vSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) are one of several VMware vSphere Storage APIs. VASA, new in vSphere 5.0, provides vCenter with a way of interrogating storage array LUNs and associated datastores to gain visibility into the underlying hardware and configuration of the storage layer. Storage capabilities, such as RAID level, thin or thick LUN provisioning, replication state, caching mechanisms, and auto-tiering are presented through VASA to vCenter (a unidirectional read operation by vCenter against the array). With VASA, vCenter can identify which datastores possess … [Read more...]
Storage Basics – Part IX: Alternate IOPS Formula
It's been a long time since I published an article in my Storage Basics series - the series has been some of the top content on my site to date. I sat for a beta version of the VMware Certified Advanced Professional - Desktop Design (VCAP-DTD) test today and was reminded by the test of a post I had in waiting about an alternate way to calculate IOPS (hint hint - memorize these formulas). I have several more articles sitting in draft form, but a new job, crazy kids, home improvement projects, and a wife with chronic cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) leaks (it sounds bad - and it is - but look on … [Read more...]