ESXiandvCenterServer5.

5Documentation>vSphereStorage>WorkingwithVirtualSAN

AboutVirtualSAN
VirtualSANvirtualizeslocalphysicalstorageresourcesofESXihostsandturnsthemintopoolsofstoragethatcanbe
carvedupandassignedtovirtualmachinesandapplicationsaccordingtotheirqualityofservicerequirements.
YoucanactivateVirtualSANwhenyoucreatehostclustersorenableVirtualSANonexistingclusters.Whenenabled,
VirtualSANaggregatesalllocalstoragedisksavailableonthehostsintoasingledatastoresharedbyallhosts.Youcan
laterexpandthedatastorebyaddingstoragedevicesorhoststothecluster.
ThehostsintheVirtualSANclusterdonotneedtobeidentical.Eventhehoststhathavenolocaldiskscanparticipateand
runtheirvirtualmachinesontheVirtualSANdatastore,as,forexample,host2intheillustration.
IfahostcontributesitslocalstoragetotheVirtualSANdatastore,thehostmustprovideoneSSDandatleastoneHDD,also
calleddatadisk.Thedisksonthecontributinghostformadiskgroup.EachdiskgroupmustincludeoneSSDandatleast
oneormultipledatadisks.ThediskgroupusestheSSDdiskforreadcachingandwritebuffering,whilethedatadisksare
usedforpersistentstorage.Youcanhavemultiplediskgroupsperhost.Forexample,intheillustration,host1containsone
diskgroup,whilehost3hastwodiskgroups.

VirtualSANandVirtualMachineStoragePolicies
Whenenabled,VirtualSANworkstogetherwithvirtualmachinestoragepolicies.Youusestoragepoliciestodefinevirtual
machinestoragerequirementssuchasperformanceandavailabilityintheformofaprofile.Thepolicyrequirementsare
pushedtotheVirtualSANlayerwhenthevirtualdiskiscreated.VirtualSANlaysoutthevirtualdiskacrosstheVirtualSAN
datastoretomeetthespecifiedrequirements.
VirtualSANmonitorsandreportsonthepolicycomplianceduringthelifecycleofthevirtualmachine.Ifthepolicybecomes
noncompliantbecauseofahost,disk,ornetworkfailure,VirtualSANtakesremedialactions.Itreconfiguresthedataofthe
affectedvirtualmachinesandoptimizestheuseofresourcesacrossthecluster.Anyreconfigurationprocessesoccurwith
minimalimpactontheregularworkload.
ForinformationonhowVirtualSANandvirtualmachinestoragepoliciesinteract,seeVirtualSANandStoragePolicyBased
Management.
Forgeneralinformationaboutstoragepolicies,seeAboutVirtualMachineStoragePolicies.
Subtopics
VirtualSANandObjectBasedStorage

CharacteristicsofVirtualSAN
AboutVirtualSANDatastores
RequirementsforVirtualSAN
VirtualSANNetworkingRequirementsandBestPractices
UsingVirtualSANandvSphereHA