Book excerpt: This is the eBook of the printed book and may not include any media, website access codes, or print supplements that may come packaged with the bound book. Now fully updated: The authoritative, comprehensive guide to vSphere 6 storage implementation and management Effective VMware virtualization storage planning and management has become crucial—but it can be extremely complex. Now, VMware’s leading storage expert thoroughly demystifies the “black box” of vSphere 6 storage and provides illustrated, step-by-step procedures for performing every key task associated with it. Mostafa Khalil presents techniques based on years of personal experience helping customers troubleshoot storage in their vSphere production environments. Drawing on more experience than anyone else in the field, he combines expert guidelines, insights for better architectural design, best practices for planning and management, common configuration details, and deep dives into both vSphere and third-party storage. Storage Design and Implementation in vSphere 6, Second Edition will give you the deep understanding you need to make better upfront storage decisions, quickly solve problems if they arise, and keep them from occurring in the first place. Coverage includes: Planning and implementing Fibre Channel, FCoE, and iSCSI storage in vSphere virtualized environments Implementing vSphere Pluggable Storage Architecture native multipathing, SATP, PSP, plug-ins, rules, registration, and more Working with Active/Passive and Pseudo-Active/Active ALUA SCSI-3 storage arrays Maximizing availability with multipathing and failover Improving efficiency and value by unifying and centrally managing heterogeneous storage configurations Understanding Storage Virtualization Devices (SVDs) and designing storage to take advantage of them Implementing VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) to maximize performance and resource utilization Working with virtual disks and raw device mappings (RDMs) Managing snapshots in VMFS and Virtual Volumes environments Implementing and administering NFS, VAAI, Storage vMotion, VisorFS, and VASA Integrating VSAN core and advanced features Using Virtual Volumes to streamline storage operations and gain finer VM-level control over external storage