What is VMware vSAN?

What is VMware vSAN?

Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) is supported by VMware vSAN, an enterprise storage virtualization tool. To create a single data store that all hosts in a vSAN cluster can share, VMware vSAN gathers local and direct-attached data storage devices across a VMware vSphere cluster. The VMware hypervisor, ESXi, incorporates VMware vSAN.

To create a distributed, shared data store, VMware vSAN pools direct-attached storage devices together across a VMware vSphere cluster. The tool is also used by businesses to manage computing and storage on a single platform. Organizations may lessen the expense and complexity of using conventional storage systems by managing storage using the policies and rules in vSAN.

Users can specify the storage needs for virtual machines (VMs) on a vSAN cluster using VMware’s cloud computing virtualization tool, vSphere; vSAN ensures that these policies are managed and maintained. Organizations can use the vSphere Client, which manages both cluster administration and storage policies, to implement these policies and rules whenever a requirement or policy needs to change.

When coupled with the VMware ESXi hypervisor, VMware vSAN can function on x86 servers from OEMs like Dell EMC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HP License), Fujitsu, and Lenovo that are industry-standard.

A two-tier vSAN architecture used by VMware vSAN also supports hybrid and all-flash configurations. Both configurations employ a capacity tier and a caching tier.

VMware vSAN Key Features

Although the feature set varies based on the type of license, VMware vSAN comes with the following advantages and features:

• x86 servers are able to deploy it: Any industry-standard server can make use of vSAN.
• Based on the requirements of the application, flexible compute and storage is offered.
• Management of storage policies:The automated management of storage profiles is made possible by this function.
• Elongated clusters: By allowing multiple virtualization host servers in the same configuration, these clusters increase security and availability.
• Services for all-flash setups: Data services for erasure coding, compression, and deduplication are supported for all-flash configurations under advanced and enterprise licenses.
• All vSAN licenses support storage quality of service (QoS), which enables an administrator to restrict how many input/output operations per second (IOPS) particular VMs are allowed to use.
• Data at rest is protected from unauthorized access using checksums and encryption. Additionally, the vSAN data stores are encrypted. These data stores are able to access all VM files and use storage from every ESXi host in the cluster.

Most common VMware vSAN use cases

With regard to automation features, scalability, security, and IOPS per node up to 150,000, VMware vSAN is supported. Because of this, vSAN is perfect for the following use cases:

• Recovering after a disaster.
• Apps that are essential to business.
• Redundant local front-end environments.
• VDI stands for virtual desktop infrastructure, and Remote and branch offices (ROBO).

Partners and rivals of vSAN

Along with vSphere and vCenter, VMware markets vSAN as a component of its HCI offering. Several hardware manufacturers, such as Fujitsu and Lenovo, sell integrated appliances that have vSAN preinstalled on them and provide full support for the integrated appliance. HCI appliances from Dell Technologies that come with VMware vSAN software include VxRail. VMware certified x86 servers made by other hardware manufacturers.

The two main rivals for HCI appliances are HPE SimpliVity and Nutanix. Nutanix can run on a variety of servers and is focused on giving enterprise applications and virtual desktops high performance and resilience. HCI and vSAN both provide VMs with safe, shared storage. In a hyperconverged stack, HPE SimpliVity is an integrated system that combines compute, storage, networking, and data center services. It is made for businesses that want to upgrade their on-site local storage, public cloud, or hybrid cloud infrastructure.

VMware vSAN vs. SAN

A storage area network (SAN) is a specialized, high-speed network that links various servers to communal storage device pools. A logical partition within a physical SAN is referred to as a virtual SAN. A storage system may be simpler to scale out and configure using virtual SANs.

Software-defined storage solutions like Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or Red Hat Ceph Storage can also be used to build virtual SANs.

Architecture

In order to best support vSphere virtual machines, VMware created the software-defined storage solution known as vSAN.

It abstracts and combines locally attached disks in a vSphere cluster to produce a storage solution that can be provisioned and managed through vCenter and the vSphere Client. Since vSAN is integrated into the hypervisor, the same x86 server platform that is running the hypervisor provides both storage and compute for virtual machines.

A wide range of deployment options, ranging from a 2-node configuration to a standard cluster with the capacity to have up to 64 hosts in a cluster, are offered by vSAN-backed HCI. In order to function as an active-active disaster recovery solution, vSAN also supports a stretched cluster topology. Customers can remotely mount a vSAN datastore to other vSAN clusters using a feature of vSAN called HCI Mesh, which decouples storage from computation. This gives you more freedom to scale compute and storage separately.

All components of the VMware stack, including vMotion, HA, DRS, etc., are integrated with vSAN. Policies that can be set and changed instantly at the VM level can be used to control VM storage provisioning as well as daily management of storage SLAs. The best storage platform for VMs is vSAN, which offers enterprise-class features, scale, and performance.

Desktop virtualization technology with VMware vSAN

Customers using vSAN solely for VDI can purchase vSAN for Desktop licensing. In addition to VMware Horizon, this also applies to non-VMware VDI solutions. Although this license option restricts the use of vSAN to only VDI workloads, vSAN for Desktop offers distinctive pricing and packaging options to further lower the cost of VDI while enabling the advantages and performance of a distributed storage platform. Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise editions of vSAN for Desktop are offered. It is offered in packs of 10 and 100 licenses and is priced per concurrent user (CCU) in a virtual desktop environment.

The Horizon bundles known as Horizon Advanced Term, Horizon Enterprise Term, and Horizon Universal Subscription now include vSAN Advanced CCU licenses. Note that none of the Horizon perpetual bundles include vSAN Advanced CCU licenses.

Stretched cluster with local fault tolerance

With any vSAN license edition, two-host vSAN clusters can be set up as a stretched cluster. The Cloud Platform Tech Zone has more information on the two node vSAN architecture. With vSAN Enterprise and Enterprise Plus, the stretched cluster feature is available for cluster configurations with three or more hosts. The following configurations are permitted for the vSAN stretched cluster feature in vSAN Enterprise for ROBO:

With any vSAN license edition, two-host vSAN clusters can be deployed as a stretched cluster. On the Cloud Platform Tech Zone, you can find additional information about two node vSAN architecture.

With vSAN Enterprise and Enterprise Plus, the stretched cluster feature is accessible for cluster configurations with three or more hosts. The following configurations are supported by the vSAN stretched cluster feature in vSAN Enterprise for ROBO:

• If there are no more than 25 powered-on VMs running on the vSAN stretched cluster, the stretched cluster can be used within a ROBO site.
• When there are no more than 25 powered-on virtual machines running across the two ROBO sites, a stretched cluster can be used to make sure that the surviving ROBO site will have no more than 25 powered-on virtual machines in the event of a site failure.

For a stretched cluster configuration between a ROBO site and a site like a primary data center, the vSAN stretched cluster feature in vSAN Enterprise for ROBO is not allowed. A conventional vSAN Enterprise license would be necessary in this situation. Because of the following, it is not possible to combine ROBO and per-CPU traditional licensing.

• A site that is not labeled as ROBO is not permitted to use a ROBO license. By using a ROBO license to stretch a vSAN cluster, it is possible for ROBO-licensed virtual machines to move to an unapproved non-ROBO site.
• Due to the fact that each vSAN cluster only receives a single vSAN license, mixed licensing is not permitted for vSAN clusters. Combining per-CPU licenses in the data center with per-VM licenses in the ROBO site would be necessary to stretch between a data center and a ROBO site.

Customers are advised to use standard per-CPU vSAN Enterprise licensing in this situation.