VMware Adds Spinning-Disk Storage Option To Cloud Service

VMware has introduced additional storage and data protection features to its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering, vCloud Hybrid Service (VCHS), including a cheaper storage option, backup scheduling and defined retention periods.

VCHS, introduced in May of last year, and which arrived in the UK in February, now allows users to choose between two tiers of storage: Standard Storage, running on standard spinning disks, and SSD-Accelerated Storage, running on faster, but more expensive, solid-state units.

Budget requirements

The low-cost option is available with VCHS’ the Dedicated and Virtual Private Cloud offerings, and is intended to help users work with different budget requirements for different types of data.

Users might, for instance, want to rely on the Standard option for the static data found on most web servers, according to VMware senior technical marketing architect David Hill.

“The requirements for this particular workload are usually very low from an IOPS perspective,” he said in a blog post. “The Standard Storage option with vCloud Hybrid Service provides organisations with the ability to run these kinds of workloads at a lower cost per VM, making it a more economical option.”

Database workloads, by contrast, are fluid and have higher read/write requests, requiring an increase in storage performance, so that it might be more appropriate for the SSD option, according to Hill.

Performance tiers

“With different tiers of storage, we are providing a choice for end users to select different performance tiers for the various workloads running on vCloud Hybrid Service, and at the price point that works best for a defined budget,” Hill wrote.

Users can easily move workloads across the different tiers by shifting virtual machines between the Standard and Accelerated options, he said.

The company also introduced new features to its Data Protection self-service backup offering for virtual workloads running on VCHS.

The new features include backup scheduling, defined retention periods, self-service vApp registration, ad-hoc backups, in-place restores and full backup and restore activity reporting.

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