Thursday, December 13, 2007

 

EMC can provision 1000 VDI images from Thin Provisioned iSCSI read/write Snapshots in Minutes

Not sure if you heard but EMC has released a solutions architecture similar to that of Netapp flexclones. It is available now on current Dart code for NS line.

I'll get more data when I have it, I just thought this was kind of cool. Apparently there is a Video floating around and the solutions architecture document, I'll let you know when I get my hands on it.

Apparently, the video demonstrates how a script can create 1000 VDI thin provisioned iSCSI read-write clones based off of a golden image in just minutes. The script can also mount up all of the iSCSI luns in VMWare.

The script could be further automated to integrate with Windows Sysprep and autorename each windows XP or Vista VM (assuming you are running Windows, I'm sure this could be automated also for any operating system as the EMC solution is OS unaware at the storage layer) as it is building and have the name match the name of the VM in Virtual Center.

If this could be further integrated with VMWare VDM interface, it would be spectacular.

My EMC TC just told me about it.

It is very cool that other Vendors (not only Netapp) are starting to move on this and starting to understand that thinly provisioned VDI read/write snapshots are needed. Otherwise, the cost of storage for VDI is a negative selling point.

The curren soluion is based upon iSCSI read/write snapshots on Dart code right now (Celerra NS Series). The solution totally can be totally scripted, it will soon be supported to have read/write nfs snaps too .

Anyway, this is good news for the industry, I hope VDI starts to take off, I am really excited about this and will post more news as I receive it.

Check out this youtube video from EMC VMware specialist on this topic. (Not sure everything he says about 3.5 and VDM is accurate, but the information on image provisioning sounds accurate)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8523433896829980825&q=simple+acceleration+of+vdi&total=1&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Jeremiah Cook, Pres.
Varrow
mailto:jcook (AT) varrow.com




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