Isilon and VMware is not really a good fit so I would not be surprised if it's eventually going to be pulled.   Even though we're a large Isilon shop here, I prefer competitor N for my VMware workloads.  We had a lot of client issues when we had KVM on Isilon before we migrated from KVM to ESXi (with the new storage).

I did hear that iSCSI for Isilon has been or will soon be deprecated.

I know that EMC does not position Isilon for VMware, but I have several customers who run Production VMs on Isilon and have been doing so quite happily since the pre-EMC days of Isilon.

It's worth noting that these are not high-I/O random workload VMs, which is not a good fit for Isilon. Many are, instead webservers that serve images also stored on the Isilon.

Losing the functionality of the very-useful Isilon for VMware plug-in would likely cause some to consider migrating away from Isilon the next time renewals come up, so I hope EMC decides to continue development of and support for this software.

In the OneFS 7.1.1 release notes it explicitly says:

But in the release notes for 7.2 and 7.2.0.1 there is no mention of the plan to deprecate support for iSCSI. I think it is a safe bet to assume it will eventually go away, but who knows how soon. 8.0 would seem like a convenient time to remove it.

https://support.emc.com/docu54294_OneFS-7.1.1-Release-Notes.pdf?language=en_US

I'm a little confused by this thread.  The original question asked about the disposition and future of Isilon for Vcenter, but then marked a correct answer that mentioned the deprecation of a couple of protocols.

I'll admit to not knowing a whole lot about this aspect of OneFS, but the deprecation of iSCSI does not mean Isilon for vCenter is going away too, or that Isilon is "dropping" support for VM workloads (even though certain types of these workloads are not a market focus)...

Indeed, I was simply replying to the discussion about iSCSI support. I know nothing about Isilon vCenter integration.

I blame my cellphone for pressing "correct answer". thanks for pointing it out.

I am aware of the new version of Isilon for vCenter, but it has not updated its support for higher versions of VMware than 5.1 (5.5 being relesed Q3, 2013 I believe)

I use NFS for my Isilon->vmware workloads, but do require VSS integrated snaps for my windows VMs. (we use block-based storage for other use-cases)

Isilon for vCenter 1.0 will be EOPS & EOSL very shortly, but v1.3.1 just came out. So maybe it was the 1.0 version that was being talked about. Links below.

https://support.emc.com/docu57257_Isilon-for-vCenter-1.3.1-Release-Notes.pdf?language=en_US

https://support.emc.com/docu45445_Isilon-Product-Availability.pdf

This thread is all about the future of "Isilon for vCenter".

I still does not support VMware 5.5 (which all my clusters has been on for more than a year.), with VMware 6 around the corner..

Have you seen this thread?

Upgrading vCenter and ESXi Hosts 5.1 to 5.5 in a isilon environment

https://community.emc.com/message/872966

or

Jase's Place » vSphere 5.5 & the Isilon NAS VAAI Plugin – Part 1 – v1.0/1.1

Jase's Place » vSphere 5.5 & the Isilon NAS VAAI Plugin – Part 2 – v1.2

Maybe all you need is the updated Isilon VAAI-NAS plugin 1.2 that supports ESXi/vSphere 5.5. From "docu56426_VAAI-NAS-Plug-In-for-Isilon-1.2-Release-Notes.pdf":

VAAI NAS Plug-In for Isilon system requirements

VAAI Plug-in for Isilon 1.2 requires VMware ESXi 5.5 and OneFS version 7.1.0.

https://download.emc.com/downloads/DL56427_Isilon-VAAI-1.2-installation-file-is-a-plugin-for-VMware-ESXi-5.5-hypervisors…

https://support.emc.com/docu56426_VAAI_NAS_Plug-In_for_Isilon_1.2_Release_Notes.pdf?language=en_US

As someone mentioned before, the primary use of IFV is for the backup workflows. What are people using the vCenter plugin for? if it is just for backup workflows, you can do those without IFV.