To establish a connection between vCenter Server and a storage provider, you must register the storage provider. Use the vSphere Client to register a separate storage provider for each host in a cluster.

When you upgrade a storage provider to a later VASA version, you must unregister and reregister the provider. After registration, vCenter Server can detect and use the functionality of the later VASA version.
Note: If you use vSAN, the storage providers for vSAN are registered and appear on the list of storage providers automatically. vSAN does not support manual registration of storage providers. See the Administering VMware vSAN documentation.

Prerequisites

Verify that the storage provider component is installed on the storage side and obtain its credentials from your storage administrator.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to vCenter Server.
  2. Click the Configure tab, and click Storage Providers.
  3. Click the Add icon.
  4. Enter connection information for the storage provider, including the name, URL, and credentials.
  5. Specify the security method.
    Action Description
    Direct vCenter Server to the storage provider certificate Select the Use storage provider certificate option and specify the certificate's location.
    Use a thumbprint of the storage provider certificate If you do not guide vCenter Server to the provider certificate, the certificate thumbprint is displayed. You can check the thumbprint and approve it. vCenter Server adds the certificate to the truststore and proceeds with the connection.
    The storage provider adds the vCenter Server certificate to its truststore when vCenter Server first connects to the provider.
  6. Click OK.

Results

vCenter Server registers the storage provider and establishes a secure SSL connection with it.

What to do next

To troubleshoot registration of your storage provider, see the VMware Knowledge Base article https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/49798.