To define the VM storage policy in the vSphere Client, use the Create VM Storage Policy wizard. In this task, you create rules for data services offered by ESXi hosts. The VM storage policy that includes these rules activates specified data services for the virtual machine.

Available data services include encryption, I/O control, caching, and so on. Certain data services, such as encryption, are provided by VMware. Others can be offered by third-party I/O filters that you install on your host.

The data services are usually generic for all types of storage and do not depend on a datastore. Adding datastore-specific rules to the storage policy is optional.

If you add datastore-specific rules, and both the I/O filters on the host and storage offer the same type of service, 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

  • For information about encrypting your virtual machines, see the vSphere Security documentation.
  • For information about I/O filters, see Filtering Virtual Machine I/O.
  • For information about storage policy components, see About Storage Policy Components.
  • Required privileges: VM storage policies.Update and VM storage policies.View.

Procedure

  1. Open the Create VM Storage Policy wizard.
    1. Click Menu > Policies and Profiles.
    2. Under Policies and Profiles, click VM Storage Policies
    3. Click Create.
  2. Enter the policy name and description, and click Next.
    Option Action
    vCenter Server Select the vCenter Server instance.
    Name Enter the name of the storage policy.
    Description Enter the description of the storage policy.
  3. On the Policy structure page under Host based services, enable host based rules.
  4. On the Host based services page, define rules to enable and configure data services provided by your host.
    1. Click the tab for the data service category, for example, Replication.
    2. Define custom rules for the data service category or use predefined components.
      Option Description
      Disabled Host-based services are disabled by default.
      Use storage policy component Select a storage policy component from the drop-down menu. This option is available only if you have predefined components in your database.
      Custom Define custom rules for the data service category by specifying an appropriate provider and values for the rules.
      Note: You can enable several data services. If you use encryption with other data services, set the Allow I/O filters before encryption parameter to True, so that other services, such as replication, can analyze clear text data before it is encrypted.
  5. On the Storage compatibility page, review the list of datastores that match this policy.
    To be compatible with the policy for host-based services, datastores must be connected to the host that provides these services. If you add datastore-specific rule sets to the policy, the compatible datastores must also satisfy storage requirements of the policy.
  6. On the Review and finish page, review the storage policy settings and click Finish.
    To change any settings, click Back to go to the relevant page.

Results

The new VM storage policy for host-based data services appears on the list.