THE ONLY AUTHORITATIVE, COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO VSPHERE STORAGE IMPLEMENTATION AND MANAGEMENT Effective VMware virtualization storage planning and management has become crucial–but it can be extremely complex. Now, the leading VMware expert on storage completely demystifies the "black box" of vSphere storage and provides illustrated, step-by-step procedures for performing every key task associated with it. You’ll gain the deep understanding you need to make better storage decisions, solve problems, and keep problems from occurring in the first place. Mostafa Khalil presents techniques based on years of personal experience helping customers troubleshoot storage in their vSphere production environments. With more experience than anyone else in the field, he combines expert guidelines, insights for better architectural design, best practices for both planning and management, common configuration details, and deep dives into both vSphere and third-party storage. Storage Implementation in vSphere® 5.0 fully explains each storage connectivity choice and protocol supported by VMware, introduces Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA), and shows how to build on PSA with multipathing, failover, and ALUA. It thoroughly introduces Storage Virtualization Devices (SVDs) and VMDirectPath I/O, and shows how to drive powerful improvements in performance, flexibility, and manageability with VMFS 5 and VAAI. COVERAGE INCLUDES Understanding how FC, FCoE, and iSCSI interact with VMware vSphere 5 Implementing specific VMware capabilities on storage hardware from each leading vendor Avoiding, recognizing, and fixing misconfigurations and other problems Using third-party MPIO plug-ins certified with vSphere 5 and PSA Maximizing availability through multipathing and failover Implementing fixed and round-robin multipathing on arrays with ALUA support Monitoring and optimizing virtual storage performance Managing vSphere-compatible file systems: VMFS and NFS Taking full advantage of VMDirectPath I/O Implementing heterogeneous storage configurations Presenting abstracted storage through virtual disks and Raw Device Mappings (RDMs) Using VMFS 5 to simplify management and improve scalability in large-scale environments Sharing storage and migrating more easily across multiple VMware vSphere instances Optimizing storage performance with VAAI-compliant devices Mostafa Khalil, Senior Staff Engineer with VMware Global Support Services, specializes in storage integration for virtual environments. He has worked for VMware for 13 years and supported all VMware virtualization products since Workstation for Linux 1.0 beta. Khalil has worked on most enterprise storage vendors’ solutions and received engineering-level training for many of them. He has presented at every VMworld, and at VMware Partner Exchange, VMware User Group, and USENIX. ISBN-13: 978-0-321-79993-7 ISBN-10: 0-321-79993-3

This is the eBook of the printed book and may not include any media, website access codes, or print supplements that may come packaged with the bound book. Now fully updated: The authoritative, comprehensive guide to vSphere 6 storage implementation and management Effective VMware virtualization storage planning and management has become crucial—but it can be extremely complex. Now, VMware’s leading storage expert thoroughly demystifies the “black box” of vSphere 6 storage and provides illustrated, step-by-step procedures for performing every key task associated with it. Mostafa Khalil presents techniques based on years of personal experience helping customers troubleshoot storage in their vSphere production environments. Drawing on more experience than anyone else in the field, he combines expert guidelines, insights for better architectural design, best practices for planning and management, common configuration details, and deep dives into both vSphere and third-party storage. Storage Design and Implementation in vSphere 6, Second Edition will give you the deep understanding you need to make better upfront storage decisions, quickly solve problems if they arise, and keep them from occurring in the first place. Coverage includes: Planning and implementing Fibre Channel, FCoE, and iSCSI storage in vSphere virtualized environments Implementing vSphere Pluggable Storage Architecture native multipathing, SATP, PSP, plug-ins, rules, registration, and more Working with Active/Passive and Pseudo-Active/Active ALUA SCSI-3 storage arrays Maximizing availability with multipathing and failover Improving efficiency and value by unifying and centrally managing heterogeneous storage configurations Understanding Storage Virtualization Devices (SVDs) and designing storage to take advantage of them Implementing VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) to maximize performance and resource utilization Working with virtual disks and raw device mappings (RDMs) Managing snapshots in VMFS and Virtual Volumes environments Implementing and administering NFS, VAAI, Storage vMotion, VisorFS, and VASA Integrating VSAN core and advanced features Using Virtual Volumes to streamline storage operations and gain finer VM-level control over external storage

In this IBM® Redbooks® publication, we compiled best practices for planning, designing, implementing, and maintaining IBM Midrange Storage Solutions. In this publication, we use IBM System Storage® DS5000 storage subsystem for the implementation procedures, and the same procedures can be used for implementations with DCS3700 or DS3500 storage subsystems. We also compiled configurations for a VMware ESX and VMware ESXi Server host environment. Setting up an IBM Midrange Storage Subsystem is a challenging task. Our principal objective in this book is to provide you with a sufficient overview to effectively enable storage area network (SAN) storage and VMware. There is no single configuration that is satisfactory for every application or situation. However, the effectiveness of the VMware implementation is enabled by careful planning and consideration. Although the compilation of this publication is derived from an actual setup and verification, we did not stress test or test for all possible use cases that are used in a limited configuration assessment. Because of the highly customizable nature of a VMware ESXi host environment, you must consider your specific environment and equipment to achieve optimal performance from an IBM Midrange Storage Subsystem. When you are weighing the recommendations in this publication, you must start with the first principles of input/output (I/O) performance tuning. Each environment is unique and the correct settings that are used depend on the specific goals, configurations, and demands for the specific environment. This publication is intended for technical professionals who want to deploy VMware ESXi and VMware ESX Servers with IBM Midrange Storage Subsystems.

This IBM® RedpaperTM publication describes the support of the IBM System Storage® DS8870 for VMware vSphere in general terms. It also describes in greater detail the VMware vSphere Storage APIs Array Integration (VAAI) primitives, the IBM Storage Management Console for VMware plug-in, and the IBM Site Replication Adapter (SRA) for VMWare Site Recovery Manager (SRM). In addition to a high-level overview of the VMWare vSphere suite, this paper emphasizes the interaction of the software components with the IBM System Storage DS8870. It is intended for IT professionals who want an understanding of advantages such as off loading specific tasks to storage arrays, centralized service management, and simplified implementation of disaster recovery processes in virtualized environments.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication details the configuration and best practices for using the IBM FlashSystem® family of storage products within a VMware environment. The first version of this book was published in 2021 and specifically addressed IBM Spectrum® Virtualize Version 8.4 with VMware vSphere 7.0. This second version of this book includes all the enhancements that are available with IBM Spectrum Virtualize 8.5. Topics illustrate planning, configuring, operations, and preferred practices that include integration of IBM FlashSystem storage systems with the VMware vCloud suite of applications: VMware vSphere Web Client (vWC) vSphere Storage APIs - Storage Awareness (VASA) vSphere Storage APIs – Array Integration (VAAI) VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster (vMSC) Embedded VASA Provider for VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols) This book is intended for presales consulting engineers, sales engineers, and IBM clients who want to deploy IBM FlashSystem storage systems in virtualized data centers that are based on VMware vSphere.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides a basic introduction to the IBM System Storage® N series, virtualization, and VMware. It explains how to use the N series with VMware vSphere 4 environments and the benefits of doing so. Examples are given on how to install and set up VMware ESXi server with the N series. This edition includes information about the Virtual Storage Console (VSC), which is another N series software product that works with VMware. VSC provides local backup and recovery capability. You have the option to replicate backups to a remote storage system by using SnapMirror relationships. Backups can be performed on individual virtual machines or on datastores with the option of updating the SnapMirror relationship as part of the backup on a per job basis. Similarly, restores can be performed at a data-store level or individual virtual machine level. IBM System Storage N series in conjunction with VMware vSphere 4 helps complete the virtualization hierarchy by providing both a server and storage virtualization solution. Although this configuration can further assist with other areas of virtualization, networks, and applications, these areas of virtualization are not covered in detail in this book.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides a basic introduction to the IBM System Storage® N series, virtualization, and VMware 5.x. It explains how to use the N series with VMware vSphere 5 environments and the benefits of doing so. Examples are given on how to install and set up VMware ESXi server with the N series. The IBM System Storage N series used as a storage foundation offers unified storage solutions that provide industry-leading technologies in the areas of storage efficiencies, instantaneous virtual machine and datastore cloning for virtual servers and virtual desktops, and virtual data center backup and business continuance solutions. The information provided can be also be used as a foundation to create dynamic cloud solutions, making full use of underlying storage features and functions. This book provides a blueprint for how clients can create a virtualized infrastructure/storage cloud that will help to address current and future data storage business requirements. IBM System Storage N series in conjunction with VMware vSphere 5 helps complete the virtualization hierarchy by providing both a server and storage virtualization solution. Although this configuration can further assist with other areas of virtualization, networks, and applications, these areas of virtualization are not covered in detail in this book.