Running VMs in NFS

I am currently working on purchasing a Netapp array for a client along with some VMware. My plan is to run most of the VMs on NFS for various reasons. First of all, I think it is cool and that is always most important. Since the VMs are just chilling on a remote file system, you think of them like you should, just files. Create directory structures, one say for email with all your email servers, one for you file servers, etc.

With the Netapp de-duplication, which is built into their array, you can save a lot of space when running the Vms in NFS. You can do similar when running VMFS on Netapp SAN, but the space doesn't get returned to the file system like it does with NFS.

If you look at the performance numbers, only FC beats it out. iSCSI is dead even. With Netapp you get all of the NAS features with it including snaps, replication, etc.

I will post my results with this client. I have had luck doing this in the past, but never in production. From what I read and hear it works like a charm. Some say it is the best thing to happen in their DCs in a while.