When designing a new private cloud, you want the hypervisor to be configurable quickly by cloning the OS from another hypervisor and you want to avoid using local drives. Which storage type would BEST suit?

When designing a new private cloud, you want the hypervisor to be configurable quickly by cloning the OS from another hypervisor and you want to avoid using local drives. Which storage type would BEST suit?

• A. CAS
• B. NAS
• C. DAS
• D. SAN

Answer: (D)

Central, shared block storage that can be presented to multiple hypervisors is what enables fast, network-based VM provisioning without relying on local disks. A storage area network provides block-level access to remote storage (through iSCSI or Fibre Channel), so each hypervisor can present and clone VM disks or templates stored on the SAN. This allows you to quickly create new OS images by leveraging array-level snapshots or clones, and it keeps all VM disks centralized and accessible to any host in the private cloud. NAS is storage at the file level; while it can host VM files, operations on files are typically slower and less efficient for rapid cloning of OS disks compared to block-level storage. DAS stays attached to a single host and isn’t shareable across multiple hypervisors, which contradicts the goal of a scalable private cloud with quick provisioning. CAS is designed for content-addressed storage and archiving, not for active VM storage and rapid deployment. So, SAN best meets the need for fast OS cloning across hypervisors without relying on local drives.

Central, shared block storage that can be presented to multiple hypervisors is what enables fast, network-based VM provisioning without relying on local disks. A storage area network provides block-level access to remote storage (through iSCSI or Fibre Channel), so each hypervisor can present and clone VM disks or templates stored on the SAN. This allows you to quickly create new OS images by leveraging array-level snapshots or clones, and it keeps all VM disks centralized and accessible to any host in the private cloud.

NAS is storage at the file level; while it can host VM files, operations on files are typically slower and less efficient for rapid cloning of OS disks compared to block-level storage. DAS stays attached to a single host and isn’t shareable across multiple hypervisors, which contradicts the goal of a scalable private cloud with quick provisioning. CAS is designed for content-addressed storage and archiving, not for active VM storage and rapid deployment.

So, SAN best meets the need for fast OS cloning across hypervisors without relying on local drives.