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Dell PowerStore: Snapshots and Thin Clones
Executive summary Introduction Snapshot operations Snapshot access Snapshot aging Snapshot properties Snapshot rules Snapshot interoperability
Introduction
AppSync
Native PowerProtect DD Backup Integration
Data reduction
File Level Retention
Migration: Import
Migration: Internal migrations
Replication
Volume groups
VMware
Thin clone overview Thin clone operations Conclusion Appendix: Technical support and resources

VMware

VMware

  • PowerStore systems are deeply integrated with VMware. For virtual machines that are created on a PowerStore storage container, snapshots can either be created manually or automatically through an assigned VMware storage policy that contains a snapshot rule. Snapshots can be created within vCenter or PowerStore Manager and are displayed in either interface. When taking snapshots, vSphere enforces a limit of 31 snapshots per VM, but it is possible to apply a storage policy that exceeds this limit. If this limit is reached, the oldest snapshot is automatically deleted in order when the next snapshot is created by the policy. Manually created snapshots are never deleted automatically.

    In large environments, it is possible to initiate many snapshots requests to vCenter at once. To prevent overloading vCenter, PowerStore sends a maximum of five simultaneous create snapshot operations to vCenter. The remaining operations are queued and started as each create snapshot operation completes. PowerStore also sends a maximum of five simultaneous delete snapshot operations to vCenter. Although create snapshot operations are sent individually, delete snapshot operations can be sent in batches, up to the limit of five. Because these two limits are different, it is possible to have a total of five create and five delete snapshot operations simultaneously on different VMs.

    In PowerStoreOS 3.0 and later, users have the option to create either a General file system or a VMware file system. The VMware file system type is added in the 3.0 release. For VMware environments, the VMware file system type is recommended because it has been designed and optimized for VMware specific workloads and operations. For all other use cases, the General type file system should be used. Both General and VMware file systems support snapshots and all snapshot operations.

    For more information about PowerStore and VMware, see the white paper Dell PowerStore: Virtualization Integration. For more information about file system types and the new VMware file system, review the Dell PowerStore: File Capabilities white paper. Both of these documents are available on the PowerStore Info Hub.