount point and having limited (coarse) to no visibility into how the underlying storage bits, bytes as well as blocks are being used, storage systems gain more awareness.

Keep in mind that even files and objects still get ultimately mapped to pages and blocks aka sectors even on nand flash-based SSD’s. However also keep an eye on some new technology such as the Seagate Kinetic drive that instead of responding to SCSI block based commands, leverage object API’s and associated software on servers. Read more about these emerging trends here and here at objectstoragecenter.com.

With a normal SCSI LUN the underlying storage system has no knowledge of how the upper level operating system, hypervisor, file system or application such as a database (doing raw IO) is allocating the pages or blocks of memory aka storage. It is up to the upper level storage and data management tools to map from objects and files to the corresponding extents, pages and logical block address (LBA) understood by the storage system. In the case of a NAS solution, there is a layer of abstractions placed over the underlying block storage handling file management and the associated file to LBA mapping activity.

Storage I/O basics
Storage I/O and IOP basics and addressing: LBA’s and LBN’s

Getting back to VVOL, instead of simply presenting a LUN which is essentially a linear range of LBA’s (think of a big table or array) that the hypervisor then manages data placement and access, the storage system now gains insight into what LBA’s correspond to various entities such as a VMDK or VMX, log, clone, swap or other VMware objects. With this more insight, storage systems can now do native and more granular functions such as clone, replication, snapshot among others as opposed to simply working on a coarse LUN basis. The similar concepts extend over to NAS NFS based access. Granted, there are more to VVOL’s including ability to get the underlying storage system more closely integrated with the virtual machine, hypervisor and associated management including supported service manage and classes or categories of service across performance, availability, capacity, economics.

What about VVOL, VAAI and VASA?

VVOL’s are building from earlier VMware initiatives including VAAI and VASA. With VAAI, VMware hypervisor’s can off-load common functions to storage systems that support features such as copy, clone, zero copy among others like how a computer can off-load graphics processing to a graphics card if present.

VASA however provides a means for visibility, insight and awareness between the hypervisor and its associated management (e.g. vCenter etc) as well as the storage system. This includes storage systems being able to communicate and publish to VMware its capabilities for storage space capacity, availability, performance and configuration among other things.

With VVOL’s VASA gets leveraged for unidirectional (e.g. two-way) communication where VMware hypervisor and management tools can tell the storage system of things, configuration, activities to do among others. Hence why VASA is important to have in your VMware CASA.

What’s this object storage stuff?

VVOL’s are a form of object storage access in that they differ from traditional block (LUN’s) and files (NAS volumes/mount points). However, keep in mind that not all object storage are the same as there are object storage access and architectures.

Object Storage basics, generalities and block file relationships

Avoid making the mistake of when you hear object storage that means ANSI T10 (the folks that manage the SCSI command specifications) Object Storage Device (OSD) or something else. There are many different types of underlying object storage architectures some with block and file as well as object access front ends. Likewise there are many different types of object access that sit on top of object architectures as well as traditional storage system.

Object storage I/O
An example of how some object storage gets accessed (not VMware specific)

Also keep in mind that there are many different types of object access mechanism including HTTP Rest based, S3 (e.g. a common industry defacto standard based on Amazon Simple Storage Service), SNIA CDMI, SOAP, Torrent, XAM, JSON, XML, DICOM, IL7 just to name a few, not to mention various programmatic bindings or application specific implementations and API’s. Read more about object storage architectures, access and related topics, themes and trends at www.objecstoragecenter.com

Lets take a break here and when you are ready, click here to read the third piece in this series VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals Part 2.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

August 24, 2014June 13, 2021

Are VMware VVOLs in your virtual server and storage I/O future?

Are VMware VVOL’s in your virtual server and storage I/O future?

Note that this is a three part series with the first piece here (e.g. Are VMware VVOL’s in your virtual server and storage I/O future?), the second piece here (e.g. VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals Part 1) and the third piece here (e.g. VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals Part 2).

With VMworld 2014 just around the corner, for some of you the question is not if Virtual Volumes (VVOL’s) are in your future, rather when, where, how and with what.

What this means is that for some hands on beta testing is already occurring or will be soon, while for others that might be around the corner or down the road.

Some of you may already be participating in the VMware beta of VVOL involving one of the first storage vendors also in the beta program.

On the other hand, some of you may not be in VMware centric environments and thus VVOL’s may not yet be in your vocabulary.

How do you know if VVOL are in your future if you don’t know what they are?

First, to be clear, as of the time this was written VMware VVOL’s are not released and only in beta as well as having been covered in earlier VMworld’s. Consequently what you are going to read here is based on what VVOL material has already been made public in various venues including earlier VMworld’s and VMware blogs among other places.

The quick synopsis of VMware VVOL’s overview:

Higher level of abstraction of storage vs. traditional SCSI LUN’s or NAS NFS mount points

Tighter level of integration and awareness between VMware hypervisors and storage systems

Simplified management for storage and virtualization administrators

Removing complexity to support increased scaling

Enable automation and service managed storage aka software defined storage management

VVOL considerations and your future

As mentioned, as of this writing, VVOL’s are still a future item granted they exist in beta.

For those of you in VMware environments, now is the time to add VVOL to your vocabulary which might mean simply taking the time to read a piece like this, or digging deeper into the theories of operations, configuration, usage, hints and tips, tutorials along with vendor specific implementations.

Explore your options, and ask yourself, do you want VVOL or do you need it

What support does your current vendor(s) have for VVOL or what is their statement of direction (SOD) which you might have to get from them under NDA.

This means that there will be some first vendors with some of their products supporting VVOL’s with more vendors and products following (hence watch for many statements of direction announcements).

Speaking of vendors, watch for a growing list of vendors to announce their current or plans for supporting VVOL’s, not to mention watch some of them jump up and down like Donkey in Shrek saying "oh oh pick me pick me".

When you ask a vendor if they support VVOL’s, move beyond the simple yes or no, ask which of their specific products, it is a block (e.g. iSCSI) or NAS file (e.g. NFS) based and other caveats or configuration options.

Watch for more information about VVOL’s in the weeks and months to come both from VMware along with from their storage provider partners.

How will VVOL impact your organizations best practices, policies, workflow’s including who does what, along with associated responsibilities.