Great white paper, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
The 2 TB – 512b .vmdk limitation is no good :(. That is only going to spread the use of RDMs more while we wait for it to be “fixed”. I agree it is broken! I dislike this particular use case for RDMs.
Michael Audetsays
I agree…I was just curious. Always good to have options and workarounds if needed. I, too, would like to see this 2TB limit removed.
One of my biggest complaints was that we opted for vSphere 4 because we learned of the datastore maximums and thought–wow–we can efficiently create datastores.
Until we quickly realized (1) every VMware tech we spoke with recommended against using more than 1 LUN per datastore IF possible (2) using more than 1 LUN was like using metaluns in our EMC–can get messy.
Suffice it to say we stuck with 2TB LUns per datastore and while it is not the best configuration in my opinion it is clean and does provide some protection to failures (i.e. not all of our eggs in one datastore basket as it were)–I say SOME protection because our SAN is more than redundant.
Let’s hope this feature is in some near future vsphere 5 update….maybe update manager will be fixed too 🙂
Reading the document I was wondering if you could help.
It states the following:
‘Figure 8. Adding a Software FCoE Adaptor
After the software FCoE adaptor has been enabled, a new adaptor is created. After the creation of the adapter,
devices that are presented to this particular adapter will be recognized (Figure 9) by vSphere, enabling the
creation of a new datastore. The software FCoE adapter will enable you to use FCoE capabilities without the
need to resort to specific FCoE hardware adapters, creating a more agile and flexible infrastructure.”
Does this mean you cannot use that NIC? If so, is VMware going to note HCL compliant NICs for that feature or is that a common feature on today’s nics? It just seems if your wanting to play with that feature your gonna have to know that beforehand. RTFM.
Cwjkingsays
Damn laptop is taking forever downloading that whitepaper so I just jumped on my workstation – lol.
Here is the actual phrase:
vSphere 4.0 introduced support for hardware Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) adaptors. vSphere 5.0 will
take the adoption of FCoE to a new level by introducing a software FCoE adaptor. The software FCoE adaptor
will require a network adaptor that can support partial FCoE offload capabilities before it can be enabled (Figure 8).
Great white paper, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
The 2 TB – 512b .vmdk limitation is no good :(. That is only going to spread the use of RDMs more while we wait for it to be “fixed”. I agree it is broken! I dislike this particular use case for RDMs.
I agree…I was just curious. Always good to have options and workarounds if needed. I, too, would like to see this 2TB limit removed.
One of my biggest complaints was that we opted for vSphere 4 because we learned of the datastore maximums and thought–wow–we can efficiently create datastores.
Until we quickly realized (1) every VMware tech we spoke with recommended against using more than 1 LUN per datastore IF possible (2) using more than 1 LUN was like using metaluns in our EMC–can get messy.
Suffice it to say we stuck with 2TB LUns per datastore and while it is not the best configuration in my opinion it is clean and does provide some protection to failures (i.e. not all of our eggs in one datastore basket as it were)–I say SOME protection because our SAN is more than redundant.
Let’s hope this feature is in some near future vsphere 5 update….maybe update manager will be fixed too 🙂
Reading the document I was wondering if you could help.
It states the following:
‘Figure 8. Adding a Software FCoE Adaptor
After the software FCoE adaptor has been enabled, a new adaptor is created. After the creation of the adapter,
devices that are presented to this particular adapter will be recognized (Figure 9) by vSphere, enabling the
creation of a new datastore. The software FCoE adapter will enable you to use FCoE capabilities without the
need to resort to specific FCoE hardware adapters, creating a more agile and flexible infrastructure.”
Does this mean you cannot use that NIC? If so, is VMware going to note HCL compliant NICs for that feature or is that a common feature on today’s nics? It just seems if your wanting to play with that feature your gonna have to know that beforehand. RTFM.
Damn laptop is taking forever downloading that whitepaper so I just jumped on my workstation – lol.
Here is the actual phrase:
vSphere 4.0 introduced support for hardware Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) adaptors. vSphere 5.0 will
take the adoption of FCoE to a new level by introducing a software FCoE adaptor. The software FCoE adaptor
will require a network adaptor that can support partial FCoE offload capabilities before it can be enabled (Figure 8).