Administrator Guide

• Use vCenter to create VVol-backed VMs
Unisphere Central provides Summary and Storage views that provide information about storage containers, datastores, VVols, and
protocol endpoints. These objects are managed using Storage Manager. Protocol endpoints are created automatically by Storage Manager
and cannot be modied in any way.
Virtual Volumes Restrictions
Volume operations on virtual volumes (VVols) are restricted to specic operations.
Storage administrators use Unisphere Central to create storage container backed vSphere datastores, also known as datastores of type
VVOL. From within the vSphere web client these VVol datastores look no dierent from VMFS or NFS datastores. However, virtual
machines stored within or on these VVol datastores are stored as virtual volumes on the array, organized within the storage container. Many
of the same operations that can be performed again traditional volumes can be performed against virtual volumes.
These volume operations are supported for VVols:
• Show
• Create Snapshot
• Set Snapshot Proles
• Set Threshold Denitions
These volume operations are not supported for VVols:
• Edit Name
• Edit Properties
• Map Volume to Server
• Expand Volume
• Delete
• Migrate
• Copy
• Mirror
• Replicate
Thick provisioning is not supported for operations such as creating or cloning a VVol VM. Only thin provisioning is supported.
VASA Provider
The VASA provider enables support for VMware VVols operations.
A VASA provider is a software interface between the vSphere vCenter server and vendor storage arrays. Dell provides its own VASA
provider that enables vCenter to work with Dell storage. This VASA provider supports the VMware VASA 2.0 API specications.
When the VASA provider is registered, vCenter can be used to create and manage VVols on the Storage Center.
You must congure the VASA provider if you intend to use VVols in your environment.
VASA Provider Restrictions
The following restrictions apply to the VASA provider:
• The Unisphere Central VASA provider can be registered to only one vCenter Server.
• All ESXi and vCenter Server requests to the VASA provider are mapped to a single Unisphere Central user.
Storage Center Administration
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