When your datastore is not represented by a storage provider and does not display its capabilities in the Storage Profile-Based Management system, use tags to encode information about the datastore. You can then reference these tags when defining a storage policy for a virtual machine.
About this task
You can apply a new tag that contains storage information to a datastore. For information about tags, their categories, and how to manage tags, see the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.
Procedure
- Browse to a datastore in the vSphere Web Client inventory.
- Click the Manage tab and click Tags.
- Click the New Tag icon.
- In the vCenter Server drop-down menu, select the vCenter Server instance on which to create the tag.
- Type a name and a description for the tag.
For example, you can specify a broad storage level definition, such as Gold Storage, or indicate a property that is not communicated through a storage provider, such as geographical location or administrative group.
Tag Property |
Example |
Name |
Fault Tolerance |
Description |
Storage that has a capacity over 2TB and is fault-tolerant |
- In the Category drop-down menu, select an existing category or create a new category.
- (Optional) To create a new category, follow these steps:
- Select New Category to expand the dialog box.
- Specify the category options.
Category Property |
Example |
Category Name |
Storage Category |
Description |
Category for tags related to storage |
Cardinality |
Many tags per object |
Associable Object Types |
Datastore and Datastore Cluster |
- Click OK.
Results
The new tag is assigned to the datastore.
What to do next
You can reference the tag when adding tag-based rules to the storage policy. See Add or Edit Tag-Based Rules.
The datastore appears on a list of compatible storage resources for virtual machines that use the policy.