VMware has added a new category to their Hardware Compatibility Guide specifically to show vendor support for Virtual Volumes (VVOLs) called vSphere APIs for Virtual Volumes (VVols). On Day 1 of the vSphere 6 launch just 4 partners showed up as supporting VVOLs on their storage arrays, those partners & supported models are shown below:
Below is a detailed listing if you click on one:
A summary of the the full list of what storage array models are currently supported by those partners is shown in the below table:
Partner Models Array Type FW/OS Ver. Features
HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 & 10000 Storage Fiber Channel 3.2.1
IBM XIV Fiber Channel 11.5.1 Multi-VC,VPHA (active-passive)
NEC iStorage M110, M310, M510, M710 Fiber Channel & iSCSI 010A
SANBlaze Technology VirtuaLUN Fiber Channel & iSCSI 7.3 Multi-VC,VPHA (active-active)
I few things to note about the above:
- Of the 3 original VVOLs design partners (HP-Fiber Channel, Dell-iSCSI, NetApp-NFS) only HP delivered day 1 support for VVOLs. This doesn’t mean the other arrays don’t support VVOLs yet, their array firmware may very well support it but they haven’t completed the certification process yet. Expect to see more show up as vendors complete their certification process.
- The Features field in the VVOLs listing is a bit mis-leading as it doesn’t indicate which storage array features each vendors supports with VVOLs such as snapshots, QoS, thin provisioning, etc. No vendor specific features are part of the certification process, the tests may use specific features but it doesn’t know what those features are. Instead this column lists features related to the implementation such as if multiple vCenter Servers (Multi-VC) are supported with the VASA Provider and if the VASA Provider has High Availability (VPHA) features built-in. Note vendors can choose to implement their VASA Provider embedded within the array or externally as a VM or physical server. Of the ones listed I know that 3PAR implements their VASA Provider in the array and IBM’s is external as part of their Storage Integration Server.
- Certification is protocol specific, right now all 4 vendors support Fiber Channel and only NEC & SANBlaze supports iSCSI. Expect to see NetApp show up as supporting NFS and Dell EqualLogic as supporting iSCSI.
- In the listing their is Profile section which lists Virtual Metro Storage Cluster, all arrays listed say No for this as vMSC is currently not supported with VVOLs.
- The VASA provider version is based on VMware’s current VASA Provider specification. Version 2.0 was the new VASA Provider spec in vSphere 6 that was specifically developed to support VVOLs replacing the version 1.0 in vSphere 5.x. I’d have to check the latest specification document but I’m assuming 2.1 was an incremental upgrade to this. I have no idea why SANBlaze lists their as 7.3.
UPDATE:
On the VASA Provider version I checked with our engineering team and that is the version specific to each vendors VASA Provider. So this is not related to VMware’s VASA 2.0 specification and is really up to the vendor on how they want to version their specific VASA provider.
