The document discusses the capabilities and benefits of integrating Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) storage with VMware's vSphere API for Storage Awareness (VASA) and Virtual Volumes (VVols). It highlights how VASA enhances storage management by allowing VMware vCenter to monitor and report on storage resources, while VVols introduce a more efficient VM-level storage management framework. The document also outlines VMware storage best practices and the significant advantages of using HDS storage within VMware environments, including improved performance and capacity efficiency.

1. HDS Storage with VMWare VASA
and VVOLS
Joseph Holbrook
HDS Certified & VMWare VCP-Cloud

2. • Upon completion of this module, you should be
able to:
– What is vSphere API for Storage Awareness (VASA)
plug-ins all about? Points to Know!
– vSphere API for Storage Awareness (VASA) plug-ins
components.
– VMWare Storage Best Practices
– Virtual Volumes are out (VVOLS). vSphere 6.0
– Benefits of HDS Storage and VMWare
Discussion Objectives

3. What is vSphere API for Storage
Awareness (VASA)

4. vStorage API for Storage Awareness
(VASA)
• vStorage API for Storage Awareness (VASA)
– Provides vCenter Awareness of Array Configuration,
Performance, Health, and Capabilities
– Further Enables Profile Driven Storage and deep
integration with VMWare capabilities.
vStorage API for Storage Awareness (VASA)
Capability
Block Device
Reporting Data Model
File System
Physical Storage Data Model
Performance Data Model
Virtual/Logical Data Model
Events, Alarms, Health, Capability
Read/Write IOPS, Transfers,
Response Times
Storage Pools, RAID Groups, LUNs
Vendor ID, Storage Processors, Port
WWN

5. Key Features of the VASA Plug-ins
• Enhanced operations management of storage
resources, including the ability to:
– Discover array components, configuration, and capabilities
natively from within VMware’s vCenter Management tool
– Allow VMware vCenter to Monitor the status and health of
the array and it’s components
– Identify trends in a VMs storage capacity usage for
troubleshooting
– Correlate events in Datastores on Hitachi LUNs with VMs
performance characteristics
– Enable creation of more efficient Storage Distributed
Resource Scheduling (sDRS) policies

6. • vSphere® Storage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) is a set
of APIs that enable VMware vCenter Server to detect the
capabilities of the storage array LUNs/datastores/VVOLS
• Storage capabilities, such as RAID level, thin or thick
provisioned, replication state and much more, can now be
made visible within VMware vCenter Server.
• It will make the use of storage profiles for VMs possible.
• VASA requires plug-ins for vCenter Server to be made
available by storage vendor.
• HDS plug-ins are:
– Hitachi Storage Plug-in for VMware vCenter (Hitachi Storage
Manager for VMware )
– Hitachi Storage Provider for VMware vCenter (NAS)
– Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter
vSphere API for Storage Awareness
(VASA) Points to Know

7. HDS vSphere API for Storage
Awareness (VASA) Components

8. • Hitachi Storage Plug-in for VMware vCenter is
composed of the following main components:
• VMware vSphere Client
• VMware vCenter Server
• ESX Host
• Storage Plug-In for VMware
– Storage Plug-In software must be installed on a
Windows OS that is running the vSphere Client(As a
vAPP)
– Storage Plug-In for VMware vCenter supports AMS
2000, VSP, Unified Storage and USPV. Support to
vSphere 6x coming.
HDS Storage Plug In Components

9. Storage Plug In for VMware vCenter
•StorageView

10. Storage Manager for VMware vCenter
• Datastore View

11. VMWare Storage Best Practices

12. • Choose the right storage in terms of space,
performance and SLA requirements
• Monitor and report against existing storage
policies
• Create a foundation for manageability and
expand in future releases of vSphere
VMWare Storage Best Practices

13. Virtual Volumes

14. • In 2011 VMware introduced block based VAAI APIs as part of
vSphere 4.1 release. This APIs helped improving performance
of VMFS by providing offload of some of the heavy operations
to the storage array. In subsequent release, VMware added
VAAI APIs for NAS, thin provisioning, and T10 command
support for Block VAAI APIs
• Virtual Volumes (VVOLs) VMware introduced a new virtual
machine management and integration framework that
exposes virtual disks as the primary unit of data management
for storage arrays. This new framework enables array-based
operations at the virtual disk level that can be precisely
aligned to application boundaries with the capability of
providing a policy-based management approach per virtual
machine.
Virtual Volumes

15. • In VAAI Block defines basic SCSI primitives, which allows
vSphere (primarily VMFS) to offload pieces of its
operations to the array. There is still a heavy dependency
on VMFS playing the role of an orchestrator and sending
individual VAAI Block command to the storage array.
• With VVOLs, the storage array systems are aware of
virtual machine’s disk and hence they can efficiently
perform operations such as snapshots, clones, and
zeroing operations on the virtual machines disks. But still
VAAI Block and thin-provisioning primitives co-exists with
VVOLs.
Virtual Volumes

16. • Nutshell Version – ENABLE SDDC
VVols introduce two major changes:
(1) VM-level granularity by introducing a one-to-one
mapping of VMs to storage volumes VVols eliminate the
need to provision large datastores for VMFS volumes;
storage provisioning now happens automatically on a per-
VM basis. Each VM is assigned its own unique VVol, which is
equivalent to a storage LUN.
(2) support for VMware’s SPBM to simplify storage
management and automate storage provisioning. Before
the introduction of VVols, storage arrays primarily
integrated with vSphere at the datastore level using
VMware’s VMFS. Moving forward, users can choose to use
VMFS or VVols (or both), with VVols offering more
advanced capabilities.
Virtual Volumes

17. • ATS
• Block Zeroing (Thick) VMFS
• XCOPY
• UNMAP
• Primatives (Snaps and Vmotion)
Virtual Volumes

18. • ATS
Virtual Volumes(Thin)

19. Benefits of HDS Storage with
VMWare

20. Some of the key benefits…
• Enterprise-class infrastructure delivers highest
performance, scale, resiliency and data protection
• Use of Hitachi Dynamic Tiering, Hitachi Dynamic
Provisioning, and Virtual Infrastructure Integrator in
a VMware environment increases storage service
quality
• Primary storage de-duplication drives capacity
efficiencies
• VAAI and Virtual Infrastructure Integrator offload VM
processes to the storage to improve performance,
VM density and backup/restore operations
• Virtual Infrastructure Integrator enables faster and
space efficient clones
Benefits of HDS Storage with VMWare