VMFS File Sharing Limits increased to 32

I was reading this white paper about VMware View 5.1 and VMFS File Locking today. It mentions the 8 host cluster limitation for VMware View with regards to linked clones and points to VMFS file sharing limits as the cause for this. While this is true in a way, VMware View 5.1 is limited to 8 host clusters for linked clones on VMFS Datastores, the explanation doesn’t cover all details or reflect the current state of vSphere / VMFS. (Although there is a fair bit of details in there about VMFS prior to vSphere 5.1.)

What the paper doesn’t mention is that in vSphere 5.1 this “file sharing limit” has been increased from 8 to 32 for VMFS Datastores. Cormac Hogan wrote about this a while ago. So to be clear, VMFS is fully capable today of sharing a file with 32 hosts in a cluster. VMware View doesn’t support that yet unfortunately, but for instance VMware vCloud Director 5.1 does support it today.

I still suggest reading the white paper, as it does help getting a better understanding of VMFS and View internals!