6.0.1

Virtual Volumes and VM Storage Policies
A virtual machine that runs on a virtual datastore requires a VM storage policy.
A VM storage policy is a set of rules that contains placement and quality of service requirements for a
virtual machine. The policy enforces appropriate placement of the virtual machine within Virtual Volumes
storage and guarantees that storage can satisfy virtual machine requirements.
You use the VM Storage Policies interface to create a Virtual Volumes storage policy. When you assign the
new policy to the virtual machine, the policy enforces that the Virtual Volumes storage meets the
requirements.
If you do not create the VM storage policy compatible with the virtual datastore, the system uses default No
Requirements policy. The No Requirements policy is a generic Virtual Volumes policy that contains no rules
or storage specications. The policy allows Virtual Volumes storage arrays to determine the most
appropriate placement for the VM objects.
Guidelines when Using Virtual Volumes
The Virtual Volumes functionality oers several benets and advantages. When you work with Virtual
Volumes, you must follow specic guidelines.
Virtual Volumes has the following characteristics:
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Virtual Volumes supports ooading a number of operations to storage hardware. These operations
include snapshoing, cloning, and Storage DRS.
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With Virtual Volumes, you can use advanced storage services that include replication, encryption,
deduplication, and compression on individual virtual disks.
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Virtual Volumes supports such vSphere features as vMotion, Storage vMotion, snapshots, linked clones,
Flash Read Cache, and DRS.
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With Virtual Volumes, storage vendors can use native snapshot facilities to improve performance of
vSphere snapshots.
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You can use Virtual Volumes with storage arrays that support vSphere APIs for Array Integration
(VAAI).
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Virtual Volumes supports backup software that uses vSphere APIs for Data Protection (VADP).
Virtual Volumes Guidelines and Limitations
Follow these guidelines when you use Virtual Volumes.
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Because the Virtual Volumes environment requires vCenter Server, you cannot use Virtual Volumes
with a standalone host.
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Virtual Volumes does not support RDMs.
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A Virtual Volumes storage container cannot span across dierent physical arrays.
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Host proles that contain virtual datastores are vCenter Server specic. After you extract this type of
host prole, you can aach it only to hosts and clusters managed by the same vCenter Server as the
reference host.
Chapter 19 Working with Virtual Volumes
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