vSphere uses datastores to store virtual disks. Datastores provide an abstraction of the storage layer that hides the physical attributes of the storage devices from the virtual machines.
VMware administrators can create a single datastore to use as a consolidated pool of storage, or they can create multiple datastores to isolate various application workloads.
If you use a traditional storage area network (SAN) deployment, Sybase recommends that you create a dedicated datastore, which allows database administrators to define individual service level guarantees for different applications, similar to provisioning dedicated logical unit numbers (LUNs) for physical disks. You can use vSphere features such as VMware vSphere Storage I/O Control, Storage vMotion, and Storage DRS to prioritize and manage datastore workloads.
Sybase recommends that you use dedicated datastores for production Adaptive Servers, and consolidated datastores for less demanding test or development environments.