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 storage platform. In part II we are going to expand upon a number of the points introduced in part I with a focus on how the storage virtualization functionality in Data ONTAP enhances VMware's thin provisioning and the over arching goal to reduce both the CapEX and OpEx associated with storage in the virtualization space.
Anatomy of a Virtual Disk
Let’s begin where we started in part I, by reviewing different disk formats. This time let’s consider them with the virtual disks operating at 70% storage capacity.
Again this is the traditional virtual disk format which we all know rather well. From this image you will notice do not receive any storage savings in the datastore, yet we do receive 30% savings on the storage array.
If you're asking, "how can a thick VMDK consume less storage on the array?"
You'll need to go back and read Part I
In this image we have the thin provisioned virtual disk and as you can see we are receiving a 30% storage savings in both the datastore and on the array.
In this last image we have an eager zeroed thick virtual disk which provides us no savings at either the datastore or on the array.
In part I, I covered the basics of thin provisioning and how it operates with any storage platform. In part II we are going to expand upon a number of the points introduced in part I with a focus on how the storage virtualization functionality in Data ONTAP enhances VMware's thin provisioning and the over arching goal to reduce both the CapEX and OpEx associated with storage in the virtualization space.
Anatomy of a Virtual Disk
Let’s begin where we started in part I, by reviewing different disk formats. This time let’s consider them with the virtual disks operating at 70% storage capacity.
- The Thick Virtual Disk
Again this is the traditional virtual disk format which we all know rather well. From this image you will notice do not receive any storage savings in the datastore, yet we do receive 30% savings on the storage array.
If you're asking, "how can a thick VMDK consume less storage on the array?"
You'll need to go back and read Part I
- The Thin Virtual Disk
In this image we have the thin provisioned virtual disk and as you can see we are receiving a 30% storage savings in both the datastore and on the array.
- The Eager Zeroed Thick Virtual Disk
In this last image we have an eager zeroed thick virtual disk which provides us no savings at either the datastore or on the array.
Continue reading "VCE-101 Thin Provisioning Part 2 – Going Beyond" »
