Module 6: Storage Lesson 1: Storage Conepts Flashcards
(34 cards)
Datastores can have what two types of file system formats?
VMware VMFS or Network File System (NFS)
What are the four storage technologies supported by VMware ESX/ESXi hosts?
Locally attached, Fiber Channel, iSCSI and Network-attached (NAS)
What is considered local storage?
internal or external disks or arrays attached to the host though a direct connection
What is considered Fiber Channel storage?
A SAN connected through fibre. Fibre Channel encapsulates SCSI commands
What is iSCSI?
Enables access to storage devices over TCP/IP.
What does a iSCI host bus adapter (HBA)?
A SCSI protocol that sends iSCSI commands to targets located in iSCSI storage systems
What is a NAS?
Storage shared over standard TCP/IP networks at the file system level.
What is NAS storage used for?
To hold NFS datastores
Where are virtual machine files located?
In its own directory in the datadtore
What can datastores be used for?
Storing ISO images, floppy images, virtual machines and templates
What virtualization based services does VMFS provide?
Live migration from one physical server to another
Automatic restart of a failed VM
Clustering of VMs across different physical servers
A VMFS datastore can be ______ ______ while VMs residing on the VMFS datatore are powered on.
A VMFS datastore can be increased dynamically while VMs residing on the VMFS datatore are powered on.
What is the maximum block size VMFS will support? What is the maximum virtual disk files size?
8MB and 2TB
What is VMFS block-level, distributed locking do?
Ensures that the same virtual machine is not powered on by multiple servers
What is a VMDK?
Virtual machine disk
What are VMDKs?
Logical representations of the association and allocation of the larger VMFS datastore
The VMFS datastore is made up of ______ _______ with a unique ______ ______ ______
The VMFS datastore is made up of one large volume with a unique logical unit number (LUN)
Hosts support what version of NFS?
Version 3 over TCP only
Instead of storing virtual machine data in a virtual disk file, you can store data directly…
on a raw LUN.
Why would it be beneficial to store data directly on a raw LUN?
If you are running applications in your virtual machines that must know the physical characteristics of the storage device
What is a RDM?
A special file in a VMFS datastore that acts as a proxy for a raw LUN
When is RDM recommended?
When a virtual machine must interact with a real disk on the SAN
What does Thin Provisioning do?
Enables virtual machines to use storage space as needed
______ storage (as opposed to ______ storage) is where most administrators install ESX and ESXi Installable.
Local storage (as opposed to SAN storage) is where most administrators install ESX and ESXi Installable.
