Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 8.24
Traditional vSphere storage logical network architecture.
Figure 8.24
shows a traditional logical storage network architecture. As we covered in
Chapter 6
,
“
Designing for Performance: Storage
,” there are other options today with the
growth of hyperconverged solutions, such as the Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform
and others. The important aspects of
Figure 8.24
are the resilient connection of the
vSphere host to the storage network and of the storage device and storage controllers
through to the storage network. This ensures that there is no single point of failure. To
improve performance, multipathing of storage paths can be used, or link aggregation in
the case of NFS. Ideally, the storage devices are connected to the vSphere hosts no
more than one network hop away and on a nonblocking lossless network fabric.
Tip
For information on configuring iSCSI port binding, see VMware KB 2038869.
For a comparison of supported storage protocols, see
Network Virtualization and Network Security
John Gage, who was the fifth employee of Sun Microsystems, is credited for coining the
phrase “The network
is
the computer” in 1984. He foresaw the future, and this became
the vision for Sun Microsystems. Prior to the dot-com bust and the rise of VMware and
x86 virtualization, you would have thought Sun was going to be in a commanding
position to deliver upon this vision (or at least a dominant player). However, that was
not to be. If you look at the growth rates of virtual server access ports in
Figure 8.25
,
you can see Gage's statement has come true—the network is the computer. However, it
is VMware vSphere that provides the network, and it has more server access ports than
any other company on the planet.
