VMware

Storage Monitoring Service SDK 3.0 Release Notes

Released 10Sep2012

 

Any version numbers referenced are placeholders and do not represent any commitment by VMware to have any specific features in the beta software included in any specific versions.

SMS 3.0 is not backwards compatible with clients that use earlier versions of the SDK (distributed with versions 4.0 and 4.1 of the vSphere Web Services SDK). You must use the SDK that is distributed with versions 5.0 or 5.1 of the vSphere Management SDK.

This document contains the following information:

Overview

The VMware vCenter Storage Monitoring Service (SMS) provides simplified access to storage capabilities, associations, and space usage. It is a Web service that runs in the Apache Tomcat container, available on the vCenter host. SMS has its own Java-based, in-memory database management system (referred to as the "SMS Cache") that periodically synchronizes its data with the storage-information provider database.

Storage administrators can access the Storage Monitoring Service by using the vSphere Client. A client-side plug-in for the Storage Monitoring Service is installed during vSphere Client installation. With the plug-in, you can use the vSphere Client to display information about storage configuration and associations. See vSphere Storage in the vSphere Documentation Center for more information.

Distribution Kit

The SMS SDK is distributed as part of the vSphere Management SDK. The vSphere Management SDK is a collection of vSphere SDKs. When you extract the contents of the distribution kit, the SMS SDK is contained in the SDK/sms-sdk sub-directory:

VMware-vSphere-SDK-5.1.0-build-num
    SDK
        eam
        sms-sdk
        ssoclient
        vsphere-ws

New Features

SMS 3.0 provides the following new features:

  • The StorageManager managed object provides a new method - QueryDrsMigrationCapabilityForPerformanceEx. This new method supersedes the QueryDrsMigrationCapabilityForPerformance method.
  • The StorageArray data object contains the new property supportedProfile. There is a new enumerated type that defines the possible profiles - VasaProfile.

Deprecated Features

The following features are deprecated in SMS 3.0:

  • The StorageManager method QueryDrsMigrationCapabilityForPerformance method is deprecated.

Resolved Issues

  • vSphere Client display of storage capabilities In vSphere 5.0, under certain circumstances, the vSphere Client did not display all of the system-defined storage capabilities. This might happen if the data provided by the storage provider exceeded the imposed limit, or a label or description of a capability contained symbols not supported by the vCenter Server.

Known Issues

  • SMS QueryService exceptions.

    You may encounter SMS QueryService exceptions that are shown in the SMS log or indicated by an incorrect display of VASA-supplied information in the vSphere Client.

    • The SMS log may contain the following errors:

          Exceptions indicating SMS is unable to poll the context for VASA.

          com.vmware.vim.sms.fault.QsQueryException:
          com.vmware.vim.query.client.exception.ValidationException: Got status code: 400 reason

    • A user has changed the vCenter configuration in some way - adding hosts, for example - and the vSphere Client display of the VASA-supplied information does not reflect the changes.

    If you encounter any of these situations, restart VMware VirtualCenter Management Webservices (net stop vctomcat, net start vctomcat).

  • Description for VASA system events and alarms is "Unknown Event ID:".

    The vSphere Client displays VASA system events for the root folder of the inventory or for the datastore associated with the storage device. The vCenter Server uses the string "Unknown Event ID:" for the event description instead of the message specified in the VASA Provider message catalog.

  • vSphere Client display of storage capabilities based on one-way, adapter-based authentication.

    vCenter Server provides information about storage devices configured for one-way, adapter-based authentication. The Server does not supply information about devices that are configured for target-level CHAP authentication, so the vSphere Client cannot display storage capabilities for those targets.

  • StorageCapability associated with both block and filesystem storage entities is not represented correctly in the vSphere Client.

    If the same StorageCapability is assigned to both VMFS and NFS datastores then the vSphere Client will not show the System Capability for NFS datastores.

  • User-defined storage capabilities not displayed in storage views without VASA Provider registration.

    If you have not registered a VASA Provider, the vSphere Client storage views will not show user-defined capabilities. In this situation, you can see user-defined capabilities in the Datastore summary tab.

Documentation

For information about the SMS API, see the vCenter Storage Monitoring Service SDK documentation.