1. vBrownBag – May 20, 2015 vSphere 6 Foundation Exam Section 3 – Storage
Hersey Cartwright

2. About Me VCDX-DCV #128 vExpert Website: http://www.vhersey.com/
VMware vSphere 5.x Datacenter Design Cookbook
Lesson descriptions should be brief.

3. Community Resources and Study Guides
VCP6-DCV Study Guide on vHersey.com
IT-Muscle’s VCP 6 Delta Beta Exam Study Material
David Stamen’s VCP6 Study Guide
vWannabe’s VCP6-DCV Study Guide
vBrownBags – Past, Present, and Future
Lesson descriptions should be brief.

4. Section 3 – Configure vSphere Storage
3.1 – Connect Shared Storage Devices to vSphere
3.2 – Configure Software Defined Storage
3.3 – Create and Configure VMFS and NFS Datastore
vSphere 6 Foundation Exam Topics/Blueprint
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

5. Labs/Demos Expand VMFS Datastore Create VMFS Datastore
Add an Extent to a VMFS Datastore
Mount NFS Datastore
Software iSCSI Multipathing
Enable and Configure VSAN
Create a Storage DRS Cluster

6. What’s New with vSphere 6 Storage
NFS v4.1
NFS Multipathing/Load Balancing/Security
VVOLs
vMotion Support with Physical RDMs
VSAN 6.0
Fault Domains
All Flash VSAN
VMFS 3 Deprecated
Example objectives
At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
Save files to the team Web server.
Move files to different locations on the team Web server.
Share files on the team Web server.

7. Identify storage adapters and devices
SCSI (Local/Direct Attached Disks)
iSCSI – Hardware and Software
Fibre Channel
Fibre Channel over Ethernet – Hardware and Software
Ethernet (NFS)
Software Defined (VSAN, VVOLs)
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

8. Identify storage naming conventions
SCSI INQUIRY Device Identifiers – Unique and persistent eui.XXXXXX, t10.XXXXXX, and naa.XXXXXXX
Path-based Identifiers – Not unique and not persistent vmhbaV:Cx:Ty:Lz V = HBA Number, x = Channel, y = Target, z = LUN
Legacy Identifier – Generated by ESXi host – Unique and persistent vml.XXXXXX
Device Display Name – Can be modified
FC - WWNN and WWPN
iSCSI – iqn.year-month.tld.domain:uniqueid
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

9. Zoning and Masking
Zoning controls and/or isolates paths in the FC storage fabric
Defines which HBA/ports can connect to which target/ports
Single-initiator-single-target is the preferred zoning practice for ESXi
Storage Networking 101: Understanding Fibre Channel Zones
Understanding-Fibre-Channel-Zones.htm
Masking is a process that makes a LUN unavailable to some hosts
Can be done on ESXi hosts (MASK_PATH module) or on array
Use case – Boot from SAN
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

10. Hardware/software iSCSI initiator requirements
Hardware iSCSI
HBA capable of offloading iSCSI and network processing.
Dependent (VMkernel interface) or independent (no VMkernel interface)
Bi-directional CHAP is not supported on independent adapters
Software iSCSI
Software-based initiator
Requires VMkernel interface
iSCSI Multipathing is not supported across HW and SW adapters
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

11. Virtual Machine File System (VMFS)
VMFS3 has been deprecated
Standard (Universal) 1 MB files system block size
VMFS3 datastores upgraded to VMFS5 maintain legacy block size
Supports storage devices and virtual machine disks greater than 2 TB
Up to 64 TB device, 62 TB virtual disk
GUID Partition Table (GPT)
New datastores are created with GPT format
Upgraded datastores maintain MBR until expanded beyond 2 TB
Supports online upgrade (VMFS3 to VMFS5)
Supports online expand or extend
Up to 256 VMFS datastores per host supported
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

12. Network File System (NFS)
ESXi includes NFS Clients for NFS v3 and NFS v4.1
Use only one NFS version to access a datastore
No upgrade from NFS v3 to NFS v4.1 – migration only
NFS datastores can be mounted read-only
Supports vMotion, HA, DRS, and FT (FT not supported on NFS v4.1)
Virtual disks created on NFS datastores as thin-provisioned by default unless hardware acceleration supporting Reserve Space operation is used. (NFS v4.1 does not support hardware acceleration)
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

13. NFS v4.1 Supports NFS Multipathing
Supports non-root user access when using Kerberos
NFS v4.1 DOES NOT SUPPORT
VMware Fault Tolerance, Storage DRS, Storage IO Control, SRM, or VVOLs
NFS Hardware Acceleration
NFS Shares should be exported as either v3 or v4.1
DO NOT provide both protocol versions to same share.
vSphere 6 NFS v4.1 Overview
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

14. Storage DRS Datastore Clusters
Similar/interchangeable datastores
Storage Capacity and Performance Load Balancing
Similar to vSphere DRS
Automation Levels
Aggressiveness
Initial Placement of virtual disks based on space and I/O workloads
Migration of virtual disks based on space and I/O workloads
Datastore Maintenance Mode
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

15. Multiple VMFS/NFS Datastores Use Cases
Performance – Provisioned based on performance characteristics
Data Protection – Protected by array features – replication, snapshots…
Recovery/Fault Domains – Number of VMs affected by datastore failure
Availability – Separation of VMs and/or VM disk to reduce impact of failure
Load Balancing – Balancing load and/or capacity
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

16. VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN)
3 Hosts providing storage (Disk Groups) required.
At least one SSD and one HDD per Disk Group (unless all flash option).
SAS/SATA HBA or RAID controller
On HCL
Configured in passthrough or RAID0 mode.
Network Requirements
Dedicated 1 GB for hybrid configurations (10GbE recommended)
Dedicated/shared 10GbE for all flash configuration
VMkernel adapter configured for Virtual SAN traffic type
Multicast must be enabled on physical switches/routers
IPv6 NOT supported for VSAN traffic
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

17. Virtual Volumes (VVOLs)
Requires vCenter – VVOLs not supported with standalone hosts
VASA Provider – Storage awareness service.
Storage Container – Pool of capacity or aggregation of storage capabilities (snapshot, replication, deduplication).
Protocol Endpoint – Host to VVOL communication
FCoE, FC, iSCSI, NFS storage protocols
IPv6 not supported
NFS v4.1 not supported
Virtual Datastore represents a Storage Container
How presentation will benefit audience: Adult learners are more interested in a subject if they know how or why it is important to them.
Presenter’s level of expertise in the subject: Briefly state your credentials in this area, or explain why participants should listen to you.

18. Section 3 Resources - Storage
vSphere Installation and Setup Guide
vSphere Storage Guide
vSphere Resource Management Guide
What’s New in the VMware vSphere 6.0 Platform
Example objectives
At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
Save files to the team Web server.
Move files to different locations on the team Web server.
Share files on the team Web server.

19. Section 3 Resources - iSCSI
Best Practices for Running VMware vSphere on iSCSI
Multipathing Configuration for Software iSCSI Using Port Binding
Example objectives
At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
Save files to the team Web server.
Move files to different locations on the team Web server.
Share files on the team Web server.

20. Section 3 Resources - VSAN
Administering VMware Virtual SAN
What’s New: VMware Virtual SAN
Virtual SAN 6.0 Performance: Scalability and Best Practices
Example objectives
At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
Save files to the team Web server.
Move files to different locations on the team Web server.
Share files on the team Web server.