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. To aid in this, Dell provides a free plug-in called Dell Virtual Storage Integrator for VMware vSphere, also known as VSI. 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 and a VSI plug-in is installed in the vSphere Client and is thus 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, etc. The screen (not shown) also includes an Allocated % panel which lists the capacities associated with the datastore, and a panel for snapshot information.
VSI also has a VM view. For the vSphere Client this can be found by selecting the VM on the left-hand panel, then the Configure tab on the right. From the left-hand menu, select Dell VSI -> Storage. Select the desired disk on the right-hand panel to see the details like Figure 28.
Figure 28. Dell VSI — VM view
There are additional views in VSI for datastores and devices. The views are universal across the platforms in the vSphere Client and thus the tab names, Datastores (Figure 29) and Devices (Figure 30), reflect that.