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5.6 Leverage EqualLogic Storage Integration with VMware
As mentioned earlier in the document, EqualLogic is tightly integrated with VMware to provide better
performance and manageability. Integration is achieved through various features like EqualLogic MEM
for storage network connection multipathing, VAAI integration for better performance, and ASM/VE for
snapshot capabilities. These features are available as a part of the solution.
5.7 Thin Provisioning
The solution enables support for thin provisioning of storage both at the EqualLogic and the ESXi level.
Thin provisioning avoids the inefficiencies of over allocation by limiting the actual physical storage
resource allocation to what is utilized now, and enables the automatic addition of storage resources as
the requirements grow.
5.8 Storage Tiering
EqualLogic PS arrays provide IT organizations numerous techniques for storage tiering as a standard
part of their all-inclusive feature set. These techniques extend the automation at the core of the PS
Series design philosophy, while allowing broad customization of storage tiers to suit a wide range of
business and organizational requirements.
6 Management Capabilities
This section provides an overview of various tasks that the administrator is required to perform on the
virtualization infrastructure and the tools that are used to perform those tasks.
6.1 Virtualization Management
VMware vCenter provides a single control and management center for VMware ESX/ESXi servers. All of
the day-to-day operations, such as the ability to manage ESXi Servers, manage VMs, utilize advanced
features such as vMotion, HA, and DRS, and monitoring performance, can be done from VMware
vCenter console.
6.2 Health Monitoring
With the Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter, hardware can now be monitored for health
from vCenter. As shown in Figure 3 below, once the plug-in is installed and configured, each server in
the ESXi cluster has an additional tab named Dell Server Management in the vCenter. This tab provides
health information for each server. Administrators can automatically perform Dell-recommended
vCenter actions based on Dell hardware alerts, such as putting an ESXi server in maintenance mode
when there is a hardware issue with the server. For more details, see the Dell Management Plug-in for
VMware vCenter documentation.