Navigating vVols (vSphere Virtual Volumes) End of Life with Pure Storage
Broadcom announced with the release of VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 that they will be deprecating and ending support for vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols). This came as a surprise to Pure Storage as both VMware and Pure had been design partners with several new features for vVols over the past 7 years and had been actively working on new design partnerships. Leaving customers and partners feeling shocked and disappointed is not an exaggeration. What was announced by Broadcom? Here is the messaging that Broadcom has announced: VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols) capabilities will be deprecated beginning with the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) version 9.0 and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) version 9.0 and will be fully removed in VCF/VVF 9.1. As a result, all vVol certifications for VCF/VVF 9.0 will be discontinued effective immediately. Support for vVols (critical bug fixes only) will continue for versions vSphere 8.x, VCF/VVF 5.x, and other older supported versions until end-of-support of those releases. Limited-time support may be considered on a case-by-case basis for customers desiring vVols support in VCF/VVF 9.0. Such customers should contact their Broadcom representative or Broadcom support for further guidance. vVols will be in a deprecated state for VCF 9.0 and then is planned to be completely removed in VCF 9.1, which is likely to be released sometime in 2026. For customers planning to upgrade to VCF 9.0, extra consideration will need to be taken before upgrading. What does this really mean for you? Current vVols users are going to be left with few choices moving forward, but before looking through these options, what does this announcement really mean? VCF 9.0 will not allow the use of vVols (FC or iSCSI) as principal storage or supplemental storage with workload domains or management domains. Broadcom has no commitment or intention of providing fixes or patches for vVols bugs or vVols security issues in VCF 9.0. While vVols will “work” on VCF 9.0, Broadcom will only provide limited technical support to customers on a case by case basis. Broadcom will tell the customer that it’s deprecated and they’ll need to contact their storage vendor when opening a support case. When VCF 9.1 is released, vVols will be removed, any vasa provider support will be removed (vVols, VMFS or NFS storage providers). Broadcom will provide critical bug fix and security fixes for vVols on vSphere 8.0 and VCF 5.x while it is supported by Broadcom. Broadcom will provide essential technical support for vVols issues with vSphere 8.0, however, it’s expected that they will still refer customers to contact their storage vendor. Broadcom expects current customers that are using vVols to storage vMotion their vVols workloads to either VMFS or NFS before upgrading to VCF 9.0; this will be required before upgrading to VCF 9.1 in the future. How will Pure Storage help you move forward after vVols? Pure Storage has supported vVols since the release of Purity//FA 5.0.0 in December 2017 and vVols has been part of a greater story and focus from Pure Storage to provide application granular storage and to make virtual machines first class in Purity. Since then, Pure has continued to extend support for vVols features and build integrations that took advantage of the vSphere APIs for vVols. The list could go on for all of the benefits and differentiation that vVols has allowed Pure Storage to deliver to customers. The biggest take away is that there was great value in how Pure Storage approached vVols and implemented support within Purity and integrations. Now the strategy moving forward is for Pure to extend as much of the value that vVols had to both NFS Datastores and VMFS Datastores running on FlashArray. There are a lot of projects that have now been accelerated due to this change and some engineering resources have already been committed to achieve this acceleration; other engineering resources are being committed for this work. What are your options moving forward? There are going to be several options that customers using vVols will have moving forward. Pure Storage is committed to being a trusted partner and advisor throughout this process. While there will be a lot more information coming in the future, here is a quick overview of some of the options that are available. Continue using vVols on vSphere 8 and VCF 9.0 Do not feel pressured or rushed to migrate or move data immediately! Evaluate if upgrading to VCF 9.0 immediately is required. vVols will be supported by Pure Storage Evaluate, test and validate options before migrating off of vVols. Storage vMotion to VMFS, convert vVols to RDMs VMFS and RDMs are not going away. Work is being prioritized to help bring most of the vVols features that Pure Storage’s vSphere plugin had to VMs running on VMFS that are managed by the vSphere plugin. Pure Storage is working with VMware to close feature gaps with VMFS backed by NVMe-oF. Converting from vVols to RDMs…never saw that coming. Storage vMotion to NFS Datastores on FlashArray File services on FlashArray have the potential to deliver a similar vVols type of experience. There are several projects underway to improve and enhance the NFS Datastore experience. The vSphere Plugin in particular has had many recent updates and has more coming in the future. Stay tuned for updated solution briefs, reference architecture and new features coming for NFS Datastores on our community page and our documentation portal. Leverage vVols to assist in migrating virtualization platforms Pure is committed to providing options and being a trusted partner which includes the option of moving platforms. This can include migrating to Azure or AWS, migrating to Hyper-V, OpenShift or Openstack. Pure Storage is actively working on guides and automation to help simplify this experience. This can include converting applications to containers rather than running on virtual machines and leveraging Portworx with FlashArray or FlashBlade. Stay tuned for more blogs, KBs and guides for what options are available. Overall, there are a lot of options that will be available and Pure Storage is making sure that the right documentation is being worked on and delivered, and the right solutions are being worked through as well. While this announcement is disruptive for both our customers and Pure Storage, there is also an opportunity to evaluate what options are available and what the strategy should be moving forward with regards to virtualization. Further Conversations Pure Storage would love to hear from customers about what options are the most interesting, what Pure can do to make those options more successful, what integrations Pure should be investing in or providing. You can reach out to your account team as well to set up conversations and deep dives with our field solutions architects and product management team too!
Big changes in the virtualization world. Are you ready?
With VMware’s future in flux—licensing changes, partner cuts, and the deprecation of vVols—many IT leaders are rethinking their virtualization strategy. 💡 Enter OpenStack: the leading open-source alternative that’s mature, flexible, and cost-effective. But migrating from VMware to OpenStack can be… complicated. 👉 Not if you're running VMware on Pure Storage FlashArrays. In my latest blog, I explore how the new OpenStack 2025.1 "Epoxy" release simplifies the migration of VMware VMs using Pure’s native storage structures—no conversions, no downtime, no headaches. 🧠 If you’re navigating Broadcom-era VMware and planning your next move, this is the insight you need. 🔗 http://theansibleguy.com/vmware-to-openstack-the-simple-way/OpenShift Virtualization at Red Hat Summit
I had so many great discussions last week at Red Hat Summit in Boston about vSphere alternatives. There was a very noticeable change from last year where practitioners were asking strong technical questions about KubeVirt related technologies as a replacement for their current hypervisor. This trend seems to be gaining momentum. I’m interested to hear if more of our customers are testing out running VMs on Kubernetes. If you are, sound off!
Hello Team, Need help in Pure Metro storage cluster configuration
Hello Team, Need help in Pure Metro storage cluster configuration. https://support.purestorage.com/Solutions/VMware_Platform_Guide/User_Guides_for_VMware_Solutions/ActiveCluster_with_VMware_User_Guide/vSphere_Metro_Storage_Cluster_With_ActiveCluster%3A_Overview_and_Introduction As per this document there are two ways to configure it Uniform and non-uniform. Uniform configuration indicates Local and Remote paths to be configured as AO (Active Optimized), but during storage failure scenario Local storage takes 17 to 20 seconds to time out. During that time Storage array sends a PDL to ESXi host and host removes the devices. Due to which the vSphere HA configured to react on PDL restarts the VMs and that causes a outage for the customer. Which is not expected. From ESXI host there is no way to Change PDL behavior. Now my question is there anything that we are missing in this configuration, as during my talk with Consultants they are very sure 17 to 20 seconds delay is expected in this setup and during that time though the paths are available devices returned D:0x2 0x5 0x25 which is PDL. Looking for the guidance to overcome this situation. If anybody here faced such situation during the implementation
Good day all Just a quick question to the Pure team
Good day all Just a quick question to the Pure team & community. We have a customer utilising VMware's https://tanzu.vmware.com/tanzu|Tanzu for their K8s workloads. They have asked the question about backup/recovery options for those workloads. We were wondering if anyone has done some leg work already regarding delivering the PFA's snap/restore capabilities & integration into Tanzu/K8s clusters? In terms of backups, they wish to use Commvault for their backup orchestration. So we could more than likely leverage intellisnap for full VM level backups (but it does not necessarily answer the Tanzu/cluster re-integration question (at least, not that I am aware of (very happy to be incorrect about that))). Any thoughts/direction would be greatly appreciated.Accelerate Teaser - VMware -> OpenStack
Big changes are afoot in the Virtualization world with the introduction of Broadcom's new licensing model for VMware. People are looking at how to move from VMware to another visrtualization platform. At Accelerate in Las Vegas, 2025, we will be showcasing a new feature in OpenStack that will allow you to seamlessly migrate VMware guests that currently exist on a Pure Storage FlashArray, either in a datastore or as a vVol, directly into OpenStack. Using a simple process, sometimes only requiring one step, your VMware guests can be made availble in your OpenStack cluster. As part of this Accelerate FlashTalk we will demonstrate this process using manual, GUI-based methods, and also using full automation with Ansible. If you are interested in this, make sure you register for Accelerate in Las Vegas, June 17-19.
