How to Activate Storage Hardware Acceleration

[schulzman]

Hi there!

We have a vSphere 4.1 and a vSphere 5 Environment with a Eternus DX80 FC-Based Storage.

When I go to Configuration - Storage there I can see that Hardware Acceleration is "Unknown" or "Not supported".

What do I have to do to activate the Hardware Acceleration? Is it a Hardware-based Feature that I need to order or is it a Software-based Feature that I only need to activate??

Thanks for your replies!!

Regards

schulzman

[sparrowangelste · Accepted solution]

"The hardware acceleration functionality enables your  host to offload specific virtual machine and storage management  operations to compliant storage hardware. With the storage hardware  assistance, your host performs these operations faster and consumes less  CPU, memory, and storage fabric bandwidth."

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-4-esxi-installable-vcenter/index.jsp?topic=/com.vmware.vsphere.esxi_s...

So if your hardware provider is on the HCL check with them how to activate it

[rickardnobel]

You would also need at least the VMware Enterprise license to use VAAI.

[mittim12]

Here is a link to the VAAI FAQ, http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1021976.   There is a ton of information in there.