Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Learning about vSphere Flash Read Cache

I'm looking at vSphere Flash Read Cache in case that Pernix FVP does not release an update for vSphere 6.5 (after being bought by Nutanix). Using vFRC is a bit different right off the bat, since it doesn't do write acceleration, but since I already have the required vSphere licensing and hardware, there is no cost to enable.

The biggest problems I see so far are:

1) not a lot of reported users, at least that I could find, although it's been kept as a feature by VMware since it was announced so there has to be quite a few. However, I didn't find lots of operational blogs, just feature announcement types.
2) more rigid implementation steps compared to Pernix FVP, which takes some reading to figure out

Biggest differences with Pernix FVP apart from the obvious:



Known KB’s
There are two known issues, and they are easily avoidable as patches were released already, so just make sure you are running latest before enabling

https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=2114498&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&dialogID=381661788&stateId=0%200%20381669816
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=2072392&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&dialogID=381647699&stateId=0%200%20381651933 

Documentation
http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-65/index.jsp#com.vmware.vsphere.storage.doc/GUID-07ADB946-2337-4642-B660-34212F237E71.html 
http://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/vmware-vsphere-flash-read-cache-faq.pdf << particularly useful
http://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/vmware-vfrc-performance-vsphere55-white-paper.pdf  << cool read

Blog posts

http://cormachogan.com/2014/02/14/a-closer-look-at-vsphere-flash-read-cache-vfrc/ 
http://nolabnoparty.com/en/vmware-vflash-read-cache-setup/ 
http://everything-virtual.com/vmware-study-guides/vcap-dca-study-guide/configure-and-manage-vsphere-flash-read-cache/ 
http://www.settlersoman.com/what-is-and-how-to-configure-vmware-vsphere-flash-read-cache-vfrc/ 
http://www.vladan.fr/vmware-vflash-read-cache-vfrc/