What are we missing if the VASA provider is not available for vSphere 6.5?

[roman79]

Hi All,

I am just wondering how it is critical to have the VASA provider available for the storage connected to vSphere 6.5.

Let's say if the storage vendor doesn't have plans to implement this support, however the storage is in VMware HCL for vSphere 6.5.

[npadmani]

someone has written a nice article explaining why VASA is important to have

https://www.virtualizationpractice.com/why-vasa-is-important-to-have-in-your-vmware-casa-12695/

in short, that's what you miss if you don't have it. We can still live without it though

[roman79]

Hi npadmani​,

Thank you for the link provided.

My concern is whether we loose an automatic Space Reclamation feature (VAAI UNMAP) with thin-provisioned LUNs because of it - I am not sure if without VASA provider vSphere will be able to identify LUN as thin-provisioned. Any thoughts?

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

VASA does not participate in UNMAP commands. If your datastores are on VMFS-6, UNMAP is set to run automatically and does not rely upon or need a VASA provider.

[roman79]

Thank you, daphnissov ! It looks like I do not have constraints upgrading to vSphere 6.5 from the storage perspective.