2. RDM is what I understand we need - this would allow to see the data as if it was a physical HDD plugged in to the VM. How can this be done? Could you provide some steps or point me in the right direction?
Other options you mentioned:
1. If you mean to use the shares directly from NetApp without Windows Server in between - this has some limits (does not work very well on a Mac) and doesn't allow as much control as with Windows shares
2. VMDK - this is an option but loses some benefits of using NetApp apparently
3. iSCSI we already use for Exchange and for reasons I didn't quite grasp we don't want to use it in this scenario