Storage approach in which arrays that support VASA present a storage container to vSphere as a datastore, holding each VM disk as its own object. It is deprecated as of 9.0 for both VCF and vSphere Foundation.
Also called vSphere Virtual Volumes.
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Terms in this definition
- 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. - VASA
API that lets storage providers describe their capabilities to vCenter, feeding SPBM. vVols arrays must have one; vSAN registers its own automatically.
- Storage container
Raw capacity on a vVols-capable array, presented through its VASA provider and shown in vCenter as a vVols datastore.
- vSphere
VMware's platform for virtualisation, made up of vCenter and ESX hosts, supplying compute for VCF clusters.
- Datastore
A named pointer in the workspace to Blob, Azure Files or ADLS Gen2 storage that keeps the connection details, so code never needs to carry storage keys itself.
- VMware Cloud Foundation
Broadcom's platform for private cloud. It unifies management of NSX, vSAN, vSphere, VCF Automation and VCF Operations as one fleet; VVF, by contrast, lacks automation and cloud management.
- Foundation
Nutanix's own tool for building clusters, loading nodes first with AOS and a hypervisor that are supported together. Its three forms are the standalone VM, the app and the version in the CVM.