Presenting VMs with VMFS and Non-VMFS LUNs?

[pearlyshells]

Is it possible to present VMFS and Non-VMFS LUNs to ESX3.5 VMs simultaneously? We are a totally VMFS/Fibre Channel VI environment with Windows Guest O/S totally. While we have all our VMs residing on VMFS storage LUNs the question was raised if it is possible to have both VMFS and Non-VMFS Luns presentable to our VMs?

I believe I remembered that Non-VMFS storage can be made available as storage but not sure if both can be presented at the same time

[RParker]

VMFS storage LUNs the question was raised if it is possible to have both VMFS and Non-VMFS Luns presentable to our VMs?

Yes and no. non-VMFS storage is presented at the Target / NFS level. So ESX can't natively use non-VMFS volumes but you can use LUNS / NFS / iSCSI targets to do this, and they can be done at the same time.

[pearlyshells]

Ah...yes. I remember that. So, if a Windows file is stored on an NFS volume we could present that LUN to the VMs along with the VMFS LUNs. Is that correct?

[titaniumlegs]

Yes, absolutely. You can present the non-VMFS as RDM (Raw Device Mapping). It doesn't matter whether the filesystem in that LUN is recognized by ESX (as long as it's not VMFS), or whether it was formatted by a VM or a physical server then imported.

The mapping file fo rthe LUN needs to be in a VMFS, so you need at least one VMFS, and that's usually where the VM itself will live.

RDMs are well-documented in a few of the manuals

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_3_server_config.pdf

Enjoy!

Peter

[titaniumlegs]

If it's a file in an NFS share you're trying to get to, as opposed to a LUN with an NTFS filesystem inside it, you probably want a CIFS share and map a drive letter from the VM.

[weinstein5]

Yes you can - you will have to utilize what is called an RDM which will redirect the write to a raw LUN (one not formatted as VMFS) - check ou http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_san_cfg.pdf for more information

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful

[pearlyshells]

Well, it appears that there WAS a reason for the question, after all. One of our department IT administrators wants to virtualize his servers and point his data that is stored on a SAN to his NTFS LUN.

So, the question was posed to see if they could virtualize their server but point back to their old NTFS storage location. So, as Paul Harvey would say, "that's the rest of the story".

Also, from our SAN administrator: The department's NTFS LUN resides on the same SAN as our VMFS LUNs. So, what our managers want to do is see if we can P2V the VM and then map a drive letter back to the NTFS LUN on the SAN. How can that be done? will any special hardware be needed?

[mcowger · Accepted solution]

it can be done with an RDM, and no special software needed.

--Matt

VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek

[pearlyshells]

Thanks very much. I'm just now reading up on RDMs and how to create them....