How to switch storage profiles?

[Gabrie1]

Hi

The vCloud environment that I've been building only had vSphere Enterprise licenses and therefore NO storage profiles. In vCloud in the Provider VDC I used the *(any) profile. With the great offer from VMware last year, we now upgraded to vCloud Suite Standard which gave us Enterprise Plus for the three hosts in our vCloud.

We have 6 datastores that were previously added under *(any) storage profile. I want to change these to one for FC and five for SATA. In vCenter I created the storage profiles, I enabled the hosts for storage profiles and assigned the two different profiles to the FC and SATA datastores. The vCenter StorageProfile services is running.

How can I now switch my provider VDC from *(any) to new profiles? When in vCloud I right click the vCenter and "refresh storage profiles" I can see no change. The storage profile sections still only shows the *(any) profile.

Is it even possible to change the profile while VMs are on the datastore? If not, how can I remove one datastore from the *(any) profile to use it as a temp datastore to transfer VMs to?

Gabrie

[medea61]

Hey Gabe

When in vCloud I right click the vCenter and "refresh storage profiles" I  can see no change. The storage profile sections still only shows the  *(any) profile.

Have you tried to refresh the vC-Connection in vCD? Maybe this will bring them up...

Is it even  possible to change the profile while VMs are on the datastore?

Huh...honestly no idea since I have not tried this yet. I would have to take a round in my lab as well on this one, I think this should be possible. Anyway I will be happy to hear your progess...

If not,  how can I remove one datastore from the *(any) profile to use it as a  temp datastore to transfer VMs to?

I assume a datastore _should_ change its profile-affiliation in vCD when vCD detects the changes from vC. Since all datastores are by design matching the any-profile you will not be able to remove one datastore from it. But you are able to switch the storage-profile of a vApp which should result in a subsequent svMotion as Cormac shows here (at the very end of the article): http://cormachogan.com/2012/10/17/vcloud-director-5-1-storage-profiles/ This brings me back to your last question: if changing the storage-profile a single vApp will trigger a svMotion I suspect the same would happen in case of changing profiles of a datastore...

Regards

Roman

[Gabrie1]

Found it. The profiles don't show up until you have used them somewhere in the vCloud. After I added them to my ProviderVDC, they showed in the Storage Profile list.

Moving them has to be done manual. In the properties of each deployed VM I can set the new storage profile and then it will perform a Storage VMotion when it was on the datastore that is not the correct storage profile.

Thanks Roman

[vogtmatt]

You can also use PowerCli to do this en mass. I've written a script that will change all the VMs in a vApp (you could take all the VMs in an Org, too) to change their storage profile:

Change vCloud vApp/VM Storage Profile with PowerCli | Matt Vogt

[Gabrie1]

Great script !!! Thx