Provisioning a datastore creates a logical container for your virtual machines and their virtual machine disks (VMDKs). You can provision a datastore, and then attach the datastore to a single host, to all of the hosts in a cluster, or to all of the hosts in a datacenter.
Before you begin
- To provision a datastore on an SVM that is directly connected to Virtual Storage Console (VSC), you must have added the SVM to VSC by using a user account that has the appropriate privileges, not the default vsadmin user account or vsadmin role.
You can also provision a datastore by adding a cluster.
- You must ensure that the subnet details of all the networks to
which the ESXi host is connected is entered in the
kaminoprefs.xml.
See "Enabling datastore
mounting across different subnets" section in VSC 9.8
Deployment and Setup Guide.
- If you use NFS or iSCSI, and the subnet is different
between your ESXi hosts and your storage system, then the NFS or iSCSI settings
in the kaminoprefs preferences file must include ESXi host
subnet masks.
This preference file is also applicable to vVols datastore creation. ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere Deployment and
Setup Guide for 9.8 release has more information on preferences
file and enabling datastore mounting across different subnets.
- If you have enabled VASA Provider and you want to specify storage capability profiles for your NFS datastores or VMFS datastores, then you must have created one or more storage capability profiles.
- To create an NFSv4.1 datastore, you must have enabled NFSv4.1 at the SVM level.
About this task
The Provision Datastore option enables you to specify a
storage capability profile for the datastore. Storage capability profiles help in specifying consistent service level
objectives (SLOs) and simplify the provisioning process. You can specify a storage
capability profile only if you have enabled VASA Provider. The ONTAP tools for
VMware vSphere supports the following protocols:
- NFSv3 and NFSv4.1
- VMFS5 and VMFS6
VSC can create a datastore on either an NFS volume or a LUN:
- For an NFS datastore, VSC creates an NFS volume on the storage system, and then updates the export policies.
- For a VMFS datastore, VSC creates a new volume (or uses an existing volume, if you selected that
option), and then creates a LUN and an igroup.
If a storage capability profile is not specified during provisioning, you can later
use the Storage Mapping page to map a datastore to a storage capability profile. You can apply storage QoS settings, throughput
ceiling (Max IOPS) and throughput floor (Min IOPS) on data VMDK files of virtual machines provisioned on FlexGroup backed datastore. QoS settings can be applied either at datastore level or at individual virtual machine level by right clicking the datastore. The right click option is available only on those datastores or virtual machines that are backed by FlexGroup datastore. After the QoS is applied to a datastore, any pre-existing datastore or virtual machine QoS settings are overridden. QoS settings cannot be applied at a datastore level or at a virtual machine level for datastores that are provisioned on direct SVM's, because ONTAP does not support QoS at SVM
management level.
Procedure
-
You can access the datastore provisioning wizard using one of the following:
| If you select from ... |
Perform the following... |
|---|
| vSphere Client home page |
- Click Hosts and Clusters.
- In the navigation pane, select the datacenter on which you want to provision the datastore.
- To specify the hosts to mount the datastore, see the next step.
|
| ONTAP tools home page |
- Click Overview.
- Click Getting Started tab.
- Click Provision button.
- Click Browse to select the destination to provision the datastore as per the next step.
|
-
Specify the hosts on which you want to mount the datastore.
| To make the datastore available to... |
Do this... |
|---|
| All of the hosts in a datacenter |
Right-click a datacenter, and then select . |
| All of the hosts in a cluster |
Right-click a host cluster, and then select . |
| A single host |
Right-click a host, and select . |
-
Complete the fields in the New Datastore dialog box to create the datastore.
Most of the fields in the dialog box are self-explanatory. The following table describes some of the fields for which you might require guidance.
| Section |
Description |
| General |
The General section of the New Datastore provisioning dialog box
provides options to enter the destination, name, size, type,
and protocol for the new datastore. You can select NFS or
VMFS protocol to configure a
traditional datastore. This release allows you to configure a VMFS datastore of maximum size 64TB. You can select the option Distribute datastore data across the ONTAP cluster to provision a
FlexGroup volume on the storage system. Selecting this
option automatically deselects the checkbox Use Storage Capability Profile for provisioning .
For FlexGroup datastore provisioning, ONTAP cluster that are 9.8 and above only
are listed for selection.The vVols datastore type is used to configure a vVols datastore. If VASA Provider is enabled, then you can also decide
whether to use storage capability profiles. The
Datastore cluster option is
available only for traditional datastores. You should use the Advanced
option to specify VMFS5 or
VMFS6 file system. |
| Storage system |
You can select one of the listed
storage capability profiles if you have selected the option
in the General section. If
you are provisioning a FlexGroup datastore, then storage capability profile for this datastore is not supported. The system-recommended values for the
storage system and storage virtual machine are populated for
ease. But you can modify the values if required. |
| Storage attributes |
By default, VSC populates the
recommended values for Aggregates and
Volumes options. You can
customize the values based on your requirements. Aggregate
selection is not supported for FlexGroup datastores as ONTAP manages the aggregate selection. The
Space reserve option available
under Advanced menu is also populated
to give optimum results. |
| Summary |
You can review the summary of the
parameters you specified for the new datastore.There is a new field Volume Style
available in the Summary
page that enables you to differentiate the type of datastore created. The Volume Style can be
either FlexVol or FlexGroup . |
Note: A FlexGroup that is part of a traditional datastore cannot shrink below the existing size but can grow by 120% maximum. Default
snapshots are enabled on these FlexGroup volumes.
-
In the Summary section, click Finish.