vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-55-storage-guide

About Virtual Machine Storage20PoliciesUse virtual machine storage policies, formerly called virtual machine storage profiles, to ensure that virtualmachines are placed to storage that guarantees a specific level of capacity, performance, availability,redundancy, and so on.When you define a storage policy, you specify storage requirements for applications that would run onvirtual machines. After you apply this storage policy to a virtual machine, the virtual machine is placed to aspecific datastore that can satisfy the storage requirements.You manage storage placement by using storage policies.1 If you use storage policies in conjunction with storage providers, verify that an appropriate storageprovider is registered.See Chapter 26, “Using Storage Providers,” on page 253.2 Apply storage capability tags to datastores. See “Assign Tags to Datastores,” on page 196.3 Enable storage policies for a host or cluster. See “Enable Virtual Machine Storage Policies,” onpage 198.4 Create storage policies by defining requirements for applications running on a virtual machine. See“Define a Storage Policy for a Virtual Machine,” on page 198.5 Associate a storage policy with the virtual machine files or virtual disks. See “Apply a Storage Policy toa Virtual Machine,” on page 200.6 Verify that virtual machines and virtual disks use datastores that are compliant with the assignedstorage policy. See “Check Storage Compliance for a Virtual Machine,” on page 202.This chapter includes the following topics:• “Understanding Storage Capabilities,” on page 195• “Understanding Virtual Machine Storage Policies,” on page 197Understanding Storage CapabilitiesWhen you define storage requirements for virtual machines and virtual disks, you reference vendor specificor user-defined storage capabilities in a storage policy.Vendor Specific Storage CapabilitiesStorage systems that use vStorage APIs for Storage Awareness, also called VASA, are represented bystorage providers. Storage providers inform vCenter Server about specific storage devices, and presentcharacteristics of the devices and datastores deployed on the devices as storage capabilities. Such storagecapabilities are system-defined and vendor specific.VMware, Inc. 195