Can VMware Workstation 9 run a ESXi VM that resides on an iSCSI SAN ?

[AussieIT]

Can VMware Workstation run a VM that resides on an iSCSI SAN ?

We have an iSCSI SAN on which we store several test VMs that are created and usually run from ESXi, however, there are times that I would like to run one or more of these VMs from my desktop using VMware Workstation 9.

The VMs that reside on the iSCSI SAN datastore are large is size and I would prefer not to download/copy them from ESXi to my workstation whenever I want to run them.

The SAN volumes are of course formatted with VMFS 5.54 which is why I do not connect to the SAN with Windows 7/8 and get VMware Workstation to open the VM from a Windows connected iSCSI volume.

What I would like to see is VMware Workstation to be able to directly connect to and read/recognise VMFS datastores so that it can run VMs from that datastore.

Is the above possible or likely to be possible ? If the featues does not exist, but you too would find this feature useful, please add a comment to this thread.

[AussieIT]

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/ws7_performance.pdf

Storage for VMware Workstation (General)
For best performance, make sure the host hard drive is large enough that it will have an ample amount of free space. Performance can degrade considerably when Workstation has to use a nearly-full host hard drive when working with snapshots or writing to redo logs.

Storage for VMware Workstation (SAN, NAS, and RAID)
Storage performance issues are often the result of storage hardware misconfiguration. Refer to the manuals provided by your storage vendor for tuning methods and parameters. Here are some of the areas to consider:

• When possible, make sure the read and write caches on SAN and NAS storage devices are enabled and configured to the appropriate sizes. Caches that are either disabled or too small could have an adverse effect on performance.
• Make sure that the queue depth on the host bus adapter is configured appropriately, as this configuration can significantly affect performance. Refer to the documentation supplied by your storage vendor for details

Does the above mean that it is possible for VMware Workstation to access ESXi VMFS formatted iSCSI SAN storage ?

[continuum]

If you want to share VMs between ESXi and Workstation you must use NFS datastores.

It is possible in emergencies to run ESXi VMs in Workstation from a iSCSI VMFS volume but that would be readonly access and is probably regarded as experimental or nuts  - so you would not want to use it for daily work.