Microsoft is about to release the third major revision to their ubiquitous network storage protocol, SMB. Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V 3 will really highlight this technology, and I predict it will transform the way people think about networked storage for Windows systems. But SMB 3 is big in another way, too: there are tons of new features, and not all will be implemented by everyone.
Hyper-V
Microsoft Adds Data Deduplication Savings Evaluation Tool to Windows Server 8 Beta
The latest beta of the server version of Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 8 operating system includes a handy tool related to the new data deduplication feature. DDPEVAL will test a given dataset using the new deduplication and compression engine and report the savings to be expected. And it works even on non-Windows 8 systems!
Virtual Machine Mobility: Of What, and to Where and in What State?
Moving cold virtual machine images from system to system, or even across great distances, is one of the main selling points of server virtualization. But it becomes much more difficult to manage movement of virtual machines that are still running, especially outside cluster or across WAN links. When talking about virtual machine mobility, it is important to consider what is being moved, the state it is in, and where it is going.
Microsoft Adds Data Deduplication to NTFS in Windows 8
The next version of Microsoft Windows Server includes integrated data deduplication technology. Microsoft is positioning this as a boon for server virtualization and claims it has very little performance impact. But how exactly does Microsoft’s de-duplication technology work?
A Complete List of VMware VAAI Primitives
VMware’s introduced the “vStorage APIs for Array Integration†(VAAI) in vSphere 4.1, and block-heads like me went nuts. We’ve been trying to integrate storage and servers for decades, and VMware’s APIs finally allowed this to work in truly seamless fashion. But the world of VAAI is a thicket of bizarre naming and puzzling functionality. Some VAAI primitives are ignored or even hidden! Let’s take a look at the complete list.
