vmware over nfs - The Diigo Meta page

• 12 Dec 11
  

  YU ZHANG

  vmware netapp NFS Triantos

  • If you are dealing 2-3 clustered ESX, these types of deployments are not very complex. However, the complexity starts to increase exponentially as the number of servers in a VMware Datacenter start to multiply. RAID Groups, LUNs, LUN IDs, Zones, Zone management, HBAs, queue depths, VMFS Datastores, RDMs, multipathing settings etc.
  • Then the question comes up...VMFS LUNs or RDMs. How's my performance is going to be with 8-10 VMs on a VMFS LUN and a single Disk I/O queue? What if I take the RDM route and later one i run out of LUNs?
  • Here's what I have found out with NFS and I'm not the only one:
    • Provisioning is a breeze
    • You get the advantage of VMDK thin Provisioning since it's the default setting over NFS
    • You can expand/decrease the NFS volume on the fly and realize the effect of the operation on the ESX server with the click of the datastore "refresh" button.
    • You don't have to deal with VMFS or RDMs so you have no dilemma here
    • No single disk I/O queue, so your performance is strictly dependent upon the size of the pipe and the disk array.
    • You don't have to deal with FC switches, zones, HBAs, and identical LUN IDs across ESX servers
    • You can restore (at least with NetApp you can), multiple VMs, individual VMs, or files within VMs.
    • You can instantaneously clone (NetApp Flexclone), a single VM, or multiple VMs
    • You can also backup whole VMs, or files within VMs
  • People may find this hard to believe, but the performance over NFS is actually better than FC or iSCSI not only in terms of throughtput but also in terms of latency.

  2 more annotations...

• 01 Jul 11
  

  pierrestephazz

  You can have a Single mount point across multiple IP addesses
  You can use link aggregation IEEE 802.3ad (NetApp multimode VIF with IP aliase

  storage vmware nfs esx filesystem netapp virtualization

• 22 Apr 10
  

  Robert Redl
  • People may find this hard to believe, but the performance over NFS is actually better than FC or iSCSI not only in terms of throughtput but also in terms of latency.

  • What folks don't realize is that:

    • ESX server I/O is small block and extremely random which means that bandwidth matters little. IOs and response time matter a lot.
    • You are not dealing with VMFS and a single managed disk I/O queue.
    • You can have a Single mount point across multiple IP addesses
    • You can use link aggregation IEEE 802.3ad (NetApp multimode VIF with IP aliases)
• 18 Mar 10
  

  n d

  NetApp employee touts the benefits of using NFS for VMware storage. This September 2007 post offers a perspective that probably still applies.

  nfs storage vmware

• 23 Feb 10
  

  Luis Guillermo Torres

  didn't hire me for my CIFS or NFS prowess.

  vmware nfs netapp storage virtualization nas esx delicious

• 28 Oct 09
  

  vmware storage virtualization nas delicious

• 24 Jun 09
  

  Gustavo Chaves

  vmware storage nfs iscsi

• 18 Jan 09
  

  Nico Bille

  blog vmware virtualization esx nfs netapp lang:en

• 17 Nov 08
  

  woutsi

  vmware nfs storage delicious

• 15 Apr 08
  

  virkang fds

  vmware nfs virtualization netapp delicious

• 18 Feb 08
  

  Kevin Miller

  storage vmware nfs esx

• 30 Dec 07
  

  bwlang

  vmware nfs

• 06 Dec 07
  

  David narayan

  vmware nfs storage virtualization netapp filesystem esx

• 29 Oct 07
  

  J M

  filesystem storage vmware

• 23 Oct 07
  

  stateless

  filesystem nfs storage virtualization vmware netapp

• 24 Sep 07
  

  taylor banks

  vmware nfs filesystem storage esx #delicious

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