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How to check VAAI for XtremIO
How to check VAAI for XtremIO
Introduction
This article provides the steps of how to check if the VAAI is enabled from vSphere Client & CLI interface. It also provides several KBs and articles about VAAI and EMC Storage integration for reference.
Detailed Information
VAAI is a feature introduced in ESXi/ESX 4.1 and above that provides hardware acceleration functionality. It enables host to offload specific virtual machine and storage management operations to compliant storage hardware. With the storage hardware assistance, host performs these operations faster and consumes less CPU, memory, and storage fabric bandwidth.
XtremIO provides full integration VAAI for tasks such as blocking zeroing, XCOPY, ATS and unmap. This allows the system to provide array-based, enhanced host offloading of common VMware provisioning tasks. With VAAI integration, XtremIO can provide simplified management of massive data stores and instant cloning of VMs or vApps.
Verify VAAI from vSphere Client:
To verify that VAAI is configured correctly, use vSphere Client to navigate to the host, go to the ‘Configuration’ tab, and then choose ‘Advance Setting’ under the ‘Software’ section.Select the ‘Data Mover’ section and check that the ‘DataMover.Hardware AcceleratedMove’ and the ‘DataMover.HardwareAcceleratedInit’ parameters are both set to “1”.
Select the ‘VMFS3’ section and check that the ‘VMFS3.Hardware.AcceleratedLocking’ parameter is set to “1”. If any of these parameters are set to “0”, set them to “1”
Verify VAAI from CLI Interface:
To verify the VAAI specific settings directly on the host, check for a return value of “1.” using following commands:
# esxcfg-advcfg -g /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedMove
# esxcfg-advcfg -g /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedInit
# esxcfg-advcfg -g /VMFS3/HardwareAcceleratedLocking
Or on ESXi 5.x or above hosts, to determine if VAAI is enabled, run these commands and check if Int Value is set to 1 (enabled):
# esxcli system settings advanced list -o /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedMove
# esxcli system settings advanced list -o /DataMover/HardwareAcceleratedInit
# esxcli system settings advanced list -o /VMFS3/HardwareAcceleratedLocking
You see output similar to:
Path: /VMFS3/HardwareAcceleratedLocking
Type: integer
Int Value: 1 <-- set to 1 if enabled
Default Int Value: 1
Min Value: 0
Max Value: 1
String Value:
Default String Value:
Valid Characters:
Description: Enable hardware accelerated VMFS locking (requires compliant hardware)
Please note that if the ESXi host is also attached to non-XtremIO array that do not support VAAI, enabling VAAI may cause issues with those arrays
Reference:
This KB discusses confirming all the correct settings are in place as per XtremIO best practice.
This KB discusses the setup to disable and enable VAAI on ESX/ESXi host.
XtremIO in VMware environments – the hidden gems!
VMware vSphere Storage API Array Integration White paper
To Enable and disable VAAI via vSphere Client (4.x)
Using VMware vSphere Storage APIs for Array Integration with EMC VMAX
Author: Fenglin Li
iEMC APJ
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