Next gen vSphere beta, and the scoop on EMC and VVOL support

Happy July 4th to my American brothers and sisters!   Had a great Canada Day (July 1st) earlier this week…

 

Saw some traffic and inbound customer requests around VVOLs earlier this week – and I wanted to open up info a little more and be transparent…

We’ve all been working towards VVOL support for years now, and while it’s not here YET, it’s getting much, much closer.   The VVOL 1.0 beta (and next vSphere beta!) is here!

Unlike in the past, the sign up is public (the program itself is private) – so I would encourage anyone to go and sign up – which you can do here…

So – which targets from EMC can customers COUNT ON?

• The first implementation for customers who are in the beta will be the VNXe file implementation on the VNXe 3200.   If you go back and read the VNXe 3200 launch post here, you can see that while the “centerpiece” of the new VNXe 3200 was the MCX code (FAST VP, FAST Cache) and multiprotocol – i.e. “block stuff” – it also changed the filesystem materially (bolting onto the CBFS mapping layer directly, and a new file snapshotting engine – one that uses the file/block mapping in CBFS).
• VNX File/Block support.  As I alluded to in the VNXe post above – the VNX roadmap converges on the Unity architecture that the VNXe represents (with a converged code base, and next-gen filesystem).   We’re working to see how much (if any) we can back-port to the current non-converged VNX HW/SW stack.   The VNX File/Block support is in the Plan of Record (firm roadmap), but I cannot confirm hardware platform support at this point.
• VMAX.  Tune in on July 8th here, where you will find out a lot of awesome in VMAX land, including the scoop on VVOL support.
• VPLEX and XtremIO are working forward to firm up their roadmap, but are committed to VVOL support not coincident, but near the VMware availability.

To the 15 people I’m sending VNXe 3200’s to – I’m hoping you subscribe to the next-gen vSphere and VVOL betas – and give us firm/blunt feedback on both the VMware side and EMC side!

Comments

[Ben Conrad]

Hi Chad,

What are the chances that vVols will be supported on VNX2 for Block?

Ben

[Chad Sakac]

@Ben - responded in the other post...