VMware vSphere 5.1 VMFS file locking for View Linked Clones

Since I frequently got a lot of questions from my peers and customers about these limitations, thought I'd share it for the community.

This statement is true and valid for VMware vSphere 5.1 and VMware View 5.1 as today (Jan 2013), some improvement may appear in next releases.

As you may know, VMware vSphere 5.1 improved file locking : from 8 hosts to 32 hosts per cluster for VMFS as for NFS.

However, this can't still permit to VMware View 5.1 to support more than 8 hosts per Cluster for Linked Clones while this is supported with NFS.

As per Cormac Hogan blogpost explains :

"It should be noted that versions of VMware View 5.0 (and earlier) limited the number of hosts which could use linked-clone based desktops to 8. This was true for both VMFS and NFS datastores. VMware View 5.1, released earlier in 2012, increased this host count to 32 for NFS on vSphere 5.0. With the next release of VMware View & vSphere 5.1, you can have 32 hosts sharing the same base disk with both NFS & VMFS datastores."

Source : http://cormachogan.com/2012/09/04/vsphere-5-1-storage-enhancements-part-1-vmfs-5/ (thanks Cormac)

So, be sure to keep this in mind for your next VMware View storage and server design based on block/VMFS.