EMC VSI (Virtual Storage Integrator) is vCenter plug-in to perform EMC storage-related activities from vSphere client/ WebClient.



As per EMC, VSI is "No-charge VMware vCenter plug-in available to all VMware users with EMC storage in their environments. VSI enables IT organizations to achieve simplicity and efficiency in data center operations. VSI dramatically simplifies management of virtualized storage with the ability to map virtual machines to storage and to self-provision storage across EMC Symmetrix VMAX, EMC VNX and EMC XtremIO families of storage platforms from VMware vCenter"

Following activities can be performed using EMC VSI on VMware vSphere.

· Provision Storage

o Provision VMFS datastore: Provision LUN for ESXi server.

o Provision NFS datastore

o Provision RDM volume

· Extend datastore (NFS and VMFS).

· Compression or decompression of NFS datastore or VM in NFS datastore: This operation transforms VM files to minimize or maximize the space required for storage.

· Enable or disable de-duplication (block)

· Clone VM in NFS datastore

o Full clone (copy): Creates a complete and an independent copy of a VM.

o Fast Clone (snap): It’s NFS based feature to create a file-based snapshot of a VM that maintains a relationship with its parent VM.

o VMware View Integration: Allows to create/ provision VMware Horizon View desktops at array level.

o Citrix XenDesktop Integration: Allows to create/ provision Citrix XenDesktop desktops at the storage array level.

· VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop desktop refresh operations.

· Allow to set up a FAST policy while provisioning storage assuming that FAST enabler installed at the array level.

Note: This article might not all features offered by VSI latest version as EMC is actively working on improving the plug-in to do more storage related activities from vSphere/ web client.