With regards to the vSphere environment, there are some networking requirements and some strong recommendations from Everpure when implementing vVols in your vSphere Environment.
- Requirement: NTP must be configured the same across all ESXi hosts and vCenter Servers in the environment. The time and data must be configured to the current date/time.
- Recommended: Configure Syslog forwarding for vSphere environment.
- Requirement: Network port 8084 must be open and accessible from vCenter Servers and ESXi hosts to the FlashArray that will be used for vVols.
- Recommended: Use Virtual Machine Hardware version 14 or higher.
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Requirement: Do not run vCenter servers on vVols.
- While a vCenter server can run on vVols, in the event of any failure on the VASA Management Path combined with a vCenter server restart, the environment could enter a state where vCenter Server may not be able to boot or start. Please see the failure scenario KB for more detail on this.
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Recommended: Either configured a SPBM policy to snapshot all of the vVol VM's Config vVols or manually put Config vVols in a FlashArray protection group with snapshot scheduled enabled.
- A snapshot of the Config vVol is required for the vSphere Plugin's VM undelete feature. Having a backup of the Config vVol also helps the recovery process or roll back process for the VM in the event that there is an issue. There is a detailed KB that outlines some of these workflows Web Guide: vSphere Virtual Volume VM Recovery and Snapshot Workflows.