There are a few questions that often come up with regards to the PerfectDisk virtualization defrag solutions in the vSphere/ESX environments, versus the standard PerfectDisk server defrag.
1. What does PerfectDisk 10 for vSphere offer that PerfectDisk 10 Server does not?
Or in other words, what's the difference between performing a Windows Server 2008 defrag (or earlier server versions) and a virtualization defrag? There are various differences but the following two key points summarize the major points:
A. The vSphere-specific product offers an exclusive, patent-pending feature called "Virtualization Awareness" that allows file system optimization to take place without the contention for resources that normally takes place with automatic background defragmentation. This ensures that optimizations run dynamically without supervision or intervention, while never negatively impacting performance. It also offers integration features for VMware's vCenter and support for vMotion.
B. Licensing for the vSphere product is offered per physical host with volume pricing. This means unlimited Client/Guest licenses are provided once the physical host is licensed. This also means no consideration as to the number of Guests or even the number of CPUs needs to be taken. In the example of a vSphere environment with 10 instances of ESX Server 3.5/4.0 running, that would equate to 10 licenses of "PerfectDisk10 vSphere."
2. Does the vSphere product perform defragmentation on the ESX layer / VMFS? Does it install on the ESX Hosts or just the Guests?
No. VMFS does not support external file system optimization. Installation does not take place on the physical ESX host, a small agent is instead installed on each Windows based Guest.
3. Is any modification of the vSphere environment required in order to use PerfectDisk 10 vSphere?
No. The use of PerfectDisk10 vSphere does not require any modification to your existing configuration.
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