vVol Architecture

User Guides for VMware Solutions

Audience
Public
Content Type
User Guides
Source Type
Documentation

Here is a generic high level view of the vVol Architecture.

Make note that the Control/Management Path is separate from the Data Path.

VMware designed the vVol architecture to mitigate the limitations of the VMFS-based storage paradigm while retaining the benefits, and merging them with the remaining advantages of Raw Device Mappings.

VMware’s vVol architecture consists of the following components:

  • Management Plane (section titled The FlashArray VASA Provider)
    • Implements the APIs that VMware uses to manage the array. Each supported array requires a vSphere API for Storage Awareness (VASA) provider, implemented by the array vendor.
  • Data Plane (section titled vVol Binding)
    • Provisions vVols to ESXi hosts
  • Policy Plane (section titled Storage Policy Based Management)
    • Simplifies and automates the creation and configuration of vVols.