Home > Storage > PowerMax and VMAX > Storage Admin > Dell PowerMax and VMware vSphere Configuration Guide > Mapping VMware objects to PowerMax
The mapping of the VMware canonical device and VMFS to Dell PowerMax devices are critical components when using Dell PowerMax-based storage software. Dell Technologies provides a free plug-in that is called Dell VSI for VMware vSphere, also known as VSI to aid in this mapping. This free tool, available to download on Dell support, enables additional capabilities to the vSphere Client, so that users may view detailed storage-specific information. VSI runs as a virtual appliance. A VSI plug-in is installed in the vSphere Client and is accessible from any browser and not tied to a particular host.
VSI provides simple, storage mapping functionality for Dell storage-related entities including datastores, RDMs, SCSI, and iSCSI targets. The storage information is displayed within the various panels of the vSphere Client.
The datastore display for the VSI vSphere Client is shown in Figure 27. There are three panels with Dell information: General, Allocated %, and Snapshots. The General panel provides fields such as System, System Model, Volume ID, WWN, and so forth. The screen (not shown) also includes an Allocated % panel which lists the capacities that are associated with the datastore, and a panel for snapshot information.
VSI also has a VM view. For the vSphere Client this view can be found by selecting the VM on the left panel, then the Configure tab on the right. From the left menu, select Dell VSI -> Storage. Select the pertinent disk on the right panel to see the details as in Figure 28.
There are additional views in VSI for datastores and devices. The views are universal across the platforms in the vSphere Client. The tab names Datastores (Figure 29), and Devices (Figure 30), reflect that.