Creating Virtual Disk Templates

Virtual disk (vDisk) templates are used by the DataCore VASA Provider to define the capabilities of storage containers which is used to create vVol datastores. During the creation of a virtual volume (vVol) datastore in the vSphere Client, all DataCore SANsymphony vDisk templates are listed to assist the administrator in selecting a compatible datastore for the virtual machine (VM). Templates allow for greater control over how VMs are provisioned.

vDisk templates specify the properties of the vVol vDisks that are created as a result of the datastores. Supported features enabled on the vDisk template are enabled on the associated vDisks when the VM is created.

The vDisk properties can be modified after creation using storage policies. See Storage Policy Based Management for more information.

To create vDisk templates:

  • See Virtual Disk Templates for more information about templates and instructions to create them.
  • By default, only vDisk templates tagged with vVol prefix are eligible. To change the default vVol prefix to a custom string:
  1. Edit the DcsVasa.exe.config file by adding/ modifying a property called vdiskTemplateTagPrefix in the runtime tag. For example, <runtime ... vdiskTemplateTagPrefix="custom-prefix"/>
  2. Restart the DcsVasa service.
    • Upgrading DataCore VASA Provider will not affect the existing vDisk templates. The Tag-based rule will only apply to the vDisk templates that are created after the upgrade.
    • Tag-based rule can also be applied to an unsupported vDisk template by restarting the DcsVasa service.
    • In case of multiple node setup, ensure that the value of vdiskTemplateTagPrefix parameter is same in all the nodes.