Virtual volumes

IBM® Spectrum Control Base Edition delivers comprehensive storage virtualization support that use VMware vSphere Virtual Volume (VVol) technology.

The VVol architecture, introduced in VMware VASA 2.0, preserves the concept of a traditional datastore, maintaining familiarity and compatibility with previous data storage implementations. With VVol, the IBM storage systems become aware of individual VMs, allowing data operations, such as snapshot and replication, to be performed directly by the storage system at the VM level.

The storage system uses VASA provider to present VVols to the ESXi host and inform the vCenter of the availability of VVol-aware storage. Storage services are configured on VASA provider by the storage administrator and are used to manage storage resources (pools) and VVols. The services represent storage capacity with a set of attributes, such as encryption or provisioning type.

VVol usage improves system scalability, ensures granular management, leverages hardware features and performance of storage systems at the VM level, providing complete end-to-end cloud solution. An additional entity, a storage space, includes one or more services, and can be assigned to different storage customers.

As illustrated below, the IBM Storage Provider for VMware VASA implements the VMware Virtual Volume API, providing an out-of-band management bridge between vSphere and the storage system. Out-of-band link separates the management path from the data path, which connects the ESXi servers to the virtual disks in a VVol datastore through a Protocol Endpoint (PE). Instead of presenting a LUN to the hypervisor and allowing an ESXi host to perform data operations, a storage system takes on itself a bulk of storage-related functions.

For instructions about how to configure a VVol-enabled storage service, see Creating a VVol-enabled service.