Define a VM Policy Based on I/O Filter Capabilities

To enable I/O filters for virtual machines, you must first create a virtual machine policy that lists data service capabilities provided by the I/O filters.

The I/O filter capabilities are displayed on the Common rules page of the VM Storage Policies wizard. The policy that enables I/O filters must include common rules. However, adding placement rules is optional.

Depending on the I/O filters installed in your environment, the data services can belong to various categories, including caching, replication, and so on. By referencing the specific category in the storage policy, you request the service for your virtual machine.

If your I/O filters and storage offer the same service category, for example, encryption, your policy can request this service from both providers. As a result, the virtual machine data is encrypted twice, by the I/O filter and your storage. However, replication provided by Virtual Volumes and replication provided by the I/O filter cannot coexist in the same storage policy.

Prerequisites

• Verify that the I/O filter storage provider is available and active. See View I/O Filters and Storage Providers.
• Define appropriate storage policy components. See Create Storage Policy Components.
• Required privileges: VM storage policies.Update and VM storage policies.View.

Procedure

1. From the vSphere Web Client Home, click Policies and Profiles > VM Storage Policies.
2. Click the VM Storage Policies tab.
3. Click the Create a New VM Storage Policy icon.
4. Select the vCenter Server instance.
5. Type a name, for example I/O Filters, and a description for the policy and click Next.
6. On the Common Rules page, define the I/O filters.
   1. Select Use common rules in the storage policy.
   2. Click the Add component () icon and select a data service category from the drop-down menu, for example, Replication.
   3. Define rules for the data service category by specifying an appropriate provider and values for the rules. Or select the data service from the list of predefined components.

      Option	Description
      Component Name	This option is available if you have predefined storage policy components in your database. If you know which component to use, select it from the list to add to the VM storage policy.
      See all	Review all component available for the category. To include a specific component, select it from the list and click OK.
      Custom	Define custom rules for the data service category by specifying an appropriate provider and values for the rules.

      Note: If you use encryption with other I/O filters, set the Allow I/O filters before encryption parameter to True, so that other filters, such as replication, can analyze clear text data before it is encrypted.
   4. Add more components to request other data services.
      You can use only one component from the same category, for example caching, per a set of common or regular rules.
   5. Click Next.
7. If your policy includes placement rules, on the Rule Set page, specify storage placement requirements and click Next.
   Note: If you plan to migrate the virtual machine with the I/O filters across different types of datastores, make sure that the policy includes placement rules for every target datastore. For example, if you migrate your virtual machine between the VMFS and Virtual Volumes datastores, create a mixed VM storage policy. The policy must include tag-based rule for the VMFS datastore and rules for the Virtual Volumes datastore.
8. On the Storage Compatibility page, review the list of available datastores and click Next.
   To be compatible with the I/O filter policy, datastores must be connected to host with I/O filters and satisfy storage requirements of the policy.
9. Complete the creation of the storage policy and click Finish.

Results

The new policy is added to the list.