VMware: Non-VI workload detected on the datastore

check ref:

Unmanaged I/O workload detected on shared datastore running Storage I/O Control (SIOC) for congestion management (1020651)

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1020651

 

Today I saw some warnings on all of the datastores by a customer, here some warnings:

Non-VI workload detected on the datastore

An external I/O activity is detected on datastore “datastore”, this is an unsupported configuration. Consult the Resource Management Guide or follow the Ask VMware Link for more information

Summary

The purpose of this informational event is to alert the user of a potential misconfiguration or I/O performance issue caused by a non-ESX workload. It is triggered when Storage I/O Control (SIOC) detects that a workload that is not managed by SIOC is contributing to I/O congestion on a datastore that is managed by SIOC. (Congestion is defined as a datastore’s response time being above the SIOC threshold.) Specific situations that can trigger this event include:

• The host is running in an unsupported configuration.
• The storage array is performing a system operation such as replication or RAID reconstruction.
• VMware Consolidated Backup or vStorage APIs for Data Protection are accessing a snapshot on the datastore for backup purposes.
• The storage media (spindles, SSD) on which this datastore is located is shared with volumes used by non-vSphere workloads

SIOC continues to work during these situations. This event can be ignored in many cases and you can disable the associated alarm once you have verified that none of the potential misconfigurations or serious performance issues are present in your environment. As explained in detail below, SIOC ensures that the ESX workloads it manages are able to compete for I/O resources on equal footing with external workloads. This event notifies the user of what is happening, provides the user with the opportunity to better understand what is going on, and highlights a potential opportunity to correct or optimize the infrastructure configuration.

This KB article will help you understand what is causing the event, and what, if any, action is required to address the cause.