VMware Storage Policies

A vSphere storage profile defines storage policy information that describes storage requirements for virtual machines and storage capabilities of storage providers. You use VMware Storage Policies to manage the assocation between virtual machines and datastores.

Storage Capabilities

Storage requirements are based on the storage capabilities available from a storage provider. A Storage Policy Server obtains storage capability data from VASA 2.0 providers or from tag-based storage policies.

VASA 2.0 providers - vSphere supports VMware VSAN storage capabilities only.

Tag-based storage - You use the vSphere Web Client to define storage policy tags.

Virtual Machine Storage

Virtual machine configuration and data are stored in datastores.

Virtual machine configuration is stored in files with the .vmx file extension. The set of virtual machine configuration files also includes other system files that support virtual machine operation. Examples of these system files include log files (.log), BIOS state files (.nvram), paging files (.vmem), and snapshot data files (.vmsd).

Virtual machine data is stored on virtual disks, in files with the .vmdk file extension.

VMware Storage Policies allow you to distinguish between virtual machine configuration and data files and to specify storage locations based on the distinction.

Storage Policy Operations

Use Storage Policy API methods to support virtual machine provisioning.

Storage Policy Operation (Storage Policy API)	Virtual Machine Provisioning (vSphere API)
Create and update storage profiles. See the PbmProfileProfileManager.	Associate storage profiles with virtual machines and virtual disks. See the description of the vSphere API data object properties `VirtualMachineConfigSpec.vmProfile` and `FileBackedVirtualDiskSpec.profile` in the vSphere API Reference. You can also use the vSphere Web Client to associate a storage profile with a virtual machine or virtual disk.
Identify candidate datastores for storage locations. See the PbmPlacementSolver.	Specify the datastores when you create virtual machines and virtual disks. See the description of the vSphere API data object properties `VirtualMachineFileInfo.vmPathName` and `VirtualDeviceFileBackingInfo.datastore` in the vSphere API Reference.
Check compliance between storage requirements and capabilities. See the PbmComplianceManager.	After you associate a storage profile with a virtual machine or virtual disk, the Server will identify non-compliance if the datastore does not satisfy the requirements of the profile.

VMware Storage Policy API Reference Documentation

The VMware Storage Policy API Reference documentation provides information about the methods and data structures available through the Storage Policy API:

The Storage Policy API is exposed as a Web service, running on VMware vCenter server systems. The API provides access to the methods that you can use to perform Storage Policy operations for virtual machines.

This Storage Policy API Reference is a core component of the VMware Storage Policy SDK. You can use the VMware Storage Policy SDK to create custom solutions for managing storage policies.

Navigating the API Reference

The Storage Policy API Reference is an HTML frameset. Click an entry in the left-hand pane to display information in the right-hand pane. To find the description of a specific object type, click the appropriate category name and then refine your search by entering the object name in the search text field.

To quickly find an entry, start typing its name in the Quick Index field.

For More Information

For conceptual and “how to” information, see the VMware Storage Policy Programming Guide.

The most recent published versions of this guide is available at:

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vc-sdk