As a VMware Technology Alliance Partner for more than ten years, QSAN has been working with VMware to develop technical solutions for key VMware integration such as VAAI, VASA, and vVols. Based on the cooperation, QSAN proposes storage solutions with excellent performance and enterprise-level functions to assist users with deploying virtual environments by building a powerful flash-based infrastructure.
Offload System Overheads
QSAN storage supports VMware VAAI (VMware vSphere Storage APIs – Array Integration) functionality. VAAI is a set of APIs that allows ESXi hosts to offload specific virtual machine and storage management tasks to the QSAN storage. Support VAAI offloads the ESXi system overheads, and, as a result, the ESXi system reduces the usage of CPU, memory, and storage fabric bandwidth.
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Reducing resource overhead
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Improving performance for storage-intensive operations
Reduce CPU Load during Full Copy
Full Copy allows storage array to reproduce data within the array without letting VMware ESXi server to read or write data physically. The solution offers possibilities of cloning a virtual machine, performing a Storage vMotion, and deploying virtual machines from a template.
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Reducing CPU load on VMware ESXi server
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Preventing crowded I/Os between VMware ESXi server and storage array
Eliminate Duplicate Writes
Block Zero or HW Assisted Zero enables storage array to zero out a large number of blocks for speeding up virtual machine configuration. Users may either create Thin Provisioning Eager Zero virtual disks or write data to an unused area of a Thick Provisioning Lazy Zero virtual disk.
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Eliminating repeated write commands to minimize the VMware ESXi server workload
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Improving capacity allocation vastly
Simplify Storage Operations with vVols
vVols (Virtual Volumes) are abstract storage containers that replace traditional storage volumes based on LUN or NFS sharing. In vCenter Server, storage area containers are represented by vVols data storage areas. The vVols data storage area stores virtual volumes and objects that encapsulate virtual machine files.
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Delivering on-demand storage services for individual VMs
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Streamlining storage operations
Parallel Access from Multiple Servers
Hardware Assisted Locking, also called ATS (Atomic Test and Set), locks blocks in a volume/LUN instead of the whole volume/LUN added as a datastore in a VMware ESXi server. The feature is beneficial in scalability when a datastore is shared in a VMware cluster environment without compromising the integrity of metadata in the VMFS shared storage pool.
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Offloading the lock mechanism to the storage array
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Executing the lock at a granular level
Simple Setup in vSphere
VASA (VMware APIs for Storage Awareness) Providers is a communication and management software between storage devices and vSphere. Such integration process ensures that a virtual volume created in the storage layer meets the requirements outlined in the policy.
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VASA (VMware APIs for Storage Awareness) Providers is a communication and management software between storage devices and vSphere. Such integration process ensures that a virtual volume created in the storage layer meets the requirements outlined in the policy.
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Managing multiple storage devices with a single VASA Provider
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Performing advanced functions, such as snapshot and compression, on storage devices
Application Note & White Paper
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Virtualizing Your iSCSI LUN in VMware with the Simplest Way!
By providing uninterrupted services and ultra-low latency services, QSAN storage meets all the requirements of virtualization and mission-critical tasks.