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Vsphere Datacenter

The document discusses storage architecture in vSphere, including: 1) Virtual machines access storage through virtual disks stored on datastores, which can hide the physical storage layer. 2) Datastores are storage entities that store virtual machine files and can be either VMFS or NAS. 3) VMFS datastores are created by formatting disks and are automounted on all ESX/ESXi hosts, while NAS datastores must be mounted individually on each host.

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Abhijeet Kumar
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78 views2 pages

Vsphere Datacenter

The document discusses storage architecture in vSphere, including: 1) Virtual machines access storage through virtual disks stored on datastores, which can hide the physical storage layer. 2) Datastores are storage entities that store virtual machine files and can be either VMFS or NAS. 3) VMFS datastores are created by formatting disks and are automounted on all ESX/ESXi hosts, while NAS datastores must be mounted individually on each host.

Uploaded by

Abhijeet Kumar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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vSphereAPI/SDKDocumentation>vSphereWebServicesSDKDocumentation>vSphereWebServicesSDK

ProgrammingGuide>Storage

IntroductiontoStorage
TheVMwarevSpherestoragearchitectureconsistsoflayersofabstractionthathideandmanagethecomplexityand
differencesofphysicalstoragesubsystems,showninStorageArchitecture.
StorageArchitecture

HowVirtualMachinesAccessStorage
Virtualmachinesusevirtualdisksfortheiroperatingsystem,applicationsoftware,andotherdatafiles.Avirtualdiskis
storedasaVMDKfileonadatastore.Thevirtualdiskhidesthephysicalstoragelayerfromthevirtualmachines
operatingsystem.Regardlessofthetypeofstoragedevicethatyourhostuses,thevirtualdiskalwaysappearstothe
virtualmachineasalocalSCSIdevice.Asaresult,youcanrunoperatingsystemsthatarenotcertifiedforspecific
storageequipment,suchasSAN,inthevirtualmachine.
Whenavirtualmachinecommunicateswithitsvirtualdiskstoredonadatastore,itissuesSCSIcommands.Because
datastorescanexistondifferenttypesofphysicalstorage,thesecommandsareencapsulatedintootherforms,
dependingontheprotocolthattheESX/ESXihostusestoconnecttothephysicalstoragedevice.
Totheapplicationsandguestoperatingsystemsrunningoneachvirtualmachine,thestoragesubsystemappearsasa
virtualSCSIcontrollerconnectedtooneormorevirtualSCSIdisksasshowninthetophalfofStorageArchitecture.
ThesecontrollersaretheonlytypesofSCSIcontrollersthatavirtualmachinecanseeandaccess,andincludethe
objectsthatextendVirtualSCSIController:

ParaVirtualSCSIController

VirtualBusLogicController

VirtualLsiLogicController

VirtualLsiLogicSASController

Howpreciselyavirtualmachineaccessesstoragedependsonthesetupofthehost.StorageAPIArchitecturegivesan
overviewofthedifferentpossibilities.
StorageAPIArchitecture

Datastores
Adatastoreisamanageablestorageentity,usuallyusedasarepositoryforvirtualmachinefilesincludinglogfiles,
scripts,configurationfiles,virtualdisks,andsoon.vSpheresupportstwotypesofdatastores,VMFSandNAS.

IfyouwanttouseaNASvolume,mountitusingCreateNasDatastoreandunmountitusing
RemoveDatastore.Thetwocommandsarehostspecific,youmustinvokethecreateandremovemethodson
eachhostonwhichyouwanttomountorunmountthedatastore.

TocreateaVMFSdatastore,callCreateVmfsDatastore,passinginanyexistingdisk.Asaresultofthecall,
thediskisformattedwithVMFSandthedatastoreisautomountedonallESX/ESXihostsonwhichthediskis
visiblethenexttimeyouperformarescan.WhenyoucallRemoveDatastoreonaVMFSdatastore,thedatastore
isdestroyed.Afterarescan,thedatastoreisnolongeravailabletoanyESX/ESXisystems.IncontrasttoNAS
datastores,youdonothavetoinvokeamethodsforcreationandremovalofthedatastoreoneachhost.

AnESX/ESXihostautomaticallydiscoverstheVMFSvolumeonattachedLogicalUnitNumbers(LUNs)onstartupand
afterrescanningthehostbusadapter.WhenyoucreateaVMFSdatastore,thedatastorelabelisbasedontheVMFS
volumelabel.Ifthereisaconflictwithanexistingdatastore,thelabelismadeuniquebyappendingasuffix.TheVMFS
volumelabelremainsunchanged.
DestroyingaVMFSdatastoreremovesthepartitionsthatcomposetheVMFSvolume.
Datastorescanspanmultiplephysicalstoragedevices.AsingleVMFSvolumecancontainoneormoreLUNsfroma
localSCSIdiskarrayonaphysicalhost,aFibreChannelSANdiskfarm,oriSCSISANdiskfarm.TheESX/ESXi
systemdetectsnewLUNSthatareaddedtoanyofthephysicalstoragesubsystems.Whentheuserqueriesforalist
ofavailabledevices,thenewlydiscovereddevicesareincluded.YoucanextendstoragecapacityonanexistingVMFS
volumewithoutpoweringdownphysicalhostsorstoragesubsystems.
IfanyoftheLUNswithinaVMFSvolumefailsorbecomesunavailable,onlyvirtualmachineswithdataonthatLUNare
affected.AnexceptionistheLUNthathasthefirstextentofthespannedvolume(multiextentvolume).Allothervirtual
machineswithvirtualdisksresidingonotherLUNscontinuetofunctionnormally.
Helpusimprovethisinformation.Sendfeedbacktodocfeedback@vmware.com.

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