Cloud Volumes ONTAP with VMware Cloud on AWS

[MFuron]

I am trying to determine what the current status is of using Cloud Volumes ONTAP as storage for VMs running in VMware Cloud on AWS.  Looking at the VMware FAQ site for AWS, the answer to the question:

"What external virtual storage arrays are supported on VMware Cloud on AWS?"

is the following:

"VMware Cloud on AWS supports a variety of AWS EC2 based virtual storage arrays and general purpose operating systems that export storage volumes or LUNs. Our storage partners will independently test and provide documentation for their respective solutions."

Where does NetApp stand in this process?  I looked on-line for the information on cloud.netapp.com but did not find anything.  It's possible I wasn't looking in the proper place...

[GidonMarcus]

Hi. in the following AWS TR it's explicitly listing VMWare in the table as supported, i can't however find it in the NetApp IMT - and i'm still not even sure what protocol it's based on (NFS? iSCSI?)

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/ds-3618.pdf

Note some other doc referincing this (with an old product name) by both vendors.

https://blog.netapp.com/blending-the-power-of-ontap-cloud-on-aws-with-vmware-cloud-on-aws

https://marketplace.vmware.com/vsx/solutions/netapp-ontap-cloud-for-aws-9-2-p1#techspecs

https://www.netapp.com/us/media/tr-4400.pdf (support for VVOLs on VMWARE on AWS cloud)

[jskrivervik]

Hello,

I'm interested in this too, but it's really hard to find information on the subject and the one found is confusing . So hereafter my interpretation of the findings I have made:

 I think that there is a confusion about the "external virtual storage arrays" mentionned and "external storage". The first definition on the VMware site refers to "Storage provided from an EC2 based virtual storage array to a VMware Cloud on AWS guest OS is ideal for a variety of use cases including; test and development, elasticity for big data workloads and user/home directories. Both block and file protocols are supported. Note that access to external storage is only available from the VMware Cloud on AWS guest operating system. VMware Cloud on AWS cluster datastore access to external storage is not supported."

The second definition is refering to "External storage can only be added through the Managed Service Provider(MSP). Both the SDDC and the external storage are managed by the Managed Service Provider(MSP). Three NFS datastores are attached to an SDDC. The size of the datastores depends on the Managed Service Provider (MSP) offering. Check with the Managed Service Provider (MSP)." the only MSP being Faction (to my knowledge). 

I would love to see my Snapmirrored NFS on-prem volumes to VCO and be able to mount them as VMware Cloud datastores in order to be able to register/run the VM's in the Cloud. But this doesn't seem to be possible as the data from such a volume  (VCO) would only be accessible from inside a VM (guest OS) running in the VMware Cloud environment. 

As said before this is my understanding and I would love to be corrected... and wrong 🙂

Kind regards,

Jan

Reference: https://cloud.vmware.com/vmc-aws/faq#storage