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Table Of Contents
Persistent Memory 7
Persistent Memory (PMem), also known as Non-Volatile Memory (NVM), is capable of maintaining data
even after a power outage. PMem can be used by applications that are sensitive to downtime and require
high performance.
VMs can be configured to use PMem on a standalone host, or in a cluster. PMem is treated as a local
datastore. Persistent memory significantly reduces storage latency. In ESXi you can create VMs that are
configured with PMem, and applications inside these VMs can take advantage of this increased speed.
Once a VM is initially powered on, PMem is reserved for it regardless of whether it is powered on or off.
This PMem stays reserved until the VM is migrated or removed.
Persistent memory can be consumed by virtual machines in two different modes. Legacy guest OSes can
still take advantage of virtual persistent memory disk feature.
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Virtual Persistent Memory (vPMem)
Using vPMem, the memory is exposed to a guest OS as a virtual NVDIMM. This enables the guest
OS to use PMem in byte addressable random mode.
Note You must use VM hardware version 14 and a guest OS that supports NVM technology.
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Virtual Persistent Memory Disk (vPMemDisk)
Using vPMemDisk, the memory can be accessed by the guest OS as a virtual SCSI device, but the
virtual disk is stored in a PMem datastore.
When you create a VM with PMem, memory is reserved for it at the time of Hard disk creation. Admission
control is also done at the time of Hard disk creation.
In a cluster, each VM has some capacity for PMem. The total amount of PMem must be greater than the
total amount available in the cluster. The consumption of PMem includes both powered on and powered
off VMs. If a VM is configured to use PMem and you do not use DRS, then you must manually pick a host
that has sufficient PMem to place the VM on.
NVDIMM and traditional storage
NVDIMM is accessed as memory. When you use traditional storage, software exists between applications
and storage devices which can cause a delay in processing time. When you use PMem, the applications
use the storage directly. This means that PMem performance is better than traditional storage. Storage is
local to the host. However, since system software cannot track the changes, solutions such as backups
and HA do not currently work with PMem.
VMware, Inc.
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