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Xiotech Corporation
9950 Federal Drive, Suite 100
Colorado Springs, CO 80921-3686
www.X-IO.com
Main: 719.388.5500
Fax: 719.388.5300
Customer Support: 1.800.734.4716
IMPORTANT NOTICE
This manual is provided to you by Xiotech Corporation (“Xiotech”), and your receipt and use of this manual is
subject to your agreement to the following conditions:
• This manual and the information it contains are the property of Xiotech and are confidential. You agree
to keep this manual in a secure location and not disclose or make available its contents to any third
party without the written permission of Xiotech Corporation.
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• Reproduction or distribution of this document, in whole or in part, may only be made with the written
permission of Xiotech Corporation.
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• This manual is not an endorsement or recommendation of any of the products or services provided by
third parties and referred to herein.
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• Use of this manual does not assure legal or regulatory compliance.
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• This document is not a warranty of any kind. The only warranties given in connection with this product
are those contained in the Xiotech standard Terms and Conditions.
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• Xiotech, Magnitude, Magnitude 3D, and TimeScale are registered trademarks of Xiotech Corporation.
XIO, Emprise, Intelligent Storage Element, ISE, Block Storage Controller, File Storage Controller,
Dimensional Storage Cluster, DataScale, and GeoRAID are trademarks of Xiotech Corporation. Other
trademarks or service marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. Trademarks
and service marks belonging to third parties appear in this document for the purposes of identification
of the goods or services of that third party only. No reproduction of any trademark or service mark is
authorized by this document. No right or title or other proprietary interest in any mark is transferred
because of this document.
© 2015 Xiotech Corporation. All rights reserved.
Publication Number: XXXXXX-000 Rev A
April 2015
Xiotech—Proprietary
X-IO VASA Provider for VMware ECOsystem
White Paper
Table of Contents
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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Provisioning Virtual Machine Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Profile-driven Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
VASA Session Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
VM Storage Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Storage Array Alerts and Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Introduction
The X-IO ISE VASA Provider is a set of extensible APIs that enable vCenter to see the capabilities of storage
array LUNs and corresponding datastores. The VASA Provider is deployed on a standalone Microsoft
Windows server and provides responses to VMware vCenter Server queries. Figure 1 illustrates the VASA
Provider architecture.
The VASA Provider is the vCenter framework for tighter integration with storage arrays. The VASA Provider
enables storage arrays to send information about the type of storage attached to the storage array and the
capabilities of the storage array.
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With the VASA Provider, you can discover and characterize a datastore’s static capabilities. With visibility into
capabilities underlying a datastore, you can more easily select the appropriate disk for virtual machine
placement. You can receive alert and event notifications within vCenter from the storage arrays that are
monitored by the VASA provider.
Figure 1. VASA Provider Architecture
Provisioning Virtual Machine Storage
Provisioning operations ensure that storage can meet the VM needs.
Extreme—SSD volumes for the most demanding performance requirements
Performance—high-performance disk drives ( >= 10K RPM)
Value—Near-line storage for bulk storage needs ( < 10K RPM)
Extreme-Replicated—Highest availability, highest performance storage
Perf-Replicated—Highest availability, high-performance storage
Value-Replicated—Highest availability with near-line performance
Extreme-Thin—A thin provisioned volume composed of Solid State Device (SSD) physical drives
Perf-Thin—A thin provisioned volume composed of high performance physical drives
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Value-Thin—A thin provisioned volume composed of less than 10K RPM physical drives
The VASA Provider can manage multiple storage arrays simultaneously. The VASA Provider supports ISE-2
and iSCSI ISE only.
Profile-driven Storage
The VASA Provider enables you to perform Profile Driven Storage, which allows rapid and intelligent
provisioning of applications, ensures application service levels match the available storage, and provides
visibility into your storage pool. The VASA Profiler categorizes volumes by capability and reports capabilities of
the storage arrays in the storage profile.
Policy-Based Storage Management
Policy-based storage management in vSphere 5.0 helps you provision virtual machines (VMs) by automating
datastore placement decisions for VMs.
Storage Service Level Agreements
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You no longer need to maintain spreadsheets that detail the storage capabilities of each LUN to map correct
service level agreements (SLAs) to virtual machines.
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Deliver the best-matched resources to the SLA demanded by the VM. This is especially true in the case of
storage resources, because storage environments can be heterogeneous, and different types of storage have
very different performance and availability characteristics.
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Discover and Monitor Array SLA Properties
1. Availability
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2. Security
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3. Performance
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4. Leverage array services to enforce storage VM SLAs
Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler
The VASA Provider extends VMware’s Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) functionality to data storage by
enabling Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (SDRS) to operate on a group of datastores with similar
capabilities. The VASA Provider enables SDRS to determine whether a storage array supports SDRS
migration and whether SDRS recommends migration.
VASA Session Communications
All communications between the vCenter Server and the VASA Provider use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
certificates. The VASA Provider can use a self-signed certificate or certificate issued by a certificate authority
(CA).
Using the X-IO ISE VASA Provider
After registering the VASA provider, you should see a list of the managed storage arrays in the Vendor Provider
Details window. To verify the operation of the VASA provider:
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1. Select Datastores and Datastore Clusters from the Home view in the vSphere Client.
2. Select a datastore residing on a storage array monitored by the VASA provider.
3. Click the Summary tab.
You should see a capability category for the System Storage Capability. These capabilities are generated by
the VASA provider based on the following criteria:
GOLD
Storage array volumes composed of Solid State Drives (SSD)
SILVER
Storage array volumes composed of 10K RPM or faster physical drives.
BRONZE
Storage array volumes composed of less than 10K RPM physical drives.
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Replicated
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Any of the above capabilities that are remotely mirrored. Replicated will be appended to the above capability
(for example, Perf-Replicated).
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Thin
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Any of the above capabilities that are thin provisioned. Thin will be appended to the above capability (for
example, Perf-Thin).
Figure 2. Storage Capability Details
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Clicking the blue speech balloon link displays the description for the capability listed.
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Selecting the Storage Views tab and then selecting Show all SCSI Volumes (LUNs) displays a list of SCSI IDs,
LUNs, status, capacity, capability, storage array, etc.
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Figure 3. Storage Views
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VM Storage Profiles
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VM Storage Profiles allow the creation of storage profiles that can be used to select datastores based on user
selected criteria. To enable VM Storage Profiles, perform the following actions:
2. Click Enable VM Storage Profiles.
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3. Click Create VM Storage Profile.
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1. Click VM Storage Profiles from the vSphere Client Home view.
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4. Enter the properties for the new profile and click Next.
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5. Select the storage capability to be associated with the profile and click Next.
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6. Review the summary information and click Finish.
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Storage Array Alerts and Events
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Figure 4. Create New VM Storage Profile
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The X-IO ISE VASA Provider also propagates storage array alerts to the vCenter Server Event monitor. Alerts
will be displayed on the Alert tab for the respective property or by switching from the Tasks view to the Alarms
view at the bottom of the vSphere Client. Events may be viewed by clicking on Events icon from the vSphere
Client Home view.
Figure 5. Triggered Alarms
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