White Papers

4 Dell PS Series Arrays: Advanced Storage Features in VMware vSphere | TR1066
1 Introduction
With VMware
®
vSphere
®
virtualization, even though the hypervisor isolates the virtual machine operating
system from the hardware, this does not mean that the hardware no longer matters. All components of
the hardware environment are a shared resource in the virtualized data center, so having the right
hardware is critical.
Thanks to cooperation between engineering teams at VMware and Dell, VMware vSphere is able to
leverage the intelligence within Dell PS Series arrays to maximize the benefit to the virtualized
environment. The release of VMware vSphere 4.1 enabled an intelligent awareness of storage, a capability
that has been expanded even further with subsequent releases of vSphere. The advanced storage features
included in vSphere enable faster deployment of virtual machines, increased densities of virtual machines
per datastore, and increased bandwidth to the array.
This technical white paper provides an introduction to the storage-related features in VMware vSphere
releases and discusses features facilitated by PS Series arrays to help you understand the benefits and
advantages of running VMware vSphere on Dell PS Series storage systems.
1.1 Audience
The information in this guide is intended for administrators of VMware vSphere environment utilizing Dell
PS Series iSCSI arrays.