Virtual Flash and ESXi standalone

[Matthydras]

Hello everybody

I have installed a lab ESXi on which I want to test Virtual Flash feature (SSD HDD installed on it).

For the moment, this lab ESXi is not included on my production vCenter infrastructure.

So I used the vsphere client (on windows) for doing the administration tasks.

My question is : the only way to configure the Virtual Flash features is using the webclient webpages (Host object / Manage / Settings / Flash Read Cache Resource Management / Add Capacity) ?

We can't do it though the vsphere client (on windows) ?

Thanks in advance for your help

Best Regards

Matt

[RyanH84 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The requirements of using Flash Read Cache are:

1. Ensure your environment is fully compatible with vSphere 5.5. You need a certified ESXi 5.5 host, vCenter Server 5.5, and a local SSD disk. To see if your hardware is compatible, see the VMware Hardware Compatibility Guide.
2. Set up a Virtual Flash resource. For more information, see Setting up a Virtual Flash resource in vSphere 5.5 (2051647).
3. Allocate Virtual Flash Read Cache to a virtual machine disk. For more information, see Allocating Virtual Flash cache to a virtual machine (2051572).

Do you meet these requirements? Also, it was a new feature to 5.5 and I am confident that it MUST be configured in the web client. I also have a feeling (casting my mind back to VCAP study) that the VM has to be of a certain hardware version (10). You can't assign vFRC feature to older VMs.

[Matthydras]

Hi Ryan

Yes I have all the requirements, and you are true about the requirements : this feature couldn't be configured without vSphere 5.5 Infrastructure.

Unfortunately, I think Vmware can implement vFRC on standalone ESXi server could be a nice feature 🙂

Thanks for your reply

Have a nice day

Matt