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143 Posts
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4996
Unity VVols and Snapshots & Replication
Hello all,
I am using the UnityVSA to get to know VVols better. I am familiar with the regular iSCSI-based (block) VMFS Datastores, where I can set up a snapshot schedule, as well as configure replication. However, I can't seem to find a way to enable snapshot schedules or replication on VVols. Can someone let me know if this is possible? I thought one of the main benefits of VVols was the ability to snap and replicate VMs at the hardware-level, granularly, per VM, rather than per-datastore. But I can't seem to find a way to do this.
Thanks,
Bill
chenw87
43 Posts
0
October 17th, 2016 06:00
When a VM snap is taken in vSphere, the task is offloaded to the Unity system so a Unity snap is used. The Unity system takes a snaps of all the VVols are the used by that particular VM. The EMC Unity: Virtualization Integration white paper has more information on this.
VVol replication is part of the VASA 3.0 spec. If you need VM-granular replication today, you can use RecoverPoint for VMs.
Rainer_EMC
8.6K Posts
1
October 7th, 2016 14:00
snapshots and replication for vVols are not currently implemented
From what I remember they arent part of the current VASA 2.0 standart.
the vVol concept is to have these driven by the vCenter through VASA and not manually on the storage system
boyler05
143 Posts
0
October 14th, 2016 09:00
Yes, it seems a bit murky what VMware "supports" as part of the VASA 2.0 spec. My interpretation was that VMware is leaving the implementation details open to the hardware vendor, as to which capabilities are offloaded by the SAN. Do you happen to know if Unity's VVol implementation will actually use a Unity (hardware-based) Snapshot under the hood when a VM snapshot is created in vCenter? Or does a traditional VMware (software-based) snapshot get created? I understand your point about using vCenter as the single snapshot management UI, although I'd prefer to use the Unity UI, because vCenter doesn't have an easy way to automate snapshot creation. I'm primarily curious if the underlying VVol snapshots are Unity snaps or VMware snaps, under the hood. It sounds like the VASA spec allows hardware vendors to use either approach.
boyler05
143 Posts
0
October 18th, 2016 10:00
Thanks for the great info. It sounds like VMware just announced VASA 3.0 and VVols 2.0 along with vSphere 6.5 to be GA by the end of the year, so I'm looking forward to seeing these new features making their way to Unity sometime down the road. Thanks!
OliverCC
14 Posts
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April 6th, 2017 14:00
Any updates on this? Now that we have VASA 3.0, unfortunately only HPE and Nimble support ABR.
Rainer_EMC
8.6K Posts
0
April 6th, 2017 17:00
I dont think there is public info about it - for roadmap information please contact your local or partner EMC pre-sales
ctg49
1 Message
0
July 2nd, 2019 06:00
We're now over 2 years out from VVOL2.0 and VASA3.0 releases. Is there a release schedule yet for replicated VVOLs from within the Unity itself? I can't help but note that many of EMC's competitors have supported this for a while now (some from Day 1).