The focus of this Blueprint is to demonstrate how IBM FlashSystem® with IBM Spectrum® Virtualize can be used as a preferred back-end persistent storage for VMware Tanzu-based deployments. This document describes the use of IBM® FlashSystem storage volumes as virtual volumes (vVols) that are made available to provision persistent volumes for a VMware Tanzu deployment. All models of IBM FlashSystem family are supported by this document, including: FlashSystem 9100 and 9200 FlashSystem 7200 FlashSystem 5000 IBM SAN Volume Controller All storage that is running IBM Spectrum Virtualize software By using IBM Spectrum Connect VASA provider with IBM Spectrum Virtualize, the vVols are used to create a data store under vCenter. Post provisioning of VMware Tanzu Kubernetes grid service (TKGS), the vVols data store is used to provision the persistent volumes for future applications that are deployed on the worker nodes.

The focus of this Blueprint is to demonstrate how IBM FlashSystem® with IBM Spectrum® Virtualize can be used as a preferred back-end persistent storage for VMware Tanzu-based deployments. This document describes the use of IBM® FlashSystem storage volumes as virtual volumes (vVols) that are made available to provision persistent volumes for a VMware Tanzu deployment. All models of IBM FlashSystem family are supported by this document, including: FlashSystem 9100 and 9200 FlashSystem 7200 FlashSystem 5000 IBM SAN Volume Controller All storage that is running IBM Spectrum Virtualize software By using IBM Spectrum Connect VASA provider with IBM Spectrum Virtualize, the vVols are used to create a data store under vCenter. Post provisioning of VMware Tanzu Kubernetes grid service (TKGS), the vVols data store is used to provision the persistent volumes for future applications that are deployed on the worker nodes.

This IBM® RedpaperTM publication describes best practices for deploying IBM FlashSystemTM V9000 enterprise storage system in a VMware vSphere environment. It includes guidelines and examples of the latest FlashSystem V9000 hardware and software, integrated with VMware version 6, to demonstrate the business benefits these solutions. Topics illustrate planning, configuring, operations, and preferred practices that include integration of FlashSystem V9000 with the VMware vCloud suite of applications: vCenter Web Client (VWC) vStorage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM/SRA) The authors also describe how to deploy a cloud-based solution with FlashSystem V9000 in an environment with VMware and IBM SpectrumTM Control Base Edition 2.1.1. This paper is intended for presales consulting engineers, sales engineers, and IBM clients who want to deploy IBM FlashSystem V9000 in virtualized data centers that are based on VMware vSphere.