VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization (VCP-DCV) Practice Exam

Enabling Storage IO Control on a datastore primarily reduces storage contention among virtual machines (VMs). When multiple VMs are competing for shared storage resources, it can lead to performance degradation. Storage IO Control implements a system of policies and prioritization that allows you to allocate storage I/O resources more fairly among the VMs. By doing so, it ensures that no single VM can consume all the available I/O bandwidth, thereby improving overall storage performance and responsiveness, especially during peak usage times.

This mechanism is particularly beneficial in environments where multiple VMs are running workloads that require significant storage I/O, helping to maintain a balanced performance across all VMs. The control policies set limits on the amount of storage I/O each VM can utilize, which mitigates issues related to high contention and allows for more predictability in performance.

Although other options might seem relevant, they do not directly relate to the main function of Storage IO Control, which focuses specifically on managing and reducing storage contention.