Cool new features in VMware View 5.1
Yesterday VMware announced the new version of its VDI product, VMware View 5.1. There are some important new features – from my point of view, which is basically NetApp/VMware integration. Cormac Hogan (aka @VMwareStorage on Twitter) published an article on the official vSphere blog, it describes all the important storage related features.
Let me focus on VCAI, this is the most impressive one for me. View Composer API for Array Integration enables View administrators to create virtual desktops using NetApp FlexClone technology directly from the View Composer. This feature is using VAAI – vStorage API for Array Integration – to offload the clone creation to the storage array. Creating virtual desktops with FlexClone is not a new thing, it exists in the Virtual Storage Console (NetApp vCenter plugin) for a long time, having integration with the mostly used connection brokers. Cormac describes the benefits offloading the clone creation in his article, so you can save CPU on the ESXi hosts and also network bandwidth. Please note, this feature is a Technology Preview in VMware View 5.1.
Rapid Cloning Utility now checks the partition alignment
Yesterday I was playing around a little bit with the new NetApp Virtual Storage Console 2.1.1 which was released last week. I wanted to create a couple of clones (actually 100), and I got an error message. I didn’t realized as a big thing, then I forgot it as my phone was ringing… But wait, it’s something new. So let’s see the error message:
VSC 2.1.1 for vSphere 5 is out
vSphere 5 has been released a few weeks ago and now you can download the Virtual Storage Console to monitor, clone, provision and backup, using NetApp storage. VSC is available on NOW at no cost. The most important change is it supports vSphere 5. It is also compatible with VMware View 4.6 and 5 as well as Citrix XenDesktop 5.0.
You can download and see the full list of changes on the NOW page.
Documentation:
- Release notes
- Installation and Administration Guide
- Provisioning and Cloning Administration Guide
- Backup and Recovery Administration Guide
I’ll test the old and new features in the near future, and post my experiences here.
yet another Rapid Cloning post
There was a test already here about NetApp Rapid Cloning Utility, but in that case I compared the clone by vSphere and the clone by the array. The other difference is in that case the Virtual Machine were running. This time I tested the behavior of RCU on different types of Volumes/DataStores. About the license requirement:
The rapid cloning capabilities provided by the Provisioning and Cloning feature require a NetApp FlexClone license on the storage array where clones are being created. Read more…
VMworld session voting is open, a late announcement
So many bloggers filed a lot of posts about VMworld session voting. I’m late with this, but still there’s a little time to vote. I’ve checked the session list several times, started from the top and started from the bottom also. There’s no chance to read everything, I think it’s not possible, at least for me. We are getting closer to the end of the voting time and I have to say, I have a session proposal there. Read more…
NetApp Flash Cache test in VMware environment
NetApp Insight was my first experience with Flash Cache in action. It was actually a video presentation, but the cool factor was pretty high. Fun starts at 2:35 when 1000VM starts to boot
NetApp FAS3210 VMware VAAI performance test
In the previous posts here and here I’ve already tested the Data ONTAP 8.0.1 VAAI capabilities with a FAS2040 controller. This week we were fortunate enough to test a brand new FAS3210 system, and I repeated the VAAI tests to see the differences. Of course I know the new 3200 and the 2000 series are not the same category, but I wanted to see how much faster and what’s the difference between the VAAI and non-VAAI operations.
I have the same piece of HW:
- Cisco UCS B200 blade system with two X5550 sockets and 48GB of RAM
- Cisco Nexus 5010 with 4Gb FC connection to the NetApp box
New storage box:
- NetApp FAS3210 with 24×300 SAS 15krpm disks. For this test I’ve created the same aggregate of 9 disks.
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