The primary feature added as part of VASA provider 2.0.0 are some new capabilities that are added to SPBM. For more detailed information on SPBM and all capabilities see the SPBM User Guide. The other feature included with VASA provider 2.0.0 is the support for thick provisioned data vVols.
Updated Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) Capabilities
There are four new capabilities that have been added with VASA provider 2.0.0.
- QoS - Per Virtual Disk IOPs Limit
- QoS - Per Virtual Disk Bandwidth Limit
- Local Snapshot Placement
- Volume Tagging Placement
These are the new capability values that are available starting with Purity//FA 6.2.6 or Purity//FA 6.3.0 and VASA Provider 2.0.0.
|
QoS Placement Capability Name |
Value (not case-sensitive) |
|
Per Virtual Disk IOPS Limit |
A value and the unit of measurement (hundreds, thousands or millions) |
|
Per Virtual Disk Bandwidth Limit |
A value and the unit of measurement (KB/s, MB/s or GB/s) |
|
|
|
Local Snapshot Protection Placement Capability Name |
Value (not case-sensitive) |
|
Snapshot Interval |
A time interval in seconds, minutes, hours, days, week, months or years |
|
Retain all Snapshots for |
A time interval in seconds, minutes, hours, days, week, months or years |
|
Retain Additional Snapshots |
Number of snapshots to be retained for |
|
Days to Retain Additional Snapshots |
Number of Days to retain the additional snapshots |
|
|
|
Volume Tagging Placement Capability Name |
Value (not case-sensitive) |
|
Key |
Name of the the volume key tag |
|
Value |
Name of the volume value tag |
|
Copyable |
Yes or No |
|
|
Here are the compliance check requirements for these new capabilities.
|
QoS Placement Capability Name |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|
Per Virtual Disk IOPS Limit |
...it is a FlashArray runing Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the volume QoS IOPS Limit matches the value of the rule. |
...the volume's QoS IOPS Limit is either unset or does not match the value in the rule. |
|
Per Virtual Disk Bandwith Limit |
...it is a FlashArray runing Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the volume QoS Bandwidth Limit matches the value of the rule. |
...the volume's QoS Bandwidth Limit is either unset or does not match the value in the rule. |
|
Local Snapshot Protection Placement Capability Name |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|
Snapshot Interval |
...it is a FlashArray runing Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the protection group that VASA is using for the storage policy matches the ruleset, the vVol is a member of the protection group and the snapshot schedule is enabled. |
...the vVol is not a member of the paired protection group, the interval does not match the policy rule or the snapshot schedule is disabled. |
|
Retain all Snapshots for |
...it is a FlashArray runing Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the protection group that VASA is using for the storage policy matches the ruleset, the vVol is a member of the protection group and the snapshot schedule is enabled. |
...the vVol is not a member of the paired protection group, the retention interval does not match the policy rule or the snapshot schedule is disabled. |
|
Retain Additional Snapshots |
...it is a FlashArray runing Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the protection group that VASA is using for the storage policy matches the ruleset, the vVol is a member of the protection group and the snapshot schedule is enabled. |
...the vVol is not a member of the paired protection group, the value does not match the policy rule or the snapshot schedule is disabled. |
|
Days to Retain Additional Snapshots |
...it is a FlashArray runing Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the protection group that VASA is using for the storage policy matches the ruleset, the vVol is a member of the protection group and the snapshot schedule is enabled. |
...the vVol is not a member of the paired protection group, the value does not match the policy rule or the snapshot schedule is disabled. |
|
Volume Tagging Placement Capability Name |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|
Key |
...it is a FlashArray runing Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...a tag exists on the volume that matches the key value pair dictated by the rule. |
...a tag does not exist or does not match the key value pair dictated by the rule. |
|
Value |
...it is a FlashArray runing Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...a tag exists on the volume that matches the key value pair dictated by the rule. |
...a tag does not exist or does not match the key value pair dictated by the rule. |
Those are the new capabilities and the constraints by which they are enforced. One thing that we want to take time and point out is why local snapshot protection being moved into placement matters. Previously if you wanted to create as storage policy that would have local snapshot protection the rules would have to be made in the replication capabilities. In which case you would need to already have had the protection groups created on the array and then when applying the policy you would need to select a replication group for local snapshot protection.
Now with local snapshot protection being added to placement capabilities this is not longer required. Rather when creating a storage policy with local snapshot placement rules sets, when this storage policy is first applied to a VM the VASA provider on the array will automatically create a protection group with the constraints dictated by the policy. This protection group and storage policy are then linked or paired together. Meaning that if the storage policy rule sets are changed, for example changing the interval from 2 hour to 1 hour, then the VASA provider will automatically change the the protection group schedule accordingly when the policy is re-applied. No longer do you need to manually create protection groups or assign replication groups for storage policies when local snapshot protection is desired or required.
Support for Thick Provisioned vVols
With VASA provider 2.0.0 thick provisioned vVols is now supported. First question here would be if everything on the array is thin provisioned always, then how is VASA supporting thick provisioning? Essentially the only difference now is that when queries for space stats are issued against virtual volumes that are thick provisioned, the VASA provider will return back that all of that provisioned space is used. For example, when I have a 40 GB data vVol that I chose thick provisioned, when query space stats is issued against that vVol the results will return back that provisioned space is 40 GB and used space is 40 GB. The reasons that we made the decision to support thick provisioning with vVols are: