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It’s that time of the year again. But admittedly, this is not a typical year. Even still, as sure as the tide comes in, VMworld also comes around. And if VMworld is here, Pure Storage® will be there… albeit virtually. So what have Pure and VMware been up to? Well, a lot!

It’s been an exciting year at the intersection of Pure and VMware. We’ve had quite a few things in the works since the last VMworld.

  • Site Recovery Manager and vVols: We’ve been working very closely with VMware on integrating Virtual Volume replication with SRM—removing the SRA and allowing SRM to directly and natively understand replication configuration and relationships. This benefits the SRM user (less complicated configuration), and the vCenter user (direct insight into replication, configuration, and management). There’s no need for an SRA or a vSphere plug-in to configure replication as you’ll see in the documentation.
  • NVMe-oF RoCEv2: Pure Storage released support for NVMe-oF in early 2019, but not many OSs supported it yet. We had been working with VMware for quite some time on adding support to ESXi. In vSphere 7.0, we introduced support for an NVMe-oF driver, allowing access to storage via NVMe-oF RoCev2 on the FlashArray™. Read more about it in the setup documentation.
  • Site Recovery Manager and recovery to a third site: You can use the SRA to failover VMFS and/or RDMs to a third array that is replicated to asynchronously from a volume that is also protected in an active/active fashion. Learn more in the user guide.
  • Site Recovery Manager and ActiveDR™: You can perform recovery of VMFS or RDM volumes via our new continuous asynchronous replication called ActiveDR.
  • Virtual Volume VASA Provider 1.1.0: We purpose-built our vVols implementation to support the SRM release for hardened replication and improved scale. We also built the framework to provide more scale. Find out more in the release notes.
  • vRealize Orchestrator Plug-in 3.5: The vRO plug-in integrates Pure1®, vVols, FlashBlade®, and FlashBlade QoS configuration.
  • vRealize Operations Manager Management Pack 3.0: This update provides support for vROps 8.
  • vSphere Plug-in version 4.3: This release delivers Pure1 integration, ActiveCluster™ provisioning, QoS configuration, volume group management, and more.
  • Pure1 VM Analytics vVol, vSAN, and NFS support: Pure’s performance analysis tool for troubleshooting across the stack is now able to map fully end to end with vVols and show VMs running on other storage such as vSAN and NFS.
  • VMware Cloud Foundation: We rolled out several updates, including:
    • Fibre Channel VMFS support as principal
    • iSCSI as supplemental support
    • vVols as supplemental support
    • Stretched storage configuration for principal or supplemental

That’s what we’ve been up to off the top of my head. The key takeaway is that we’re actively working on every single one of these updates for improvement and enhancement.

We’ll announce many of these updates either before or during VMworld. So if there’s something you think we might have missed, just wait a few weeks and join us at VMworld to find out what’s new.

Looking Ahead to VMworld

What are our focuses this year at VMworld?

  • VMware Cloud Foundation. A lot going on with VCF and certainly a ton of interest. Storage integration with SDDC manager isn’t slowing down.
  • Kubernetes in general: We’re just getting started on enhancements with Tanzu, Cloud Native Storage, and Pure Service Orchestrator™. This is an area that I’m very interested in.
  • NVMe-oF: We’re just getting started in this area too and will continue to grow.
  • Virtual Volumes: Of course! This is an important enabling feature for data mobility, automation, and integration in general. In my opinion, this feature is particularly important for persistent volumes for Cloud Native Storage, especially with Pure Cloud Block Store™ (a storage offering currently available in AWS) thrown into the mix.

Catch the Pure Team’s Sessions

Hybrid Cloud Kubernetes with vSphere & Pure Storage Cloud Block Store
Provide persistent storage for containerized workflows across the hybrid cloud with data mobility. Understand how Pure FlashArray™ integrates to provide storage for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid and how Pure Cloud Block Store integrates with Pure Service Orchestrator™ for AWS-hosted Kubernetes. [HCP2891S]

Automating VMware Management of Your Pure Storage Array
Managing today’s infrastructure often requires more familiarity across a larger complement of infrastructure. Solutions that are simple and integrated are a key differentiator that helps administrators accomplish tasks quickly, easily, and consistently, allowing them to achieve their goals successfully. Attend this session to learn more about how Pure Storage extends the simplicity & ease of storage management and application flexibility, up the stack to VMware administrators with integrations for provisioning and management. [HCP2196]

Core Storage Best Practice Deep Dive: Configuring the New Storage Features
It’s important to know configuration best practices with all the available storage arrays and connectivity protocols. VMware vSphere 7 includes new core storage features and the correct setup is critical to optimum performance and resilience. [HCI1691]

vSphere Cloud Native Storage with Virtual Volumes and SPBM: Better Together
VMware joining the Kubernetes bandwagon with a cloud-native storage solution has put steady focus on extending support for external storage with VMware vSphere vVols and software policy-based management, plus continued support for VMware vSAN. [HCI2089]

vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols): Modernize Your External Storage:
New to vVols? This session will go from level 100 to 200 and show how vVols can modernize the external storage in your virtual environment. See how vVols work and can reduce operation overhead, allow greater scale, and help you escape managing LUNs and volumes. [HCI1692]

Better Together: Site Recovery Manager with Virtual Volumes
Site Recovery Manager 8.3 enables you to manage vSphere vVols array-based replication with VMware’s storage policy-based management, plus easily orchestrate application recovery and migration. Learn about the advanced replication and storage policy capabilities of Pure. [HCI1455]

Modernize & Optimize ML/AI/HPC Applications with vSphere Tanzu
Most ML, AI, and HPC apps run on static bare-metal environments, lacking agility and efficiency. If you want to run in hybrid cloud environments, VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid can help modernize these legacy workloads and shorten the path to innovation. [HCP1545]