Optimization and Migration
The new VSC4 console for vSphere has a new tab called Optimization and Migration. Here you are able to scan all or some of your datastores to check the alignment of your virtual machines. The scan manager can even be set on a schedule so that changes to the datastore will be recognized.
Once you have scanned your datastores you can go the the Virtual Machine Alignment section and see if your virtual machines are aligned.
What if your virtual machines are not aligned already? Netapp has a new way to align your virtual machines without having to take them offline.
Disclaimer: I’ve looked for documentation on exactly how this process works, but couldn’t find any.
Aligning Virtual Machines
Lets go through the process of aligning a misaligned virtual machine using VSC4.
First, we select the virtual machine that is misaligned and choose the migrate task. This opens the alignment wizard.
Choose your filer.
Next choose a datastore. If we already have a functionally aligned datastore with an offset that’s the same as your unaligned virtual machine’s offset, you can select an existing datastore. If you don’t have an existing datastore that will align with your vm, you’ll receive an error message like the one below. If that’s the case, create a new datastore from the wizard.
Choose the datastore type.
In our case we’ll create a new datastore.
Once the migration is complete you’ll see your virtual machine in a new datastore and it will be aligned. Notice how the virtual machine offset matches the name of the new datastore that was created. Offset 7 was put into the AlignedDatastore1_optimized_7 datastore.
Now you can rest easy, knowing that your virtual machines are not suffering performance issues due to unaligned disks, and no downtime was required to do so.
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