This is a multi-part series covering various aspects of VMware Virtual Volumes (VVols) from support to adoption to benefits to predictions and more. In part 1 we’ll take a look at what VMware has delivered so far with VVols and the VASA specification.

In the first part of this series on VVols let’s do a brief history of the timeline for VMware’s development of VVols:

• August 2011 – VMware first introduces the concept of VVols at VMworld
• August 2012 – VMware shows off tech preview of VVols at VMworld
• July 2014 – VMware make VVols available as a public beta
• March 2015 – VVols 1.0 makes its initial debute as part of vSphere 6.0
• November 2016 – VVols 2.0 is released as part of vSphere 6.5 with support for array replication
• November 2017 – vSphere 6.7 includes minor VVols enhancements
• August 2018 – VMware announces VVols support for SRM

From this timeline we can see that VMware has been working on the development of VVols for over 7 years and it has been part of vSphere for almost 4 years. That’s a pretty long time but what’s important to note is it’s been a bit of a work in progress as VVols required massive engineering on VMware’s part, to get VVols to work VMware had to request changes to the SCSI T10 specifications and also filed patents on the new architecture.

The initial release of VVols in vSphere 6.0 had some shortcomings, the biggest being lack of support for VVols replication. In addition there was very limited partner support for VVols early, only 2 major storage vendors supported it at launch. vSphere 6.5 brought both maturity for VVols and support for array replication and I consider that to be the release that was ready for prime time. The support for array replication however came with an important caveat, there was no support for SRM and all BC/DR operations had to be manually scripted using PowerCLI which made the solution unappealing.

vSphere 6.7 further enhanced VVols in small ways and today VVols is pretty rock solid from VMware’s side. Now it’s really on the partners to build out their solutions for VVols, the only barriers that exist today for partners to do whatever they want with VVols are their engineering resources. As VVols represented a massive engineering feat from VMware the same is equally true for partners as well. VVols represents a fundamental change in how storage arrays interact with vSphere and the greatly increased number of objects that a storage array needs to support for VVols. As a result this put a pretty hefty burden on partners to engineer their arrays to support this new architecture.

The introduction of VVols also had a ripple impact on other VMware products as well, one of the biggest challenges to VVols adoption has to do with support for VVols across VMware products such as SRM, vROps, vCloud Director and more. As those products were in other BUs from the core storage development team it was up to the other product teams to prioritize their support for VVols. As a result support for VVols in other VMware products has come at varying paces. Today almost all VMware products support VVols, the lone exception being SRM but that is in the works and is expected to come next year.

So what’s next for VVols? As I mentioned VMware is mostly done with the current VASA spec for VVols and there are no longer any limitations or barriers for partners to build solutions. It may seem like VMware isn’t doing that much further development with VVols today but that’s simply not true. While VMware is waiting for partners to play catch up, I have seen the VVols roadmap going forward and there is plenty on it to optimize and enhance VVols further and support some newer storage technologies. I also know that VMware has even beefed up their VVols engineering team.

I feel that VVols is in a very good place today and VMware has done a great job to get to this point as this was no easy feat and represents almost a decade of work on their part. VVols has a bright future ahead of it and at some point I would expect that VMFS will eventually go away much like the old ESX hypervisor did when it was replaced by ESXi. The burden is mostly on partners at this point but continue to look for further refinements from VMware going forward as storage policy based management becomes the de facto standard in the virtual data center.

Over 200 people took the vQuiz to test their knowledge on how well they know the history of VMware through a series of 20 timed questions. I made the questions fairly challenging and I didn’t expect to see any person get all 20 questions correct and that was mostly the case. In fact I may have made it a bit too challenging as more than half the people who took the quiz got 10 or less answers correct. There was one very obscure question in particular that I was confident almost nobody would get correct. Below are the results and answers of the quiz to help educate everyone on history of VMware. Scroll down to the end to see the people who scored the highest and won the Amazon gift cards.

All future quiz’s will have sponsors and better prizes, if you are interested in sponsoring a themed vQuiz (i.e. storage, performance, VVols, cloud, backups, etc…) reach out to me and let me know. Sponsored quiz’s will feature a mix of general questions specific to the topic and some related to the sponsor.

Winners of the vQuiz:

• 1st: 20 answers correct in 2:07 – David Marshal
• 2nd: 17 answers correct in 1:42 – Anthony Poh
• 3rd: 16 answers correct in 3:17 – Dan Raymond

I’m starting a new feature called the vQuiz which is designed to test your knowledge on virtualization and VMware. This is a timed quiz that you have 6 minutes to complete 20 questions, each quiz has a specific theme and a sponsor and the top 3 responses that get the most questions correct in the least amount of time will win prizes from our sponsor. The questions for this quiz will be specific to the theme with a few questions specific to the sponsor.

For this inaugural quiz the theme is the History of VMware, I don’t have a sponsor for it however you can still win prizes that I am supplying in the form of Amazon gift cards. I am looking for sponsors for future quiz’s so if you are interesting please contact me and we can build a quiz to whatever theme you choose (i.e. backups, storage, cloud, etc.)  To take the quiz simply click the logo below, the quiz will be open for 2 weeks after which I will publish the correct answers and notify the top 3 winners.

I’m hosting a webinar on Tuesday October 23rd at 8:00am PST with Pete Flecha from VMware  to discuss the many benefits of VVols and the fundamental change it will have on storage in vSphere. This webinar is basically the same as an abstract that I submitted for VMworld that wasn’t accepted and it won’t have any sales or marketing pitch in it, it’s geared to promote VVols in general terms. I’d love to see you there, we will try and make it as interesting as possible and show current adoption trends, discuss ecosystem support and highlight the pain points that VVols helps solve. You can go register for it here.

Webinar title: A Farewell to LUNs – Discover how VVols forever changes storage in vSphere
Presented by: Eric Siebert – WW Product Manager, HPE & Pete Flecha – Sr. Technical Marketing Architect, VMware

Abstract:

To borrow a phrase from a popular song from REM, “It’s the end of the LUN as we know it and I feel fine”. VMware VVols changes everything we know about storage for vSphere in a good way, with VVols LUN management is a thing of the past. VMware VVols represents the future of external storage for vSphere and that future is here right now. VVols also represents many years of engineering work by both VMware and its storage partners. The result of that work is a new storage architecture for vSphere that solves many of the hidden complexities inherent in VMFS and levels the playing field between file and block protocols. Learn from experts at HPE & VMware how VVols transforms external storage in vSphere, eliminates complexities and provides very real benefits to customers.

Data loss is a key concern for every business, especially in today’s hostile world where malware and ransomware run rampant. Vembu can help you avoid data loss and keep your critical data safe. Join the experts from Vembu on Wed. October 3rd and Thurs. October 4th for a webinar entitled “Towards near-zero data loss. What you need to get right” where you will learn:

• How to leverage the maximum benefits from a near-zero data loss strategy
• A virtual walk-through into the ways to achieve near-zero data loss
• How to achieve near-zero data loss with Vembu
• And a lot more…

By registering for the webinar you will also have a chance to win Amazon gift vouchers worth $100. Don’t wait, go sign up now!

If you have ever been to VMware’s campus in Palo Alto you have probably seen or heard of the legendary turtles that rule the little pond between the Promontory A & D buildings. I accidentally stumbled across an old blog post by VMware the other day that explained the origin of how the turtles came to be the caretakers of the pond. The story was told by VMware’s Workplace Supervisor, that when the pond was originally built they intended to put koi fish in it but they couldn’t keep them alive unless they let algae grow. They didn’t want to do that however as they wanted to keep the pond water clear so the pond sat empty for a long time.

One day while at lunch he stumbled across a turtle in a tank that the restaurant was trying to get rid of, they asked him if he wanted it and after checking to make sure there was no chemicals in the pond that might harm wildlife he stuck the turtle in a small cooler and took it back with him. He brought it to the pond and set it free and it promptly sunk to the bottom but eventually started to move around. That turtle was named Rosie and eventually they brought it a few companion turtles, from there the population started to grow and today they are up to 13 turtles enjoying the pond.

You can read the full tale here, they also have their own Facebook page and if you are ever at VMware HQ be sure and give them a visit.