An array’s capabilities represent the features it offers. When any FlashArray’s VASA providers are registered with vCenter, the array informs vCenter that the array has the following capabilities:
- Encryption of stored data (“data at rest”)
- Deduplication
- Compression
- RAID protection
- Flash storage
All FlashArrays offer these capabilities; they cannot be disabled. VMware administrators can configure the additional capabilities advertised by the VASA provider and listed in the following table.
Configurable Capabilities Advertised by FlashArray VASA Providers 1.0.0 and higher
|
Placement Capability Name |
Value |
|---|---|
|
Everpure FlashArray |
Yes or No |
|
FlashArray Group |
Name of one or more FlashArrays |
| QoS Support | Yes or No |
|
Replication Capability Name |
Value |
|---|---|
|
Replication Capable |
Yes or No |
| Minimum Replication Concurrency | Number of target FlashArrays to replicate to at once |
|
Replication Interval |
A time interval in seconds, minutes, hours, days, week, months or years. |
|
Replication Retention |
A time interval in seconds, minutes, hours, days, week, months or years. |
|
Consistency Group Name |
Names of the specific FlashArray protection group. |
|
Target Sites |
Names of specific FlashArrays desired as replication targets |
|
Local Snapshot Policy Capable |
Yes or No |
|
Local Snapshot Interval |
A time interval in seconds, minutes, hours, days, week, months or years. |
|
Local Snapshot Retention |
A time interval in seconds, minutes, hours, days, week, months or years. |
There are some new capabilities that are now advertised with the release of Purity//FA 6.2.6 and the Pure VASA Provider 2.0. These capabilities are all placement based rules and will only match a vVol datastore running on a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. Here are the capabilities that are available starting with Purity//FA 6.2.6 and VASA Provider 2.0.
Configurable Capabilities Advertised by FlashArray VASA Providers 2.0.0 and higher
|
QoS Placement Capability Name |
Value |
|---|---|
|
Per Virtual Disk IOPS Limit |
A value and the unit of measurement (hundreds, thousands or millions) |
|
Per Virtual Disk Bandwith Limit |
A value and the unit of measurement (KB/s, MB/s or GB/s) |
|
Local Snapshot Protection Placement Capability Name |
Value |
|---|---|
|
Snapshot Interval |
A time interval in seconds, minutes, hours, days, week, months or years. |
|
Retain all Snapshots for |
A time interval in seconds, minutes, hours, days, week, months or years. |
|
Retain Additional Snapshots |
Number of snapshots to be retained for |
|
Days to Retain Additional Snapshots |
Number of Days to retain the additional snapshots |
|
Volume Tagging Placement Capability Name |
Value |
|---|---|
|
Key |
Name of the the volume key tag |
|
Value |
Name of the volume value tag |
|
Copyable |
Yes or No |
Configurable Capabilities Advertised by FlashArray VASA Providers 2.1.0 and higher
With the release of Purity//FA 6.4.9 and VASA Provider 2.1.0 VASA 5 support and new CloudSnap SPBM capabilities rulesets were released.
|
Snapshot Offload Protection Placement Capability Name |
Value |
|---|---|
|
Offload Type |
"No Requirement", Azure, NFS or S3 |
|
Target Names |
"No Requirement" or a specific target provided by registered storage providers. |
|
Replication Interval |
A time interval in seconds, minutes, hours, days, week, months or years |
|
Daily/weekly replication time |
unset or 12am - 11pm |
|
Target Snapshot Retention |
A time interval in seconds, minutes, hours, days, week, months or years to retain all snapshots for |
|
Additional Replication Snapshot |
Number of snapshots to be retained for |
|
Additional Replication Days |
Number of Days to retain the additional snapshots |
|
Suspend Replication From |
unset or 12am - 11pm |
|
Suspend Replication To |
unset or 12am - 11pm |
Configurable Capabilities Advertised by FlashArray VASA Providers 3.0.0 and higher
With the release of Purity//FA 6.6.2 and VASA Provider 3.0.0 NVMe-vVols is supported. As such a new protocol capability was also shipped.
|
Placement Capability Name |
Value |
|---|---|
|
Storage Protocol |
NVMe-oF |
Configurable Capabilities Advertised by FlashArray VASA Providers 4.0.0 and higher
With the release of Purity//FA 6.6.7 and VASA Provider 4.0.0 ActiveCluster vVols support was shipped. With a combination of vSphere 8.0u3+ and Purity//FA 6.6.7+ a new Capability ruleset for Stretched Storage is now supported. Additionally with VASA Provider 4.0.0 some new SPBM capabilities for Ransomware and Safemode support was added.
|
Stretched_Cluster Capability Name |
Value |
|---|---|
|
ActiveCluster Support |
Stretched or Stretchable |
|
Placement Capability Name |
Value |
|---|---|
|
Default Protection during creation |
Opt out |
|
Ransomware Protection |
Protected |
|
Replication Capability Name |
Value |
|---|---|
|
Ransomware Protection |
Yes or No |
Storage Capability Compliance
Administrators can specify values for some or all of these capabilities when creating storage policies. VMware performs two types of policy compliance checks:
- If a vVol were to be created on the array, could it be configured with the feature?
- Is a vVol in compliance with its policy? For example, a vVol with a policy of hourly snapshots must be (a) on FlashArray that hosts a protection group with hourly snapshots enabled and (b) a member of that protection group.
Only VMs and virtual disks configured with vVols can be compliant. VMFS-based VMs are never compliant, even if their volume is on a compliant FlashArray.
The following table lists the circumstances under which a policy offers each capability, and under which a vVol is in or out of compliance with it.
|
Capability Name |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Everpure FlashArray |
…it is a FlashArray (i.e. always). |
…it is on a FlashArray, if the capability is set to ‘Yes’. |
…it is on a different array vendor/model and the capability is set to ‘Yes’. …it is on a FlashArray and the capability is set to ‘No’. |
|
FlashArray Group |
…it is a FlashArray and its name is listed in this group. |
…it is on a FlashArray with one of the configured names. |
…it is not on a FlashArray with one of the configured names. |
|
QoS Support |
…it is a FlashArray and has QoS enabled. |
…it is on a FlashArray with QoS enabled and the capability is set to ‘Yes’. …it is on a FlashArray with QoS disabled and the capability is set to ‘No’. |
…it is on a FlashArray with QoS disabled and the capability is set to ‘Yes’. …it is on a FlashArray with QoS enabled and the capability is set to ‘No’. |
|
Consistency Group Name |
…it is a FlashArray and has a protection group with that name. |
…it is in a protection group with that name. |
…it is not in a protection group with that name. |
|
Local Snapshot Policy Capable |
…it is a FlashArray and has at least one protection group with an enabled snapshot schedule. |
…it is on a FlashArray with at least one protection group with an enabled snapshot schedule. |
…it is on a FlashArray that does not have at least one protection group or on a non-FlashArray. |
|
Local Snapshot Interval |
…it is a FlashArray and has at least one protection group with an enabled local snapshot policy of the specified interval. |
…it is in a protection group with an enabled local snapshot policy of the specified interval. |
…it is not in a protection group with an enabled local snapshot policy of the specified interval. |
|
Local Snapshot Retention |
…it is a FlashArray and has at least one protection group with an enabled local snapshot policy of the specified retention. |
…it is in a protection group with an enabled local snapshot policy of the specified retention. |
…it is not in a protection group with an enabled local snapshot policy of the specified retention. |
|
Replication Capable |
…it is a FlashArray and has at least one protection group with an enabled replication schedule. |
…it is in a protection group with an enabled replication target. |
…it is not in a protection group with an enabled replication target. |
|
Replication Interval |
…it is a FlashArray and has at least one protection group with an enabled replication policy of the specified interval. |
…it is in a protection group with an enabled replication policy of the specified interval. |
…it is not in a protection group with an enabled replication policy of the specified interval. |
|
Replication Retention |
…it is a FlashArray and has at least one protection group with an enabled replication policy of the specified retention. |
…it is in a protection group with an enabled replication policy of the specified retention. |
…it is not in a protection group with an enabled replication policy of the specified retention. |
|
Minimum Replication Concurrency |
…it is a FlashArray and has at least one protection group with the specified number or more of allowed replication targets. |
…it is in a protection group that has the specified number of allowed replication targets. |
…it is not in a protection group that has the specified number of allowed replication targets. |
|
Target Sites |
…it is a FlashArray and has at least one protection group with one or more of the specified allowed replication targets. If "Minimum Replication Currency” is set, then it must match at least that configured value of FlashArrays. |
…it is in a protection group with one or more of the specified allowed replication targets. If “Minimum Replication Currency” is set, then it must be replicated to at least that configured value of the listed target FlashArrays. |
…it is not in a protection group replicating to the minimum amount of correct target FlashArrays. |
|
QoS Placement Capability Name |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Per Virtual Disk IOPS Limit |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the volume QoS IOPS Limit matches the value of the rule. |
...the volume's QoS IOPS Limit is either unset or does not match the value in the rule. |
|
Per Virtual Disk Bandwith Limit |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the volume QoS Bandwidth Limit matches the value of the rule. |
...the volume's QoS Bandwidth Limit is either unset or does not match the value in the rule. |
|
Local Snapshot Protection Placement Capability Name |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Snapshot Interval |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the protection group that VASA is using for the storage policy matches the ruleset, the vVol is a member of the protection group and the snapshot schedule is enabled. |
...the vVol is not a member of the paired protection group, the interval does not match the policy rule or the snapshot schedule is disabled. |
|
Retain all Snapshots for |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the protection group that VASA is using for the storage policy matches the ruleset, the vVol is a member of the protection group and the snapshot schedule is enabled. |
...the vVol is not a member of the paired protection group, the retention interval does not match the policy rule or the snapshot schedule is disabled. |
|
Retain Additional Snapshots |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the protection group that VASA is using for the storage policy matches the ruleset, the vVol is a member of the protection group and the snapshot schedule is enabled. |
...the vVol is not a member of the paired protection group, the value does not match the policy rule or the snapshot schedule is disabled. |
|
Days to Retain Additional Snapshots |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...the protection group that VASA is using for the storage policy matches the ruleset, the vVol is a member of the protection group and the snapshot schedule is enabled. |
...the vVol is not a member of the paired protection group, the value does not match the policy rule or the snapshot schedule is disabled. |
|
Volume Tagging Placement Capability Name |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Key |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...a tag exists on the volume that matches the key value pair dictated by the rule. |
...a tag does not exist or does not match the key value pair dictated by the rule. |
|
Value |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.2.6 or higher. |
...a tag exists on the volume that matches the key value pair dictated by the rule. |
...a tag does not exist or does not match the key value pair dictated by the rule. |
|
Snapshot Offload Protection Placement Capability |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Offload Type |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.4.9 or higher. |
...it is in a protection group with an offload target of the given type. |
...it is not in a protection group with an offload target of the given type. ...it is not in a protection group with replication enabled for offload target of given type. |
|
Target Names |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.4.9 or higher. |
...it is in a protection group with the specified target. |
...it is not in a protection group with the specified target. |
|
Replication Interval |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.4.9 or higher. |
….it is in a offload protection group that meets the specified value |
…it is not in an offload protection group that meets the specified value |
|
Daily/weekly replication time |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.4.9 or higher. |
….it is in a offload protection group that meets the specified value |
…it is not in an offload protection group that meets the specified value |
|
Target Snapshot Retention |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.4.9 or higher. |
….it is in a offload protection group that meets the specified value |
…it is not in an offload protection group that meets the specified value |
|
Additional Replication Snapshot |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.4.9 or higher. |
….it is in a offload protection group that meets the specified value |
…it is not in an offload protection group that meets the specified value |
|
Additional Replication Days |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.4.9 or higher. |
….it is in a offload protection group that meets the specified value |
…it is not in an offload protection group that meets the specified value |
|
Suspend Replication From |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.4.9 or higher. |
….it is in a offload protection group that meets the specified value | …it is not in an offload protection group that meets the specified value |
|
Suspend Replication To |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.4.9 or higher. |
….it is in a offload protection group that meets the specified value |
…it is not in an offload protection group that meets the specified value |
|
Placement Capability Name |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Storage Protocol |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.6.2 or higher. |
….it is in an NVMe-oF storage container type. |
…it is not in an NVMe-oF storage container type. |
|
Stretched_Cluster Capability Name |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|---|---|---|---|
|
ActiveCluster Support |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.6.7 or higher. |
….it is in a storage container that meets the value set (stretched or stretchable). |
…it is not in a storage container that meets the value set (stretched or stretchable) |
|
Placement Capability Name |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Default Protection during creation |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.6.7 or higher. |
…it is in a storage container on an array running Purity//FA 6.6.7 or later. |
…it is not in a storage container on an array running Purity//FA 6.6.7 or later. |
|
Ransomware Protection |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.6.7 or higher. |
…it is in any array protection group that is ratcheted |
…it is not in any array protection group that is ratcheted |
|
Replication Capability Name |
An array offers this capability when… |
A vVol is in compliance when… |
A vVol is out of compliance when… |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Ransomware Protection |
...it is a FlashArray running Purity//FA 6.6.7 or higher. |
…is in a replication group that is an array protection group that is ratcheted |
…is in a replication group that is an array protection group that is not ratcheted …is not in any array protection group. |
Combining Capabilities and Storage Compliance
This section describes an example of combining capabilities into a policy. Storage policies are a powerful method of assuring specific configuration control, but they affect how vVol compliance is viewed. For an array or vVol to be compliant with a policy:
-
The array or vVol must comply with all of the policy’s capabilities
-
For snapshot and replication capabilities, the array must have at least one protection group that offers all of the policy’s capabilities. For example, if a policy requires hourly local snapshots and replication every 5 minutes, a protection group with a hourly snapshots and a different protection group with 5 minute replication do not make the array compliant. VMware requires that volumes be in a single group during policy configuration, so to be compliant for this example, an array would require at least one protection group with hourly snapshots and 5 minute replication.
-
Some combinations of capabilities cannot be compliant. For example, setting an array’s Local Snapshot Policy Capable capability to No and specifying a policy that includes snapshots means that no storage compliant with the policy can be hosted on that array.