How does CVM handles data? | Nutanix Community
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I have learned that Guest VMs transmit data to AHV and AHV reroute data to CVMs. Then, CVMs transmit data through PCIe passthrough (I haven’t got this point because CVMs still VM. so, it can’t bypass its hypervisor) to HBA hardware. After that, HBA transmits data to disks. But I want detailed data flow that explain hardware and software (like Curator, Medusa… etc) data flow from guest VM to the disks because it will be useful for troubleshooting and confidants while working with Nutanix Solution. Could anyone help me?

The Nutanix bible is a great resource where you can find all information you need. Create a pdf and put in on your e-reader for those rainy days ;)

 

https://www.nutanixbible.com/classic

Hi Yojok,

You can read more in the Storage section of Nutanix bible,

https://www.nutanixbible.com/4c-book-of-aos-storage.html

But in layman language

  1. The VM disks are residing in Container (container is basically storage policy construct)
  2. On AHV the disks are actually mounted as iSCSI to VMs (target of that iSCSI is CVM stargate service)
  3. When the VMs write the data, the IO is interfaced to stargate in CVM, then the magic happens there (IO optimization, coalescence, compression, deduplication, RF, EC-X, etc)
  4. The CVM writes the data to Physical Media (NVME, SSD, HDD) directly as the HBA/Disk controller/NVMe disks are mounted to CVM as passthrough.

Hope that is understood, and do not hesitate msg here if you have more concerns.

F>P

Thanks for your time

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