ONTAP Discussions

vfiler - pros and cons

VKALVEMULA
3,606 Views

hi all

we bought new Filers and planning to setup vfilers..can someone post the advantages and disadvantages of having Vfilers.

thanks in advance.

5 REPLIES 5

herdliska
3,606 Views

the disadvantage is that you must administer the vfilers through vfiler context (no gui yet) and that the networking is a bit more complex (depending upon what you are using for switching)

One big advantage is secure multitenancy (the ability to virtually carve up one filer and be able to offer separate virtual filers to clients, projects or customers)

scottgelb
3,606 Views

GUI won't be too far along... can't steal thunder from Product Marketing but keep an eye out

vFiler migrate, Data Motion for vFilers for moving vFilers between systems and disk types is a huge advantage... vFiler DR is another huge advantage in that the entire vFiler can be setup, activated, resync'd with a single vfiler dr command at each site.  You don't have to break or create all mirrors and it is all handled in the vfiler DR function... you also don't have to manage shares, exports and igroup mappings at the target since the vFiler root volume on the source is mirrored to target for all the same settings (and you can have it use a different IP, dns, nis, etc. at the target).  There is a really nice vFiler DR gui plugin to the NetApp Management console (NMC) as well.

You can also check out the NetApp Lab on Demand (LOD) where they have posted our NetApp Insight Training Lab on MultiStore.  I updated the lab for ONTAP 8.1 and that is what LOD has ready to go now.

scottgelb
3,606 Views

no FCP/FCoE in vFilers so if you need that then you can't use a vfiler and keep those in vFiler0.

VKALVEMULA
3,606 Views

hi scott

can you send me the link for LOD.

scottgelb
3,606 Views

labondemand.netapp.com

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