One of the best tools for managing NetApp storage and VMware is a plug-in called NetApp Virtual Storage Console (VSC) for VMware vSphere. VSC provides administrators the ability to manage NetApp storage from vCenter client. It can configure, monitor, provision, and migrate NetApp datastores with fewer clicks. In addition, it can perform backup and recovery of LUNs and volumes from the vCenter client.

VSC can automatically discover your NetApp storage controllers and ESXi hosts. This task can take a lot of time if not using VSC. VSC can also automatically apply “best practices” settings on the ESXi host to optimize its configuration. It can rapidly provision datastores without going through the NetApp management interface. You can get backup (snapshots) of the datastore in a consistent state, and perform recovery in minutes.

NetApp implementation of its vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) offloads significant processing tasks to the storage array, freeing ESXi resources for other tasks. If you are using NFS though, you still need to download and install the NetApp NFS Plug-in for VMware VAAI.

For now, the VSC plug-in is only available for the traditional vCenter client. VMware is moving towards replacing the traditional vCenter client with the vSphere Web Client. I hope that NetApp releases the plug-in version for the web client pretty soon.