KVM iSCSI vs. NFS

  • 19 February 2014
  • 2 replies
  • 1667 views

Userlevel 2
Badge +10
Can someone enlighten me, why KVM uses iSCSI-LUNs and not the NFS exported container like it is done with vSphere/ESX?

Currently, I only see disadvantages, like cumbersome handling of VMs, and no benefits.

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2 replies

Userlevel 2
Badge +11
The main reason has to do with the Linux NFS driver not having the ability to keep enough load on the system to drive the best performance (as compared to ESXi) which is why iSCSI is currently used.

The key piece is that all of the iSCSI vDisk creation and attaching is automatically handled through our software and not something the admin has to manually do. When a new VM is created on KVM we'll take care of all of this on the backend

There's some even cooler stuff coming here which will make KVM administration even easier than vSphere/Hyper-V 🙂
Userlevel 4
Badge +20
KVM is more flexible/adaptable than vSphere.

As I understand it, Nutanix will be able to do way more for KVM than for vSphere.

The answer above is one thing I've heard whispered a lot lately, but for now I'll stay on the vSphere side of things until dust settles down.

Sylvain.