vVols User Guide: vVols Reporting
vVols Reporting
The vVols architecture that gives VMware insight into FlashArrays also gives FlashArrays insight into VMware. With vVol granularity, the FlashArray can recognize and report on both entire vVol-based VMs (implemented as volume groups) and individual virtual disks (implemented as volumes).
Storage Consumption Reporting
FlashArrays represent VMs as volume groups. The Volumes tab of the GUI Storage pane lists an array’s volume groups. Select a group that represents a VM to display a list of its volumes.
The volume group naming schema will follow the pattern: vvol-VMname-vg with the VM name being set when the VM is first created as a vVols based VM or Storage vMotioned to the vVol Datastore.
When a VM is renamed in vCenter the volume group is not automatically renamed on the FlashArray. This applies to renaming volume groups on the FlashArray not changing the VM name in vSphere as well. In the event that a VM's name is changed in vCenter then the volume group name would need to either be updated manually or could be done via a PowerCLI or python workflow as well. See this KB section for more information on this workflow.
GUI View of a Volume Group and its Volumes |
The top panel of the display shows averaged and aggregated storage consumption statistics for the VM. Click the Space button in the Volumes pane to display storage consumption statistics for individual vVols.
GUI View of a Volume Group' Per-volume Storage Consumption |
To view a VM’s storage consumption history, switch to the Analysis pane Capacity view and select the Volumes tab.
GUI Analysis |
To view history for VMs (volume groups) or vVol (volumes), select an object type from the dropdown menu.
Selecting Volume Statistics |
Click the desired object in the list to display its storage consumption history. (Alternatively, enter a full or partial VM name in the search box to filter the list.)
The array displays a graph of the selected object’s storage consumption over time. The graph is adjustable—time intervals from 24 hours to 1 year can be selected. It distinguishes between storage consumed by live volumes and that consumed by their snapshots. The consumption reported is for volume and snapshot data that is unique to the objects (i.e., not deduplicated against other objects). Data shared by two or more volumes or snapshots is reported separately on a volume group-wide basis as Shared.
GUI Storage Capacity History for a Volume Group |
Data Reduction with vVol Managed Snapshots on Purity 5.1.3+
Beginning in Purity 5.1.3 Managed Snapshots behavior was changed to copy the Data Volumes to new volumes in the Array Volume Group vs taking array based snapshots of the data volumes. As part of this update, data reduction numbers will now differ. Since VMwareis essentially asking the array to create several identical volumes through VASA and the Array will oblige and dedup them appropriately. Which means that the more Managed Snapshots that are taken, the higher the data reduction on number on the Volume Group will become. Overall increasing the Array data reduction numbers.
Performance Reporting
The FlashArray GUI can also report VM and vVol performance hostory. In the Analysis pane Performance view, the history of a VM or vVol’s IOPS, latency, and data throughput (Bandwidth) can be viewed.
Click the Volumes tab to display a list of the array’s VMs (volume groups) and/or vVols (volumes).
GUI Analysis Pane |
To view an object’s performance history, select Volume Groups, Volumes, or All in the dropdown, and select a VM or vVol from the resulting list.
Selecting Volume Display |
A VM’s or vVol’s performance history graph shows its IOPS, throughput (Bandwidth), and latency history in separate stacked charts.
The graphs show the selected object’s performance history over time intervals from 24 hours to 1 year. Read and write performance can be shown in separate curves. For VMs, latency is the average for all volumes; throughput and IOPS are an accumulation across volumes.
GUI Performance History for a Volume Group |