The VCF mode enables you to create containers for your storage without the need for a vCenter Server. VASA Provider is enabled by default after the deployment of ONTAP tools in VCF mode. After the deployment is complete, you can add, delete, or modify storage systems, and create containers using REST APIs.

The following article has the procedure for adding storage to ONTAP tools when VCF is enabled, Add Storage to ONTAP tools from Swagger-UI.

A new API is introduced to generate the appliance-api-token that authenticates API calls. Some of the existing APIs are modified to include the appliance-api-token header. From ONTAP tools 9.12 release onwards, swagger does not support 1.0 APIs. The pointers that were previously on 1.0 are moved to 2.0 or 3.0 APIs.

The APIs available for VCF deployment mode are:

You can only work with vVols datastores in the VCF deployment mode. To create container, you need to use REST APIs customized for VCF deployment. The REST APIs can be accessed from the Swagger interface after the deployment is complete. While creating containers in VCF mode, you need to provide names of storage VM, aggregate and volume. You need to use ONTAP APIs to get these details as the ONTAP tools GET APIs for these resources are not updated.

While executing container create API, you can add existing volumes to the container. But you should ensure that the compression and deduplication values of the existing volumes matches the storage capability of the container. The virtual machine creation fails when the values do not match. The following table provides details on the values that existing volumes should have for corresponding storage capability profiles.

You can use the ONTAP PATCH API to set the appropriate values.

https://<machine_IP>/api/storage/volumes/{uuid}

The VCF deployment of ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere allows only container creation workflows. If you want to use other workflows such as provisioning datastores, creating storage capability profiles, or disaster recovery, then you should register ONTAP tools with vCenter Server using the swagger page. From ONTAP tools 9.12 onwards the registration of ONTAP tools with vCenter happens from the swagger page. The limitation of ONTAP tools in VCF mode is that you cannot configure SRA for disaster recovery until you register the plugin. When you deploy ONTAP tools without VCF mode, the registration happens automatically.

How to deploy ONTAP tools