topic Re: VDI - FCP LUNs to NFS in Network and Storage Protocols

VDI - FCP LUNs to NFS

irobinson1 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:29:43 GMT

I know this may be a complicated and very detailed queston but I'm just looking for a general idea of what is all involved in converting a VDI infastructure from FCP to NFS. Keep in mind I have about 2100 VDI instances. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Re: VDI - FCP LUNs to NFS

amiller_1 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:00:47 GMT

In short, data migration. Your options revolve around....

VM data relocation (in VirtualCenter with the VM shut down) -- manual process
Storage vMotion (not officially supported from FC to NFS but no problems for at all so far or multiple other people I've talked to) -- manual process but scriptable via rcli
depending on VDI configuration (independent, pools, etc.), adjusting the pool parameters and reprovisioning VM's on a new NFS datastore
some mix of everything above.

Hopefully helpful -- just let me know if anything above doesn't make sense.

Re: VDI - FCP LUNs to NFS

abhinavj — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:11:15 GMT

Hi Ivory,

What is the driver for migrating the environment from FC to NFS?

Regards,

Abhinav

Re: VDI - FCP LUNs to NFS

amiller_1 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:18:41 GMT

Not to secondguess too much...but possibly some of these...

http://viroptics.pancamo.com/2007/11/why-vmware-over-netapp-nfs.html

Re: VDI - FCP LUNs to NFS

irobinson1 — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:05:19 GMT

Just moving forward. We are on FCP LUNS and the benefits of NFS look they are better considering we are approching 2500 VM clients.

Re: VDI - FCP LUNs to NFS

keitha — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:10:11 GMT

Ivory,

I suspect you have a very high number of FC LUNs. Likely the biggest gain would be the ability to place a much greater number of VMs per data store. Many fewer objects for you to manage. Andrews suggestions on how to migrate were right on. I am curious which of the techniques you think you would likely use to migrate?

Keith

Re: VDI - FCP LUNs to NFS

amiller_1 — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:13:46 GMT

Phew....that's a lot of VM's/a lot of datastores....NFS would be nice if only for that. There's also some future-looking stuff posted in the reply here.

http://communities.netapp.com/message/8975

And finally, RCU 2.0 may be invaluable for you (single-file FlexClone for fast VM rollouts integrated into a VirtualCenter GUI).

Re: VDI - FCP LUNs to NFS

irobinson1 — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:39:12 GMT

Thanks guys. This is great info.