Installation guide

Monitoring Storage Resources 19
If you use vCenter Server to manage your ESX/ESXi hosts, you can review information on storage usage and
visually map relationships between all storage entities available in vCenter Server.
In the vSphere Client, for any inventory object except networking, the storage usage data appears in the Storage
Views tab. To view this tab, you must have the vCenter Storage Monitoring plug-in, which is generally installed
and enabled by default.
You can display storage information as reports or storage topology maps.
Reports
Reports display relationship tables that provide insight about how an
inventory object is associated with storage entities. They also offer summarized
storage usage data for the object’s virtual and physical storage resources. Use
the Reports view to analyze storage space utilization and availability,
multipathing status, and other storage properties of the selected object and
items related to it.
Maps
Maps display storage topology maps that visually represent relationships
between the selected object and its associated virtual and physical storage
entities.
For more information on virtual and phisical storage resources and how virtual mahcines access sotrage, see
ESX Configuration Guide or ESXi Configuration Guide.
This chapter includes the following topics:
n
“Working with Storage Reports,” on page 229
n
“Working with Storage Maps,” on page 231
Working with Storage Reports
Reports help you monitor storage information.
You can display and review statistics for different categories depending on the inventory object. For example,
if the inventory object is a datastore, you can display information for all virtual machines that reside on the
datastore, all hosts that have access to the datastore, the LUNs on which the datastore is deployed, and so on.
When you display the report tables, the default column headings depend on the inventory object you select.
You can customize the tables by adding or removing columns. Reports are updated every 30 minutes. You can
manually update the reports by clicking Update.
You can search for specific information you need to see by filtering report tables based on storage attributes
and keywords.
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