VMware VVOL support?

[zmi]

I couldn't find a single article about VVOL support for FreeNAS. Has nobody ever asked for that? From vSphere 6.0, VMware uses VVOLs for better and faster snapshot management, and it sounds like that should fit the way ZFS does snapshots (CoW), with some extras to manage the whole thing directly from the storage. Are there any plans to write a VASA provider for VMware?

 

[mav@]

It indeed sounds good. It was discussed, though so far not implemented. Unlike already supported VAAI it is highly VMware-proprietary, and requires to pay significant amount of money just to see the specs and estimate implementatopn possibility. We may do it at some point, but not yet.

 

[zmi]

Bloody VMware. Stupid other storage vendors who pay for that. OTOH, clever of them so they keep the "small" vendors outside.

 

[mav@]

FreeNAS is an open-source project. If you want you can donate some code/knowledge/money and we might be able to get that feature implemented.

 

[zmi]

FreeNAS is a wonderful project and I am thankful for this work. I don't like VMware, and the big storage players like NetApp, EMC, who make you pay for specs.

 

[cyberjock]

I would say if TrueNAS really does become a very large provider of storage servers then iXsystems would probably spend the money. But in the big scheme of things, iXsystems and TrueNAS is still quite small.

So tell everyone about FreeNAS and TrueNAS. :D

 

[anodos]

So tell everyone about FreeNAS and TrueNAS. :D

I do quite a bit of that. Funny story, in real life I had an acquaintance come up to me and ask, "do you know anything about this FreeNAS thing?"

He then proceeded to tell me all about how he converted an old desktop computer to be a ZFS server with striped drives. When I'm on the forums I can mutter all sorts of insulting things about people while keeping up a very cordial conversation. It doesn't work so well in real life. :D