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BP1024 Scaling and Best Practices for Virtual Workload Environments with the FS7500 6
Dell EqualLogic PS Series arrays support these VAAI operations, and more information is available
in this technical report - http://www.equallogic.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=10307.
Another option for storing data in virtualized environment is NAS storage, also referred to as file based
storage. In NAS environments, VMware ESXi servers will mount NFS exports as datastores via a LAN
network. The EqualLogic FS7500 NAS appliance provides NFS based file systems suitable for hosting
VMware ESXi datastores. The highly-scalable FS7500 supports a growing virtualized environment
without costly fork-lift upgrades or unnecessary downtime. Additional ESXi host servers can be
seamlessly configured with NAS storage access by simply mounting the NFS exports over the network.
On the backend, the FS7500 appliance hosts the NAS file systems on a NAS reserve which uses the
block volumes served by PS Series arrays for storing file system data. Additional appliance or PS Series
arrays can be added for scaling capacity and performance when future needs arise.