VMM: SAN Deployment

You can deploy Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) in an environment that has either a Fibre Channel or an iSCSI storage area network (SAN) and perform SAN transfers within VMM; however, your system must be properly configured as described in this topic in the SCVMM TechNet Library.

If you are using an iSCSI SAN, you must install the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator Version 2.02 on each computer that will serve as a source or a destination location for your SAN transfers. You can download this software from the Microsoft Download Center (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=88000).

When used with Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1, VMM supports Quick Migration. The migration wizard will also automatically detect SAN infrastructure and will enable the IT administrator to choose to migrate VMs over SAN. When used with a SAN infrastructure, the length of the service interruption using Quick migration will depend only on the size of the Virtual Machine's memory, as that will determine the time it takes to pause the Virtual Machine for migrtion.