Simplify virtual machine provisioning and administration with a high performance cluster file system optimized for virtual machines. Central storage of virtual machines with VMware VMFS provides more control, flexibility and performance in managing your virtualized IT environment.
- Reduce IT costs and improve flexibility with server consolidation. .
- Decrease planned and unplanned downtime for improved business continuity.
- Run fewer servers and dynamically power down unused servers to reduce your energy costs.
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Features
The following is a list of the key features of VMware VMFS. For a comprehensive list of VMware Infrastructure features download the key features summary.
Architecture
- Cluster file system. Enable virtualization-based distributed infrastructure services by storing virtual machine files on shared storage as Fibre Channel and iSCSI SAN.
- Shared data file system. Enable multiple installations of VMware ESX to read and write from the same storage location concurrently.
- Online insertion or deletion of nodes. Add or delete a VMware ESX server from a VMFS volume without pausing or halting the processing of other instances of VMware ESX.
- On-disk disk file locking. Ensure that the same virtual machine is not powered on by multiple servers at the same time.
Performance and Scalability
- Optimized for virtual machine I/O. Store and access the entire virtual machine state efficiently from a centralized location with virtual disk performance close to native SCSI.
- Adaptive block sizing. Uses large block sizes favored by virtual disk I/O. Use sub-block allocator for small files and directories.
- Dynamic increase of VMFS volume size. Create new virtual machines without relying on a storage administrator. Adaptive block sizing and addressing for growing files allows to increase a VMFS volume on the fly.
- Increased number of VMware ESX servers per VMFS volume. Connect up to 32 VMware ESX servers to a single VMFS volume.
- Extended block size and file limits. Run even the most data intensive production applications such as databases, ERP and CRM in virtual machines.
- Maximum volume size: 64 TB
- Maximum virtual disk size: 2 TB
- Maximum file size:2 TB max
- Block size: 1MB to 8MB
- Caching. Benefits from enhanced VMFS performance with volume, device, object and buffer caching.
Interoperability
- Certification. Use VMFS with a wide range of Fibre Channel and iSCSI SAN equipment. VMFS is optimized, rigorously tested and certified for these storage systems.
- Idealized SCSI compliant virtual disks. Use virtual disk files that appear to the virtual machine as a mounted SCSI device. Virtual disks hide all intermittent SAN errors from the operating system, allowing even operating systems not certified for SAN to run inside a virtual machine.
Management
- LUN discovery and management. Simplify storage management with automatic discovery of LUNs in the shared storage and mapping of those LUNs to a VMFS volume.
- File directories. Enable easy virtual machine administration with file directories. All files for a virtual machine are stored in a separate directory.
- Direct pass through of virtual machine data. Ensure correct application behavior and data integrity for applications running in virtual machines. VMware VMFS preserves the internal file system semantics of the operating system running inside the virtual machine.
- Unified hierarchical namespace. Manage all available physical disks, logical volumes and VMware VMFS volumes with a consistent namespace that eliminates potential conflicts.
High Availability
- Virtual machine snapshots. Increase application availability while reducing backup windows using virtual machine snapshots. Create a point-in-time copy of virtual machine data that can be used for testing, backup, and recovery operations.
- Hot add virtual disk. Add virtual disk to a running virtual machine to increase available resources or for backup.
- Distributed journaling. Recover virtual machines faster and more reliably in the event of server failure.
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