IBM DS3500 - Introduction to IBM Vmware Storage Solutions; Vmware Installation Prerequisites

VMware ESX Server Storage Configuration with DS3500.fm Draft Document for Review March 28, 2011 12:24
666 IBM System Storage DS3500: Introduction and Implementation Guide
22.1 Introduction to IBM VMware Storage Solutions
Many companies consider and employ VMware virtualization solutions to reduce IT costs
while increasing the efficiency, utilization, and flexibility of their hardware. In fact, 190,000
customers have deployed VMware, including 96% of Fortune 1000 businesses. Yet
maximizing the operational benefits from virtualization requires network storage that helps
optimize the VMware infrastructure.
The IBM Storage solutions for VMware offer customers:
򐂰 Flexibility: Support for iSCSI and Fibre Channel shared storage, plus HBA and storage
port multi-pathing and boot from SAN.
򐂰 Performance: Outstanding high-performance block-level storage that scales with
VMware’s VMFS file system, independently verified high performance by the SPC-1,
SPC-2 and SPCvirt_sc2010 (Storage Performance Council) benchmarks, and balanced
performance delivered by the IBM DS3500 Storage System for mixed applications running
in a virtual infrastructure.
򐂰 Horizontal scalability: From entry-level through midrange to enterprise class network
storage with commonality of platform and storage management.
򐂰 Hot Backup and Quick recovery: Non-disruptive backup solutions using Tivoli® and
NetBackup with and without VCB (VMware Consolidated Backup). Quick recovery at the
file or virtual machine level.
򐂰 Disaster recovery: DS3500 Enhanced Remote Mirror offers affordable disaster recovery
with automatic failover in conjunction with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager
(SRM).
򐂰 Affordability: Low TCO shared storage with included IBM Storage System DS Storage
Manager Software (Storage Manager) and no separate software maintenance fees,
cost-effective tiered storage within the same storage system, leveraging SAS drives for
high performance and, SAS Nearline drives for economical capacity.
򐂰 Efficiency: Data Services features, such as FlashCopy and VolumeCopy enable VMware
Centralized Backup to disk and eliminate backup windows, and provide required network
storage for VMware ESX Server features, such as VMware vMotion, VMware Storage
vMotion, Resource Pools, VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), and VMware
High Availability. Storage I/O Control gives you the chance to adjust your Storage I/O to
match the mixed Workload in your environment.
VMware vSphere includes components and operations that are essential for managing virtual
machines. The following components form part of the new VMware vSphere suite:
򐂰 VMware ESX/ESXi server
򐂰 VMware vCenter Server
򐂰 Storage I/O Control (SIOC)
򐂰 Datastore
򐂰 Host Agent
22.1.1 VMware installation prerequisites
򐂰 Refer to the following VMware website for a complete up to date list of the prerequisites for
installing VMware ESX server.
http://www.vmware.com.tt/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_esx_get_start.pdf
򐂰 Refer to the following VMware website for more information about the maximum hardware
capabilities of the VMware ESX Server.
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf