Implementing vSphere Storage Fundamentals

This part of the chapter examines how the shared storage technologies covered previously are applied in vSphere. We will cover these elements in a logical sequence, starting with core vSphere storage concepts. Next, we'll cover the storage options in vSphere for datastores to contain groups of VMs (VMFS datastores and NFS datastores). We'll follow that discussion with options for presenting disk devices directly into VMs (raw device mappings). Finally, we'll examine VM–level storage configuration details.

Reviewing Core vSphere Storage Concepts

One of the core concepts of virtualization is encapsulation. What used to be a physical system is encapsulated by vSphere, resulting in VMs that are represented by a set of files. Chapter 9, “Creating and Managing Virtual Machines,” provides more detail on the specific files that compose a VM and their purpose. For reasons described already, these VM files reside on...