Avoiding Common Storage Development Pitfalls: A Review of the Approaches and Lessons Learned with the VMware vSphere Platform

Developing system-software technology for the VMware vSphere platform can be challenging, as there are a lot of constraints for development partners. Yet, we all know early-platform architecture design decisions can have far-reaching impact on product development options and future capabilities. When building an integrated storage product for VMware, one of the most important decisions is which architectural approach to take to interface with vSphere: virtual appliances, using the Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA), kernel mode drivers/extensions or soon-to-be VMware's API for IO Filtering (VAIO). In this session, Scott Davis, CTO of Infinio, will weigh each approach’s benefits and challenges for the audience, as well as the trade offs associated with across virtual appliance, kernel-mode and hybrid architectures. Davis will also share lessons learned on the differences across developing for NFS, VMFS and VSAN data store types, as well as the pitfalls and best practices for implementing VAAI support.

Learning Objectives

Understand several approaches to VMware storage development: virtual appliance, PSA, kernel mode and VAIO
Learn how to evaluate the benefits and challenges of different architectures, specifically a virtual appliance, kernel-mode operation and a hybrid model
Find out how developing on NFS, VMFS and VSAN data store types are different challenges
Get insight on the best practices for VAAI implementation