Solution Brief
VMware Virtual Volumes
Key Benefits
Take Control of Your Data
Tightly control storage operations on
a per-VM basis for the first time and
apply NetApp® data management
features to individual VMs in your
VMware® virtual infrastructure.
Simplify Operations
Create a library of reusable storage
profiles and empower virtualization
administrators to select the right
service level for a given application
and provision the VM onto the correct
storage automatically.
Optimize Storage Efficiency a
nd Performance
Apply the right storage resources and
service levels to each VM, regardless of
protocol, and improve performance and
resource utilization by shifting more VM
storage operations to the storage array.
on NetApp Clustered
Data ONTAP
Netapp delivers software-defined virtual storage
to simplify virtual infrastructure management
The Challenge
Businesses worldwide are embracing virtualization and realizing significant benefits.
But virtualizing compute resources creates new challenges when it comes to storage.
In today’s virtual infrastructures, VMs are stored in VMware entities called “datastores,”
with each datastore potentially supporting hundreds of VMs. Storage management
operations are executed at the datastore level, with all VMs in the datastore treated the
same. Virtualization administrators can’t apply specific storage policies to individual
VMs (for example, assigning more frequent Snapshot® copies for a specific application).
Storage services are applied universally, to the entire datastore, potentially wasting
significant resources, when only a subset of VMs need the higher level of service.
The Solution: VMware Virtual Volumes on NetApp Clustered Data ONTAP
VMware vSphere® Virtual Volumes are a new storage feature in VMware vSphere 6.0
that virtualizes SAN and NAS storage systems into logical pools of capacity, offloads
VM granular storage operations to the storage system, and brings to storage the same
operational efficiencies that server virtualization brought to compute. Now you can
use Virtual Volumes on the world’s leading storage platform, NetApp clustered Data
ONTAP®1. Virtual Volumes on clustered Data ONTAP deliver all the features of clustered
Data ONTAP in an easy-to-consume model, providing granular storage control and
operational simplicity, and bring industry-leading storage efficiency and data management
features such as Snapshot copies, clones, and nondisruptive mobility to your virtual
infrastructure.
Take control
VMware Virtual Volumes on NetApp clustered Data ONTAP allow a Virtual Volume
(virtual disk) to map to a LUN (SAN) or file (NFS), enabling storage policies to be easily
applied to a VM/Virtual Volume at a granular level, regardless of protocol. Working
in conjunction with clustered Data ONTAP, the VMware vSphere storage APIs for
Storage Awareness (VASA) Provider delivers the VVOL infrastructure and policy-based
management. VASA shares information about the datastores—including storage
configuration, health status, and capacity—with vCenter™, allowing VM administrators to
make more intelligent storage decisions such as applying predefined storage profiles or
creating tailored profiles by selecting capabilities and assigning them to a VM storage
policy. This enables admins to gain total control and flexibility to align storage services
and features with business requirements. These capabilities increase storage efficiency
and IT agility, because virtualization administrators can match exactly the right storage
for a given application:
1. NetApp clustered Data ONTAP 8.2 or later is required.
 VM VM VM • Improve resource utilization with space-efficient Snapshot
copies. VMware VM Snapshot copies are now offloaded to
vSphere® the storage array, significantly improving performance and
VI Admin
resource utilization. Not only are Snapshot copies almost
Data Path
NFS, iSCSI, FC, FCoE
instantaneous, but also there is also no longer a need to
Storage Capability Profiles
Control Path reapply delta changes to the VM when reverting and deleting
Capacity
Snapshot copies. With Virtual Volumes, Snapshot copies
Access
Virtual Datastore VASA Provider are offloaded to NetApp clustered Data ONTAP, which uses
Published Capabilities single-file FlexClone® to create space-efficient Snapshot
Disk Type
copies of individual VMs. There is no performance penalty
Replication
when creating and deleting Snapshot copies because
Storage Control Path
Admin Deduplication
FlexClone creation is extremely fast, and operations are not
Qos SAN/NAS
disrupted. Deleting FlexClone Snapshot copies is just as fast as
taking them, eliminating the need to write new data over the
original file. NetApp delivers more scalability and performance
Figure 1) Virtual Volumes Architecture than competing technologies, greatly enhancing data center
Snapshot operations and enabling you to protect your data
with no performance impact and minimal consumption of
• Apply industry-leading storage services to any VM. storage space.
NetApp offers the broadest set of storage capabilities, such • Enhance efficiency with real-time cloning. Similar to VM
as availability, disaster recovery, performance, protocol, and Snapshot copies, VM clone operations are offloaded to NetApp
storage efficiencies, including deduplication, compression, clustered Data ONTAP, which uses single-file FlexClone
and thin provisioning, which can be applied to create reusable to clone Virtual Volumes within the same NetApp volume
storage profiles that are finely tuned to best meet business and single-file copy on demand to clone between volumes,
requirements and provide better delivery on SLAs. without storage penalty and disruptions in operations. Data
becomes accessible at the destination immediately, while
The following capabilities can be applied to a VM to create the copy operation is happening, without affecting business
tailored storage profiles that best meet the applications operations because the data copy is done at the appropriate
requirement: priority level. Now you have the flexibility to instantly clone
VMs to be reapplied to other applications or select a different
–– Auto Grow storage profile for cloning to a different storage tier than the
–– Compression original VM, utilizing the profile that best fits the environment.
–– Deduplication For example, you can clone to a VM to be used in a test/dev
–– Disk Types: SATA, FCAL, SAS, SSD environment where less expensive storage is required,
–– Flash Accelerated enabling you to easily and most flexibly satisfy business
–– High Availability requirements.
–– Max Throughput IOPS & MBPS • Move VMs without disruption. NetApp clustered Data ONTAP
–– Replication provides nondisruptive VM mobility, allowing you to move
–– Protocol: NFS, iSCSI, FC, FCoE VMs between volumes and storage controllers inside the
same cluster. Now you can perform storage maintenance,
• Seamlessly integrate into your existing environment. hardware lifecycle operations, and software upgrades without
NetApp supports all storage protocols, including NFS, iSCSI, interrupting your business.
FC, and FCoE, so you can integrate Virtual Volumes into your • Easily manage Virtual Volumes moving across nodes in a
environment without requiring any infrastructure changes. cluster. Virtual Volumes for NetApp clustered Data ONTAP
use the “rebind” protocol endpoint (PE) operation to provide
Improve storage efficiency and performance direct access to data. When Virtual Volumes are created, the
VMware Virtual Volumes for NetApp clustered Data ONTAP NetApp implementation of Virtual Volumes ensures that the
make storage operations much more efficient. The solution I/O to the Virtual Volume is bound to the PE closest to the
offloads storage operations from the ESXi™ host to the storage Virtual Volume. If a Virtual Volume is migrated elsewhere in
array and allows you to apply a rich set of data management the NetApp cluster, a rebind operation automatically changes
features at a granular level to individual VMs. These capabilities the I/O path to the new closest PE, maintaining optimum
optimize operational efficiency, resource utilization, and performance and reducing complexity and latency.
performance in your virtualized environment, providing
significant capacity and bandwidth savings:
Simplify storage operations and automate processes • Automatically assure performance. NetApp support for
VMware Virtual Volumes on NetApp clustered Data ONTAP Virtual Volumes eliminates the need for manual conformance
utilize policy-based management to automate provisioning of checking. It proactively highlights issues and helps ensure
VMs onto storage that best satisfies application requirements storage performance and efficiency are optimized to meet
and monitors compliance with policies to ensure application your business requirements.
requirements are continuously met. This speeds the provisioning
process, reduces errors, and ensures the most efficient use vSphere Virtual Volumes on NetApp clustered Data ONTAP
of storage. To download the latest version of NetApp Virtual Storage
Console and NetApp VASA Provider, visit the NetApp
• Increase storage flexibility and predictability. NetApp’s Support site.
implementation of Virtual Volumes gives businesses total
flexibility in creating storage profiles. Administrators can create
a library of storage policies to adhere to company-defined
best practices, ensuring company-wide standardization About NetApp
and predictability. Leading organizations worldwide count on NetApp for software,
• Streamline operations and accelerate application systems and services to manage and store their data. Customers
deployments. By automating manual tasks, such as storage value our teamwork, expertise and passion for helping them
provisioning and storage policy conformance checking, succeed now and into the future.
Virtual Volumes on clustered Data ONTAP provide a common www.netapp.com
language of communication between the storage and virtual-
ization administrators and reduce the need for virtualization
administrators to have storage expertise. Virtualization
administrators can easily select storage services based
on policies predefined by the storage administrators.

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VMware vSphere are registered trademarks and ESXi and vCenter are trademarks of VMware, Inc. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective
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