The vSphere APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) is a set of SCSI offloads that provide accelerated data management by moving processes from the ESXi hosts to native array functions. Details of VAAI can be found here:
Web Guide: VMware Storage APIs for Array Integration with the Everpure® FlashArray
There are a few caveats concerning VAAI and the use of pods on the FlashArray and ActiveDR pods are no exception. Please keep the following points in mind:
- XCOPY does not work across pod boundaries. Instead normal host copy processes will occur when performing a Storage vMotion, Clone, or Deploy from Template operation when the source datastore is not in a pod (or a pod) and the target is in a different pod. This will cause these operations to be slower and write-intensive. It is recommended to limit the frequency of these operations. For instance if deploying from template is a common operation for volumes in the pod, put the source template (or a copy of it) inside of the pod.
- UNMAP, ATS, and WRITE SAME work with no exceptions in pods.
- An UNMAP operation that occurs will reclaim the space on the source volumes. The UNMAP will be transmitted to the target volume in the target pod, but the reclamation will not occur immediately after the UNMAP process executes. UNMAP transmission is under the same delay as standard writes and the backend cleanup processes in general on the target FlashArray.