In many cases, Optimization and Migration allows you to perform online alignments of virtual machines. As a result, you do not have to power the virtual machines down during the alignment procedure. Optimization and Migration aligns the virtual machines by using the Virtual Machine Migration Wizard to migrate them into appropriately offset optimized datastores.
Before you begin
You should perform a full scan of the datastores in order to populate the database with information about which virtual machines need to be aligned. Because a scan can slow a system down, it is a good practice to schedule the scans to occur during non-critical production times
About this task
The following are some points to keep in mind about this task:
• Optimization and Migration provides a non-disruptive (interim) solution for the performance penalty introduced by misaligned VMs.
Instead of aligning the misaligned VMDKs, which requires downtime, Optimization and Migration aligns the I/O – without requiring downtime - by offsetting the VMDKs within specialized (optimized) datastores.
• In some cases, virtual machines cannot be aligned using the Optimization and Migration online tool.
When a virtual machine cannot use the online alignment (migration) feature, Optimization and Migration places the virtual machine in the Offline Migration folder. You must power down the virtual machine and use an offline tool such as the VMware vCenter Converter to align it.
• If you are working with a Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), you must create a storage DRS cluster for each required offset.
• The VAAI extended copy feature is not available on optimized datastores.
• You should also make sure that you do not mix optimized datastores with non-optimized datastores.
• You cannot cancel an online alignment that is in progress.
• Optimization and Migration only supports online alignment of NFS datastores if you are running Data ONTAP 8.1.3 or higher.
Note: If you are using Optimization and Migration to align NFS datastores, you should review the information provided in Considerations when working with NFS datastores on page 106.
• In some cases, if the virtual machine is being used by another capability, you cannot perform an online alignment.
Unless you log in as an administrator, you must have the appropriate RBAC privileges correctly assigned to complete this task successfully. For more information, see Authentication and user management with vCenter RBAC and Data ONTAP RBAC on page 32.
Steps
1. Select Virtual Machine Alignment panel of Optimization and Migration.
2. Open Misaligned > Online Migration.
3. Select the virtual machines that you want to align.
You have the following options:
• To align all the listed virtual machines, select Migrate all.
• To align specific virtual machines, check the box next to the names of the virtual machines you want to align and then click Migrate.
4. The Virtual machine migration wizard launches and prompts you for information about the migration.
a. Select the target storage controller that will contain the virtual machines.
b. If you are using vFiler units, select the Set vFiler Context check box and select a unit from the drop-down list.
5. Specify whether you want to migrate the virtual machines to an existing datastore or create a new datastore.
6. If you are using an existing datastore, select the datastore from the list of datastores displayed in the Choose a datastore for the virtual machines dialog box.
This dialog displays information about the existing datastores, including the following:
• Datastore name
• Datastore type
• Capacity of the datastore in GB
• Free space available on the datastore in GB
7. If you are creating a datastore, specify its type: VMFS or NFS.
To continue without creating a new datastore, click Next.
8. In the Specify the details for the new datastore dialog box, provide details about the datastore you want to create.
• Protocol (VMFS only) - FCP or iSCSI.
• Size (GB) - Specify the maximum size for the datastore.
The maximum size depends on the controller and space available. For details, see the Data ONTAP Storage Management Guide for your Data ONTAP release.
• Datastore name - Supply a name for the datastore you are creating.
• Create new volume container (VMFS only) - Create a volume with the same name as the LUN. If a volume with that name already exists, the Optimization and Migration capability appends a number to the volume name; for example, Volname01.
• Volume (VMFS only) - Select a volume from drop-down list of available volumes.
• Thin provision - Select this option to set space reserve to none and disable space checks.
• Block size (VMFS only) - Select the block sizes. For VMFS-5, block size is fixed at 1 MB.
• Aggregate (NFS only) - Select an aggregate from the drop-down list of available aggregates.
• Auto-grow (NFS only) - Check this box if you want to use the auto-grow feature.
When you check auto-grow, the datastore is automatically expanded by the increment you specify up to the size limit you specify anytime space is needed.
• Grow increment (GB) (NFS only) - Specify the amount of storage added to datastore each time space is needed.
• Maximum datastore size (GB) (NFS only) - Specify in GB the limit at which the auto-grow feature stops.
9. Review the summary page and click Apply to proceed. To return to previous pages and modify settings, click Back.
The Optimization and Migration capability displays the status of the virtual machines as they are aligned.
10. After the online alignment completes, the virtual machines you just aligned no longer appear in the Misaligned > Online Migration folder.