NVMe over Fabrics with Pure and VMware vVols: More Agility, Simplicity, and Free Time



Editor’s Note: VMware vVols End-of-life Update (2025)

VMware has announced the deprecation and end-of-life (EOL) of vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols):

  • vVols remain supported only through VMware vSphere 8.0 and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0. Support for these versions will end between 2027-2028.
  • No new feature development for vVols is planned; only limited support is available from VMware until EOL.
  • Official retirement will occur with VCF 9.1 (expected 2028); vVols will not be supported in any new VMware releases after that point.

If you are currently using vVols:
Pure Storage recommends that you begin planning your migration to supported VMware storage solutions (such as VMFS or NFS) well before EOL. For current integration and migration resources, up-to-date documentation, or personalized help, please visit our technical support portal or contact your Pure Storage representative.This blog post is for historical and archival purposes only. Do not use as guidance for new deployments. For current storage integration options and migration toolkits, refer to our latest migration guides and platform resources.

What is performance without control and management? Glad you asked! Implemented with vSphere 8 U1, Pure Storage® FlashArray™ is validated with support for VMware Virtual Volumes (vVols) when using NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) FC/TCP. 

Why is this a big deal? Virtual Volumes drastically reduces the amount of time you spend managing storage. That means no longer having to worry about datastore sizing, VM placement, or performance impacts of VM snapshots. Add to that the agility and flexibility of vSphere’s Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) to manage the workload’s personality with policies that you can apply and change while the VM is running. No downtime! Configure replication and snapshot schedules, IO limits, etc., via policy and assign it in software.

NVMe-oF with Pure Storage and VMware Virtual Volumes delivers uncompromising management, performance, and simplicity to your infrastructure.

Learn what makes FlashArray the best storage for your vSphere environment

Nvme
Figure 1: I/O loss with Virtual Volumes.

Non-volatile Memory Express (NVMe) is the premier storage access protocol designed for flash storage devices and the performance they deliver. Originally designed for direct attached storage (DAS) devices, NVMe-oF introduced the ability to access remote NVMe devices using TCP, FC, or RoCE. With NVMe-oF, workloads and the performance they require are no longer tied to a single server or host but can now be centralized and shared. 

For long-time virtualization administrators using VMware vSphere, we know the benefits that simplified shared storage brings to infrastructure and workloads. Using Pure Storage FlashArray, an all-NVMe-based storage array, with NVMe-oF takes simplification and performance of your vSphere environment to a higher level across the FlashArray portfolio of systems.

Read the White Paper: “Top Reasons to Use Pure Storage FlashArray with vSphere Virtual Volumes”