Just a reminder as I received a lot of questions and comments about this:
The new vMotion functionality – migrating virtual machines between host without shared storage – is only available via the web client.
Please note that in the vSphere 5.1 release all new features are only visible via the web client and not in the old vSphere client.
For more information about the vMotion functionality: vSphere 5.1 vMotion deepdive
Get notification of these blogs postings and more DRS and Storage DRS information by following me on Twitter: @frankdenneman
vSphere 5.1 storage vMotion parallel disk migrations
Where previous versions of vSphere copied disks serially, vSphere 5.1 allows up to 4 parallel disk copies per Storage vMotion operation When you migrate a virtual machine with five VMDK files, Storage vMotion copies of the first four disks in parallel, then starts the next disk copy as soon as one of the first four finishes.
To reduce performance impact on other virtual machines sharing the datastores, parallel disk copies only apply to disk copies between distinct datastores. This means that if a virtual machine has multiple VMDK files on Datastore1 and Datastore2, parallel disk copies will only happen if destination datastores are Datastore3 and Datastore4.
Let’s use an example to clarify the process. Virtual machine VM1 has four vmdk files. VMDK1 and VMDK2 are on Datastore1, VMDK3 and VMDK4 are on Datastore2. The VMDK files are moved from Datastore1 to Datastore4 and from Datastore2 to Datastore3. VMDK1 and VMDK3 are migrated in parallel, while VMDK2 and VMDK4 are queued. The migration process of VMDK2 is started the moment the migration of VMDK1 is complete, similar for VMDK4 as it will be started when the migration of VMDK3 is complete.
A fan out disk copy, in other words copying two VMDK files on datastore A to datastores B and C, will not have parallel disk copies. The common use case of parallel disk copies is the migration of a virtual machine configured with an anti-affinity rule inside a datastore cluster.
vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive available
Duncan and I released the vSphere 5.1 Clustering deepdive book this week. The book contains the new features of the vSphere 5.1 suite. We rewrote the Storage DRS chapter and have added a complete new chapter focusing on Stretched Clusters.
Font changes
The challenge for us was to include all the new content in the book without allowing the book to grow beyond its trademark dimensions. To achieve this we used a different font and decreased the font size, this resulted in a growth of 80 pages, making it 415 pages instead of the 505 pages if we used the previous font. Please note that although we decreased the font size, this did not decrease the legibility of the book.
Special cover
The cover is designed in such a way that you can actually have multiple copies with all different shades of orange, dare I say 50 shades of Orange. 😉
We hope you enjoy the new version of the vSphere clustering deepdive series. It’s available in Paperback and Kindle format.
Paper copy – $ 24.95
Kindle version – $ 7.49
My public VMworld schedule
This year will be an action-packed VMWorld for me, presenting sessions, participating in two panel sessions, hosting a group discussion and available in two “Meet the expert” sessions.
Presenting the following sessions:
INF-STO1545 – Architecting Storage DRS Datastore Clusters
INF-VSP1683 – VMware vSphere Cluster Resource Pools Best Practices
Panel sessions:
(TAM Day) – ASK THE EXPERTS
INF-VSP1504 – Ask the Expert vBloggers
Hosting the GD22 – Resource management (DRS/SDRS) group discussion. I invited Anne Holler (Lead engineer DRS) to host this session together with me.
During Meet the Experts session 13 and session 17 I’m available for short meetings to answer your resource management (DRS\SDRS) questions.
Here is the week schedule of the sessions/events/activities that I will be taking part of, be sure to sign up if you have not already:
Sunday (TAM Day):
14:35 – 15:35 : ASK THE EXPERTS
Monday:
14:30 – 15:30 : INF-VSP1504 – Ask the Expert vBloggers
16:00 – 17:00 : GD22 – Resource Management
Tuesday:
12:30 – 13:30 : INF-STO1545 – Architecting Storage DRS Datastore Clusters (Repeat session)
15:00 – 16:00 : INF-VSP1683 – vSphere Cluster Resource Pools Best Practices
Wednesday:
08:30 – 09:30 : INF-STO1545 – Architecting Storage DRS Datastore Clusters
12:30 – 13:30 : Expert 13
Thursday:
12:00 – 12:00 : Expert 17
Fab-four: VMWorld 2012 sessions approved
This morning I found out that my four sessions are accepted. I’m really pleased and I am looking forward to presenting at each one of them. Two sessions, Architecting Storage DRS Datastore Clusters and vSphere Cluster Resource Pool Best Practices are also scheduled for VMWorld Barcelona.
Session ID: STO1545
Session Title: Architecting Storage DRS Datastore Clusters
Track: Infrastructure
Presenting at: US and Barcelona
Presenting with: Valentin Hamburger
Session ID: VSP1504
Session Title: Ask the Expert vBloggers
Track: Infrastructure
Presenting at: US
Presenting with: Duncan Epping, Scott Lowe, Rick Scherer and Chad Sakac
Session ID: VSP1683
Session Title: vSphere Cluster Resource Pools Best Practices
Track: Infrastructure
Presenting at: US and Barcelona
Presenting with Rawlinson Rivera
Session ID: CSM1167
Session Title: Architecting for vCloud Allocation Models
Track: Operations
Presenting at: US
Presenting with Chris Colotti
Can’t wait to attend VMworld 2012! See you there.