Do you recall the post I published in September of 2009 titled "VMworld 2009 – Thoughts from the show"? If you read this post you may recall that many VI Admins shared a recurring theme that thru the virtualization of the data center they were becoming quasi-storage administrators. Oh, there's no doubt about it. The task of bringing storage online is a multi-step process that … [Read more...] about VMware Admins are Storage Admins – vStorage Integration Part 1
Storage Virtualization
Running ESX4 on a Cloned Boot LUN
NetApp Reference Architect Peter Learmonth has recently published a post on how to boot multiple ESX servers from clones of a master boot LUN. This is great news for customers who prefer booting from a SAN to alternatives like ESXi auto deploy or PXE-based installs. You can read about this process, the root cause which prohibited this from working out of the box, and the … [Read more...] about Running ESX4 on a Cloned Boot LUN
Configuring Role Based Access with the Virtual Storage Console vCenter Plug-in
We have recently published how to enable role based access (RBAC) with the VSC for customers who want to use accounts other than root as the VSC’s ‘service account’. This is the account used to communicate with the Data ONTAP APIs. I would suggest that RBAC be implemented in environments that have separate administration teams for storage and the Virtual Infrastructure. In … [Read more...] about Configuring Role Based Access with the Virtual Storage Console vCenter Plug-in
VCE-101 Thin Provisioning Part 2 – Going Beyond
This is the second installment of a two-part post focusing on the thin provisioning capabilities native to vSphere. If you haven’t read Part I - The Basics, I’d suggest you do so before proceeding. We've covered a lot of content which you really should have a solid grasp of before proceeding. In part I, I covered the basics of thin provisioning and how it operates with any … [Read more...] about VCE-101 Thin Provisioning Part 2 – Going Beyond
VCE-101 Thin Provisioning Part 1 – The Basics
This week’s VMware Communities Roundtable featured one of my favorite people at VMware, Paul Manning who spoke on thin provisioning. This topic is the inspiration for today’s VCE post. Reducing storage costs is top of mind and it's gonna take some time covering thin provisioning so let’s begin! Virtualizing a Datacenter I am not exaggerating when I share with you that … [Read more...] about VCE-101 Thin Provisioning Part 1 – The Basics