Solution Highlights:
- VMware Ready for ESXi 5.1 and ESXi 5.5
- VMware Rready with support for both iSCSI and NFS datastores
- Supports VAAI to improve performance
- Supports vSphere client plug-in for easy management
- Supports multiple backup solutions
VMware Ready with support for both iSCSI and NFS datastores
VMware® vSphere™ is the industry's first cloud operating system that offers one way to reduce IT costs and increase responsiveness. QNAP VMware Ready products have been certified as compatible with the VMware vSphere virtualization platform. The IT administrators of small businesses and workgroups can now use the QNAP VMware Ready™ NAS as an affordable and powerful storage solution in the VMware virtualized environment. For more details, please refer to the VMware Compatibility Guide.
vSphere 5 VAAI Support for faster deployment!
vSphere 5 VAAI offloads specific storage operations for blazing performance improvement and efficiency. With QNAP Turbo NAS and the vSphere API for Array Integration (VAAI), standard virtual machine management operations and deployment can be performed faster, using less ESXi CPU, memory, and bandwidth. VAAI Support on QNAP Turbo NAS includes block copy, block zeroing, and VAAI Hardware Accelerated Locking.
Note: NAS firmware with version 4.0 or above is required.
Supported VAAI Primitives:
- Full copy (iSCSI)
- Block zeroing (iSCSI)
- Hardware-assisted locking (iSCSI)
- Thin provisioning and space reclamation (iSCSI)
- Full file clone (NAS)
- Reserve space (NAS)
Full copy: This function enables the Turbo NAS to create an entire copy of data within the NAS. It is helpful for operations such as provisioning virtual machines or migrating virtual machines (Storage vMotion) between the datastores within the TurboNAS.
Test performed with standard hard drives and RAID 6 to reflect a real usage. (LOWER is BETTER)
Block zeroing: This function enables the Turbo NAS to zero out large numbers of blocks. Provisioning of a new virtual machine can be 2-10 times faster than a LUN without this feature.
Test performed with standard hard drives and RAID 6 to reflect a real usage. (LOWER is BETTER)
Hardware-assisted locking: This function enables granular locking of block storage devices rather than entire LUN locking in SCSI. The use of hardware-assisted locking provides a much more efficient means to avoid retries for getting a lock when many ESXi servers share a single datastore.
Thin provisioning and space reclamation: This function allows more efficient space usage. It releases the LUN space when virtual disks were deleted or migrated.
Full file clone: Similar to the Full Copy in iSCSI, it enables the system to make full copies of data within the NAS without the need for the ESXi host to read and write the data.
Reserve space: Because of this feature, a space pre-allocated virtual disk (thick provision eager zeroed disk) is possible in QNAP NFS datastores.
With the support for VAAI, the performance of running vSphere tasks, such as Storage vMotion, cloning, and provisioning new virtual machines on the Turbo NAS can be improved. It also offers high scalability when the Turbo NAS is shared on a VMware cluster.
vSphere client plug-in for the QNAP Turbo NAS
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vSphere client integration allows managing VMware Datastores on the QNAP Turbo NAS directly from the vSphere client console, and verifying the status of all the QNAP Turbo NAS managed by the QNAP Turbo NAS plug-in. |
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Notes:
- QNAP NAS firmware with version 3.8.0 or above is required.
- Supported operating systems: Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2
- For more details, please refer to the vSphere plug-in user guide.
Supports multiple backup solutions
QNAP NAS supports VMware Data Recovery for you to back up your virtual machines. It also works with other third-party backup software such as Veeam Backup & Recovery and Symantec Backup Exec. You can leverage the advanced backup functions provided by these backup software such as built-in deduplication, Instant Recovery, or Granular Restoration.
QNAP VMware Ready Products
| Series | Models | vSphere 5.1 | vSphere 5.5 | |||||
| VAAI iSCSI | iSCSI | NAS | VAAI iSCSI | iSCSI | NAS | |||
| TS-x79U-SAS Series (for Enterprise) |
TS-EC1679U-SAS-RP TS-EC1279U-SAS-RP |
√ | √ | √ | √ | √ | √ | |
| SS-x79U-SAS Series (for Enterprise) |
SS-EC2479U-SAS-RP SS-EC1879U-SAS-RP SS-EC1279U-SAS-RP |
√ | √ | √ | √ | √ | √ | |
|
TS-x79 Series (for high-end SMB) |
TS-EC1679U-RP TS-EC1279U-RP TS-EC879U-RP TS-1679U-RP TS-1279U-RP TS-1079 Pro TS-879U-RP TS-879 Pro |
√ | √ | √ | √ | √ | √ | |
| TS-x70 Series (for SMB) |
TS-1270U-RP TS-870U-RP TS-870 TS-670 TS-470 |
√ | √ | √ | o | o | √ | |
|
TS-x70 Series (for SOHO) |
TS-870 Pro TS-670 Pro TS-470 Pro |
√ | √ | √ | o | o | √ | |
|
TS-x69 Series (for SMB) |
TS-1269U-RP TS-869U-RP TS-469U-RP TS-469U-SP TS-869 Pro TS-669 Pro TS-569 Pro TS-469 Pro TS-269 Pro |
√ | √ | √ | o | o | √ | |
|
TS-x69 Series (for SOHO) |
TS-869L TS-669L TS-569L TS-469L TS-269L |
√ | √ | √ | o | o | √ | |
√ = VMware Ready product
O = Certification in progress
Testing environment:
Model Name : TS-EC1279U-RP
Hard Drives installed : 12
Hard Drive models : Seagate ST3000DM001-9YN166 (SATA)
RAID Level : RAID 6
Full Copy : Measured time to clone a 30 GB VM containing data (not an empty thin provisioned VM),with firmware without VAAI and the QTS 4.0 with VAAI.
Block Zeroing : Measured time to create a 30 GB VM with eager zero hard drives, with firmware without VAAI and the QTS4.0 with VAAI.
Related Links
VMware Compatibility Guide
VMware feature page
How-to
How to create and use the iSCSI target service on the QNAP NAS
How to Configure iSCSI Advanced ACL on QNAP Turbo NAS
Use QNAP NAS as a VMWare datastore via iSCSI how-to
Use QNAP NAS as a VMWare datastore via NFS how-to
vSphere plug-in user guide
Datasheet
eDM