HP Nimble supports VMware VAAI, how to leverage it for faster VM cloning?

[TCloudOps]

We have some 12 TB VM, which we need to clone and taking 18 hours approx, while we have VAAI enabled. how it coping the data where as we have dual nics of 10G for data and management (sepearte) with 16G HBAs.

Please suggest how to integrate Nimble with VAAI and leverage faster copy speed. 

Note: VAAI is enabled from vCenter side. new to all this.

[support_s]

System recommended content:

1. HPE Storage Integration Pack for VMware vCenter 11.2 User Guide | Viewing HPE Nimble and HPE Alletra 6000 array information

2. HPE Storage Integration Pack for VMware vCenter 11.1 User Guide | Viewing HPE Nimble and HPE Alletra 6000 array information

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[DaveOb]

VAAI may not be any faster then the standard copy what it will do is reduce the cpu load on the ESXI and the network as this is offloaded to the array.The array will also not consume all resources for VAAI operations at the expence of front end IO.VAAI should also work by default when its appropriate.

[Sheldon Smith]

Why do you need to clone the VMs? Once cloned, what is the expected lifetime of the clones?

[TCloudOps]

Team want to upgrade the server OS and also we need to reduce the size as used space is very low.

[Sheldon Smith]

If "used space" is virtual datastore space, then make a new datastore of appropriate size and storage vmotion. Then let storage vmotion do its thing.
If "used space" is allocated array space, that's just the way the system works.

As far as upgrading the VM's OS, make a snapshot. If there are multiple VMs in the datastore, that's where having the VM moved to its own datastore helps. If the upgrade is successful, delete the datastore snapshot.
Otherwise., dismount datastore, promote snapshot, mount datastore and try again once the upgrade problem(s) is(are) fixed.

[TCloudOps]

@Sheldon Smith That we can do, no issues. I was more intreseted to know that what could the contibuting factor for slowness of data copy. 

FYI - As we have 20G uplinks aggregated for data and management and 16G fiber connectivity along with 8 paths. VM was down so user connections.