Cloud Director Storage enables the use of storage-based policies within an Organization.
Storage-Policy Based Management
Storage-Policy Based Management (SPBM): VMware Cloud Director uses SPBM to define storage characteristics. In a software-defined data center, SPBM helps align storage with the application demands of VMs. It provides a storage policy framework that serves as a single unified control panel across a broad range of data services and storage solutions.
As an abstraction layer, SPBM abstracts storage services delivered by vVols, vSAN, I/O filters, and other storage entities. Instead of integrating with each type of storage and data services, SPBM provides a universal framework for different types of storage entities.
SPBM provides the following mechanisms:
Advertisement of storage capabilities and data services offered by storage arrays and other entities such as I/O filters.
Bidirectional communications between ESXi and vCenter Server on one side and between storage arrays and entities on the other side.
VM provisioning based on VM storage policies.
VMware Cloud Director uses the SPBM policies defined in vCenter Server. These policies are assigned to a Provider VDC and are available to Organization VDCs managed by the Provider VDC.
By using SPBM, a provider can have different storage tiers within the same Provider vDC.
IOPS: You can enable the I/O operations per second (IOPS) setting for a storage policy so that tenants can set per-disk IOPS limits.
Managed read/write performance in physical storage devices and virtual disks is defined in units called IOPS, which measure read/write operations per second. To limit I/O performance, a provider VDC storage policy that includes storage devices with a configured IOPS allocation must back an organization VDC storage policy. Afterward, a tenant can configure disks to request a specified level of I/O performance. A storage profile configured with IOPS support delivers its default IOPS value to all disks that use it. The disks include the ones that are not configured to request a specific IOPS value. A hard disk configured to request a specific IOPS value cannot use a storage policy that has a maximum IOPS value lower than the requested value or a storage policy that is not configured with IOPS support.
You can edit the default IOPS settings. For example, you can set limits on IOPS per disk or IOPS per storage policy. The IOPS limits per disk are set based on the disk size in GB so that you grant more IOPS to larger disks. Tenants can set custom IOPS on a disk within these limits. You can use IOPS limiting with or without IOPS capacity considerations for placement.
You cannot enable IOPS on a storage policy backed by a Storage DRS cluster. The storage policies depend on the workload being deployed, so generic design recommendations become irrelevant. Instead, create storage policies based on the storage type and workload demands such that the vendor requirements are met.
Cloud Director Catalogs
Catalogs allow both Providers and Tenants to create catalogs and provide a simple way to handle the storage of ISO files and OVF templates.
Public catalogs can be created by the provider and shared amongst multiple tenants. Public catalogs can include standard customer images such as Jumphosts, PaaS services, and other provider-specific VMs that can be consumed by one or more tenants (organizations).
The primary use of Catalogs within an Organization is to allow the tenants in the organization to upload their applications ready for deployment. When an Organizational-level catalog is created, it can be configured to use a specific storage policy.
Organization catalogs can be private, shared, or published:
Shared: The shared model allows the catalog to be viewed only by a specific set of users or groups within the current organization. This allows different catalogs to be shared with different tenant users.
Published: The published model allows a catalog to be published. Any organization can subscribe to this catalog, if it has the published URL for the catalog.
