Home > Workload Solutions > SQL Server > White Papers > Modernize Your Microsoft SQL Server Platform and Accelerate Deployments > VMware ESXi: Round Robin Path Policy
The Round Robin path policy defines how to balance I/O load across active storage paths. We changed the Round Robin path policy to optimize performance. At the hypervisor layer, ESXi controls the flow of data to and from the server. There are several configuration choices, including Most Recently Used (MRU), Fixed, and Round Robin.
Round Robin automatically rotates through all available paths to distribute the data flow. PowerMax has all active paths to storage, so Round Robin rotates data across those pathways. By default, Round Robin sends 1,000 I/O operations across one path before using the next path. We changed the default of 1,000 to 1. With a Round Robin IOPS limit of 1, the paths to storage are rotated more frequently and provide a positive impact on storage performance.