6.7

This information is obtained from storage providers, also called VASA providers. Another source is
datastore tags.
Storage Capabilities
and Services
Certain datastores, for example, Virtual Volumes and vSAN, are
represented by the storage providers. Through the storage providers, the
datastores can advertise their capabilities in the VM Storage Policy
interface. These datastore capabilities, data services, and other
characteristics with ranges of values populate the VM Storage Policy
interface.
You use these characteristics when you define datastore-based placement
and service rules for your storage policy.
Data Services I/O filters on your hosts are also represented by the storage providers. The
storage provider delivers information about the data services of the filters to
the VM Storage Policy interface. You use this information when defining the
rules for host-based data services, also called common rules. Unlike the
datastore-specific rules, these rules do not define storage placement and
storage requirements for the virtual machine. Instead, they activate the
requested I/O filter data services for the virtual machine.
Tags Generally, VMFS and NFS datastores are not represented by a storage
provider. They do not display their capabilities and data services in the VM
Storage Polices interface. You can use tags to encode information about
these datastores. For example, you can tag your VMFS datastores as
VMFS-Gold and VMFS-Silver to represent different levels of service.
For VVols and vSAN datastores, you can use tags to encode information
that is not advertised by the storage provider, such as geographical location
(Palo Alto), or administrative group (Accounting).
Similar to the storage capabilities and characteristics, all tags associated
with the datastores appear in the VM Storage Policies interface. You can
use the tags when you define the tag-based placement rules.
Use Storage Providers to Populate the VM Storage Policies
Interface
For entities represented by storage (VASA) providers, verify that an appropriate provider is registered.
After the storage providers are registered, the VM Storage Policies interface becomes populated with
information about datastores and data services that the providers represent.
Entities that use the storage provider include vSAN, Virtual Volumes, and I/O filters. Depending on the
type of the entity, some providers are self-registered. Other providers, for example, the Virtual Volumes
storage provider, must be manually registered. After the storage providers are registered, they deliver the
following data to the VM Storage Policies interface:
n
Storage capabilities and characteristics for such datastores as Virtual Volumes and vSAN.
vSphere Storage
VMware, Inc. 243