Release Notes

22 Dell Virtual Storage Manager: Installation Considerations and Local Data Protection | 2079-BP-V-VSM

1. From the VSM Inventory > Datastores page click the Create Dell Datastore icon

2. Enter a Name for the datastore, and the volume on the array backing the datastore will be created with the

same label. Select the Type of datastore to be created (VMFS-5, VMFS-3 or NFS), and select the Inventory

Location (for example, Datacenter, Datastore Folder, or Datastore Cluster) where the datastore should be

placed.

3. Select the cluster or individual host where the datastore should be mounted.

4. From the dropdown menus, select the PS Group and the Storage Pool where the volume backing the

datastore will be created.

5. Enter the Number of Datastores to be created as well as the Volume Size. Select if the volume is to be Thin

Provisioned and if Enable Thin Provision Stun is to be enabled. (For more information on VMware Thin

Provision Stun, see the document, Dell PS Series Arrays: Advanced Storage Features in VMware vSphere.)

Select the percentage of additional allocated space for the Snapshot Reserve and Snapshot Reserve Warning

threshold. Finally, select whether to Enable Snapshot Space Borrowing.

At the bottom of the dialog, there is a pie chart representing the Storage Pool Capacity and the impact the

selections will have.

Note: vSphere 5.0 and above support 64TB datastores, however the maximum PS Series volume size is 15TB. If

multiple datastores are being created, the datastore name will be suffixed with a two digit number starting with 01. If

a volume of that name already exists, the next higher number is selected.

6. The ACL Source has two options: Auto-generate ACL or Specify ACL. If Auto-generate ACL is selected, it

creates an ACL on the volume based on the IQNs of the hosts to be granted volume access.

Note: If the array is running firmware version 7.0 or later it creates or uses an Access Control Policy that reflects the

IQNs of the hosts.

7. If Specify ACL is selected, an existing ACL Template can be selected from the dropdown menu, or a new ACL

can be created, and optionally saved as an ACL Template.

8. Steps 5, 6, and 7 in the GUI enable a volume to be assigned a Snapshot Schedule, and configured for

Replication or Synchronous Replication. For more information on these data protection strategies see section

9. The final dialog in Create Datastore is a summary page detailing the chosen options. Click Finish to continue.

VSM will then perform all the steps required, and the datastore will become available within the vSphere

environment for use.

3.3.2 Creating a vVol datastore

Creating a vVol datastore from VSM is similar to creating a VMFS datastore. From vCenter both look the same, however

on the SAN there are significantly different. A VMFS datastore is backed by a traditional volume, and formatted with

the VMFS file system. A vVol datastore is backed by a Storage Container, where a file system is not used. Instead,

virtual machines consist of a group of virtual volumes placed within a Storage Container.

1. From the VSM Inventory > Datastores page, click the Create Dell Datastore icon