VSICM6 m06 storage

Configuring and Managing Virtual Storage
Module 6

© 2015 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.


You Are Here
1. Course Introduction

7. Virtual Machine Management

2. Software-Defined Data Center

8. Resource Management and

3. Creating Virtual Machines
4. vCenter Server
5. Configuring and Managing

Virtual Networks
6. Configuring and Managing

Virtual Storage

Monitoring
9. vSphere HA and vSphere Fault

Tolerance
10. Host Scalability
11. vSphere Update Manager and

Host Maintenance
12. Installing vSphere Components

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Importance
Storage options give you the flexibility to set up your storage based on
your cost, performance, and manageability requirements.
Shared storage is useful for disaster recovery, high availability, and
moving virtual machines between hosts.

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Module Lessons
Lesson 1:

Storage Concepts

Lesson 2:

iSCSI Storage

Lesson 3:

NFS Datastores

Lesson 4:

VMFS Datastores

Lesson 5:

Virtual SAN Datastores

Lesson 6:

Virtual Volumes

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Lesson 1:
Storage Concepts

6-5
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Learner Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to meet the following
objectives:
ã Describe VMware vSpheređ storage technologies and datastores
• Describe the storage device naming convention

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Basic Storage Overview

ESXi
Hosts

Datastor
e
Types

VMFS

NFS

File
System

Storage
Technologies

Direct
Attached

Fibre
Channel

FCoE

iSCSI

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NAS

6-7


Storage Protocol Overview

Storage
Protocol

Boot from
SAN
Support

vSphere
vMotion
Support

vSphere HA
Support

vSphere
DRS
Support

Raw Device
Mapping
Support

Fibre
Channel

●

●

●

●

●

FCoE

●

●

●

●

●

iSCSI

●

●

●

●

●

NFS

●

●

●

DAS

●

Virtual
Volumes

●

●

●

Virtual SAN

●

●

●

●

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About Datastores
A datastore is a logical storage unit
that can use disk space on one
physical device or span several

physical devices.
Types of datastores:
ã VMware vSpheređ VMFS

Host

Host

ã NFS

Datastores are used to hold virtual
machine files, templates, and ISO
images.

Datastore
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About VMFS5
VMFS5:
• Allows concurrent access to

shared storage.
• Can be dynamically expanded.
• Uses a 1 MB block size, good

for storing large virtual disk

files.

Host

Host

• Uses subblock addressing,

good for storing small files: the
subblock size is 8 KB.
• Provides on-disk, block-level

locking.

VMFS Datastore
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About NFS
NFS:
• Is storage shared over the

network at the file system level
• Supports NFS version 3 and

4.1 over TCP/IP

Host

Host

NFS Datastore
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About Raw Device Mapping
Virtual Disk

RDM enables you to
store virtual machine
data directly on a LUN.

RDM

The mapping file is
stored on a VMFS
datastore that points to
the raw LUN.

-flat.vmdk

.vmdk
-rdm.vmdk

VMFS or NFS

VMFS

.vmdk

Raw
LUN

NTFS/ext4
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Virtual SAN Overview

Virtual SAN
vSphere

3-64

SSD

HD/SSD

SSD

HD/SSD

SSD

HD/SSD

Virtual SAN Aggregated Datastore

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About Virtual Volumes
Overview
• Native representation of VMDKs on

vSphere
vSphere

SAN/NAS: No LUNs or volume management.

Virtual
Virtual Volumes
Volumes

• Works with existing SAN/NAS systems.
• A new control path for data operations at the

PE

VM/VMDK level.
• Snapshots, replications, and other operations
at the VM level on external storage.
Replication

Snapshots

Caching

• Automates control of per-VM service levels.
• Protocol endpoint provides standard protocol

Encryption

Deduplication

access to storage.
• Storage containers can span an entire array.

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Storage Device Naming Conventions
Storage devices are identified in several ways:
• Runtime name: Uses the convention vmhbaN:C:T:L. This name is not

persistent through reboots.
• Target: Identifies iSCSI target address and port.
• LUN: A unique identifier designated to individual or collections of hard disk

devices. A logical unit is addressed by the SCSI protocol or SAN protocols that
encapsulate SCSI, such as iSCSI or Fibre Channel.

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Physical Storage Considerations
You should discuss vSphere storage needs with your storage
administration team, including the following items:
• LUN sizes
• I/O bandwidth
• I/O requests per second that a LUN is capable of
• Disk cache parameters
• Zoning and masking
• Identical LUN presentation to each VMware ESXi™ host
• Active-active or active-passive arrays
• Export properties for NFS datastores

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Review of Learner Objectives
You should be able to meet the following objectives:
ã Describe VMware vSpheređ storage technologies and datastores
ã Describe the storage device naming convention

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Lesson 2:
iSCSI Storage

6-18
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Learner Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to meet the following
objectives:
• Describe uses of IP storage with ESXi
• Describe iSCSI components and addressing
• Configure iSCSI initiators

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iSCSI Components

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iSCSI Addressing

iSCSI target name:
iqn.1992-08.com.mycompany:stor1-47cf3c25
or
eui.fedcba9876543210
iSCSI alias: stor1
IP address: 192.168.36.101

iSCSI initiator name:
iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:train1-64ad4c29
or
eui.1234567890abcdef
iSCSI alias: train1
IP address: 192.168.36.88

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iSCSI Initiators

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Setting Up iSCSI Adapters
You set up software or hardware adapters before an ESXi host can work
with a SAN.
Supported iSCSI adapter types (vmhba):
•

Software adapter

•

Hardware adapter:
•

Independent hardware adapter

•

Dependent hardware adapter

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ESXi Network Configuration for IP Storage
A VMkernel port must
be created for ESXi to
access software iSCSI.
The same port can be
used to access
NAS/NFS storage.
To optimize your
vSphere networking
setup, separate iSCSI
networks from
NAS/NFS networks:
• Physical separation is

preferred.
• If physical separation is

not possible, use
VLANs.
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Creating Datastores and Discovering iSCSI Targets
Based on the environment
and storage needs, you can
create VMFS, NFS, or virtual
datastores as repositories for
virtual machines.
The iSCSI adapter discovers
storage resources on the
network and determines which
ones are available for access.

192.168.36.101:3260

An ESXi host supports the
following discovery methods:
• Static
• Dynamic, also called

SendTargets
Request

SendTargets
Response

SendTargets

The SendTargets response iSCSI Target:
192.168.36.101:3260
returns the IQN and all

available IP addresses.

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