PRO+ Premium Content/Virtual Data Center

Moving to a virtual infrastructure has a major impact on storage and storage networking architecture. But the effects can vary greatly, particularly for organizations in different phases of storage networking adoption. Early server virtualization implementations relied on storage area networks (SANs) and particularly Fibre Channel (FC) SANs to create the shared storage necessary for key availability functions. But today, storage choices have broadened. Now VMware also supports virtual machines (VMs) on both iSCSI SANs (often called IP SANs) and Network File System-based network-attached storage (or NFS/NAS), so users have additional options in terms of storage architectures. And that’s good news for those just starting virtualization projects; they can reap the benefits of virtualization without being forced into the cost and complexity of FC storage. Understanding what is required to implement specific functions, along with implementation considerations and ramifications of these decisions can make the difference in moving to a...