6.5.1

Working with Virtual Machine Storage Policies
The entire process of creating and managing storage policies typically includes several steps.
Whether you must perform a specific step might depend on the type of storage or data services that your
environment offers.
Step Description
Populate the VM Storage
Policies interface with
appropriate data.
The VM Storage Policies interface is populated with information about datastores and data services
that are available in your storage environment. This information is obtained from storage providers and
datastore tags.
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For entities represented by storage providers, verify that an appropriate provider is registered.
Entities that use the storage provider include vSAN, Virtual Volumes, and I/O filters. Depending on
the type of storage entity, some providers are self-registered. Other providers must be manually
registered.
See View Storage Provider Information and Register Storage Providers for Virtual Volumes.
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Tag datastores that are not represented by storage providers. You can also use tags to indicate a
property that is not communicated through the storage provider, such as geographical location or
administrative group.
See Assign Tags to Datastores.
Create predefined
storage policy
components.
A storage policy component describes a single data service, such as replication, that must be provided
for the virtual machine. You can define the component in advance and associate it with multiple VM
storage policies. The components are reusable and interchangeable.
See Create Storage Policy Components.
Create VM storage
policies.
When you define storage policies for virtual machines, you specify storage requirements for
applications that run on the virtual machines.
See Define a Storage Policy for a Virtual Machine.
Apply the VM storage
policy to the virtual
machine.
You can apply the storage policy when deploying the virtual machine or configuring its virtual disks.
See Assign Storage Policies to Virtual Machines.
Check compliance for the
VM storage policy.
Verify that the virtual machine uses the datastore that is compliant with the assigned storage policy.
See Check Compliance for a VM Storage Policy.
Populating the VM Storage Policies Interface
To define a VM storage policy, you use the VM Storage Policy interface. Before you can use the interface,
you must populate it with information about storage entities and data services that are available in your
storage environment.
This information is obtained from storage providers, also called VASA providers. Another source is
datastore tags.
vSphere Storage
VMware, Inc. 236