One of the major components released with vSphere 6 this year was the support for Virtual Volumes (VVOLS). VVOLS has been gaining momentum with storage vendors, who are enabling its capabilities in their arrays.
When virtualizing business databases there are many critical concerns that need to be addressed that include:
Database Performance to meet strict SLAs
Daily Operations e.g. Backup & Recovery to complete in set window
Cut down time to Clone / Refresh of Databases from Production
Meet different IO characteristics and capabilities based on criticality
Never ending debate with DBAs
File Systems v/s Raw Devices (VMFS v/s RDM)
VVOLS can offer solutions to mitigate these concerns that impact the decision to virtualize business critical databases. VVOLS can help with the following:
1. Reduce backup windows for databases
2. Provide ability to have Database consistent backups
3. Reduced cloning times for multi-terabyte databases
4. Provide capabilities for Storage Policy based management
Details on the solutions available with VVOLS and its impact on “Virtualized Tier1 Business Critical Databases” will be discussed in detail at vmworld 2015 in session STO4452:
