Next Thursday I will present my new-for-2011 Storage for Virtual Environments seminar. I hit on an interesting twist while working on the content: Virtual environments pose a challenge but also create an opportunity for storage people. Virtual environments are very demanding of storage features and performance, but we have the necessary tools in our arsenal. We just have to use them!
Virtual Storage
Processing and Scheduling Thin Provisioning
Although the core issues with thin provisioning revolve around communication, it presents unique challenges to the storage array as well. We talked about granularity of pages, and the comments for that piece were extremely enlightening. Now let’s consider another key factor: Scheduling.
Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, February 18, 2011
It was a busy week, with Tech Field Day 5 posts coming fast and furious. Now we are on to planning Wireless Field Day, coming in mid-March!
Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, February 11, 2011
I’ve spent this week in San Jose, CA at Tech Field Day 5, and that’s the bulk of my news. We heard from great companies: Symantec, Drobo, Druva, Xangati, NetEx, InfoBlox, and HP. Whew!
VMware VAAI Storage Array Support in Plain English
The most exciting enhancements in VMware vSphere 4.1 is the addition of vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI). This new API allows VMware ESX to offload storage processing functions to capable storage arrays, reducing the workload on the server hardware in introducing new and exciting possibilities for performance and efficiency. VAAI in ESX 4.1 includes three separate capabilities: block zeroing, full copy, and hardware assisted locking.
