vSphere's mechanism for pairing each VM's storage needs, captured in VM storage policies, with suitable datastores and data services, while reporting whether VMs comply.
Also called SPBM.
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In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Storage Policy Based Management in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- vSphere
VMware's platform for virtualisation, made up of vCenter and ESX hosts, supplying compute for VCF clusters.
- Pairing
Deployment pipelines link an item in one stage to its counterpart in the next. Deploying overwrites a linked item, but an unlinked item that just shares its name gets copied across as a duplicate.
- General-purpose v1
The older storage account kind (
Storage), which lacks access tiers, Archive and premium file shares and retires on 13 October 2026. Converting to ZRS requires first upgrading to GPv2, a one-way change. - Virtual machines
Infrastructure-as-a-service compute giving complete control of the operating system, making it a fit for lift-and-shift moves and for software relying on OS-level pieces like COM.
Related terms
- VASA
API that lets storage providers describe their capabilities to vCenter, feeding SPBM. vVols arrays must have one; vSAN registers its own automatically.
- VM storage policy
SPBM policy setting where a VM's storage may live, how its objects get laid out and which data services, encryption for example, apply; vCenter tracks whether the VM complies.