VMware VM vswap placement in VVol volumes

[Fab-NxTHk]

Hello there,

I have actually 2 HPE 3PAR 8400. I am using VVol with VMware ESXI6.7U3. I configured 2 CPGs one full SSD and one full NL-SAS.

I created a VVol data store in vSphere with a storage policy that select the SSD CPG only for VM placement.

When creating a VM, the VMs are created in the right CPG but the vswap of the VM is automatically placed in the NL-SAS CPG without reason. This happend in my 2 environments that are separated.

Anyone know why this happen and how can we tune VVOL to place the vswap in the SSD CPG ?

Thank you

[sbhat09]

Hello,

Please check from 3PAR, currently to which CPG the VV belongs to (from GUI or with the command showvvcpg). If the VV belongs to wrong cpg, you can do 'tunevv' (Virtual Volumes >> Select the VV >> Actions >> tune >> select Target CPG >> start tune).

Regards,

Srini

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1]

@Fab-NxTHk 

Please find details of vvol swap,

"A swap VVol is created only upon first power-on of the VM and deleted when a VM is powered off. This volume contains copies of memory pages that can no longer be kept in host memory due to physical memory constraints. It functions much like a normal VM swap file does—the size is calculated by the size of the memory allocated to a VM. By default, this VVol is thick provisioned."

Vmware best practices say you should not thin provision swap files and 3PAR vvol architecture hard coded by design that vvol swap is Thick provisioned. 

At the time of creating "VM Storage Policy", you will get option to select CPGs as part of "HPE 3PAR StoreServ rules" but it will not give you option to select CPGs for swap.

After VM creation when you power on then you can see in StoreServ swap vvol file but that is full vv which you can't tune. We don't have control in this and 3PAR automatically decide this.

Please find links to get more details on this,

https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/4AA5-6907ENW.pdf

https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/a00008302ENW.pdf

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

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[Fab-NxTHk]

Hello,

Sorry but here we are having problem with vVol and not with any VV.

HPE VVs refers to the equivalent of LUNs and vVol are the VMware storage implementation. And I have issues with vVol and not VVs. Actually I dont even have any VVs configured I am not using VMFS6.

Thank you for your help.

[Fab-NxTHk]

Hello,

Thank you a lot for this. Yeah I can see that. But unfortunately it uses spaces in my NLSAS disk pool that I need for something else. Also I keep having the need of compacting since VMs keep being switeched off/on.

I have a support case open.

Thank you

[SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1]

@Fab-NxTHk 

As per my understanding, at the time of creating "VM Storage Policy", you will get option to select CPGs as part of "HPE 3PAR StoreServ rules" but it will not give you option to select CPGs for swap. 

After VM creation when you power on then you can see in StoreServ swap vvol file but that is full vv which you can't tune. We don't have control in this and 3PAR automatically decide this. This is as per design.

It will be good if you can share HPE finding what you get officially so that everyone can learn who are all following this forum.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Subhajit

I am an HPE employee

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!

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