EMC VPLEX and VAAI

[clintljohnson]

We are looking at installing EMC VPLEX in our environment and are aware that the only VAAI Primative that is not currently supported by VPLEX is UNMAP.

Does anyone know if UNMAP is necessary for snapshot and merge down process that happens during a Veeam backup?

We understand that Veeam uses the vStorage APIs and that snapshots are handled by the host and storage systems, but in our case we are dependent on VAAI to offload the snapshot process to our storage systems so that we can complete our backup window within the desired time-frame.

Any information related to the UNMAP command in regards to VAAI and Veeam snapshots would be helpful.

CLJ.

[Gostev]

No, UNMAP is not necessary for snapshot merge down technology.

Moreover, as of vSphere 5.5, UNMAP remains being manually initiated process for everyone at all. Automatic UNMAP impacted production storage too much when first introduced in vSphere 5.0, so VMware had all customers disable it, and then replaced with the CLI command in the following vSphere releases. So, as of today, the only way UNMAP can be used by users is to perform scheduled thin provisioned datastore maintenance periodically... it does not have a play in anything else.

[clintljohnson]

Excellent. Thanks again Gostev.

CLJ.