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EMC® VNX® Series Security Configuration Guide for VNX

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vSphere Storage API for Storage Awareness (VASA) support

VASA is a VMware-defined, vendor-neutral API for storage awareness. It is a proprietary SOAP-based web interface and is consumed by VMware clients rather than Unisphere clients. VASA is a reporting interface only and is used to request basic information about the VNX and the storage devices it exposes to the virtual environment in order to facilitate day-to-day provisioning, monitoring, and troubleshooting through vSphere.

For Unisphere, the VASA Provider (VP) component is embedded on the VNX, on both the Control Station (for VNX for file/unified) and the Storage Processors (for VNX for block). You as the vSphere user must configure these VP instances as the provider of VASA information for each storage system.

NOTE: When you set up a connection to the VNX for block VP, you should target only one SP. Either SP A or SP B will return the same information to VASA. In the event that an SP goes down, the client will lose its connection to the VP (that is, no automatic failover will occur). The client can either wait for the failed SP to come back up, or it can try establishing a new connection to the peer SP. You are not prevented from targeting both SPs, but the information that is returned would be redundant and could result in duplicate events and alarms depending on VMware's client implementation.

In order to initiate a connection from vCenter to the Unisphere VP, you must use the vSphere client to enter three key pieces of information:

  • the URL of the VP
  • the username of a Unisphere user with the administrator, securityadmin or vmadmin role (local, global, or LDAP scope)
  • the password associated with this user

The Unisphere credentials used here are only used during this initial step of the connection. If the Unisphere credentials are valid for the target VNX, the vCenter Server's certificate is automatically registered with the VNX. It is this certificate that is used to authenticate all subsequent requests from vCenter. No manual steps are required to install or upload this certificate to the VP.

vCenter Session, Secure Connection and Credentials

A vCenter session begins when a vSphere administrator uses the vSphere Client to supply the vCenter Server with the VASA VP URL and login credentials. The vCenter Server uses the URL, credentials, and the VASA VP's SSL certificate to establish a secure connection with the VP. A vCenter session ends when an administrator uses the vSphere Client to remove the VP from the vCenter configuration and the vCenter Server terminates the connection.

A vCenter session is based on secure HTTPS communication between a vCenter Server and a VP. The VASA architecture uses SSL certificates and VASA session identifiers to support secure connections. Both the vCenter Server and the VP adds the other's certificate to its own trust store.

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