yyaazz's tech thoughts

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.

If you want to see how is it working, you can check out this demo on NetAppTube:

Make sure you switch to 720p mode and please note the following things while you are watching the wizard process of creating the virtual desktops:

• Datastore capacity before cloning (0:15)
• Datastore contents before cloning (0:41)
• Datastore and network performance (3:25 – 5:37)
• Datastore capacity after cloning (6:59)
• Datastore contents after cloning (7:08)