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Articles by Pete Koehler
Why vSAN ESA Only Supports NVMe Solid State Storage Devices
Why can’t spinning disks be used with vSAN ESA? The recent hardware shortages with servers and storage have encouraged customers to look at every conceivable way to lower costs, and this question occasionally comes up in that effort. Some customers contend that their application demands simply aren’t very high, so it seems entirely plausible that spinning disks could be good enough in vSAN ESA. To be clear, spinning disks will not work with, and are not supported in vSAN ESA.
Refreshing an Existing vSAN Cluster with New Servers
Refreshing hardware is an inevitable task of lifecycle management in a data center. Existing vSAN clusters may have servers that are nearing the end of life by the manufacturer, or simply may no longer meet the technical requirements of an organization. The most common strategy for replacing servers is to provision an entirely new cluster, and migrate workloads from one cluster to another using vMotion.
Expand Shared VMDKs with Clustered Applications in VMware vSAN for VCF 9.1
While VMware vSphere and vSAN provide a common and consistent way of delivering high availability of your applications and data through virtualization, it is not uncommon to see customers using application-level clustering capabilities in a virtualized environment. In vSAN for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1, we’ve made the management of these clustered applications much easier.
VMware vSAN Protection and Recovery Enhancements for VCF 9.1
With the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1, we are introducing significant enhancements to vSAN Protection and Recovery (formerly known as vSAN Data Protection). These updates focus on three core areas of the solution: architectural flexibility, sovereign cyber resilience, and operational scale. In VCF 9.0, we introduced vSAN-to-vSAN replication. It was the first logical step in providing remote protection for workloads running on vSAN.
Simplifying Storage with the New Effective Capacity View in VMware vSAN for VCF 9.1
In vSAN for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1, we’ve taken an entirely new approach to capacity management that dramatically simplifies how capacity is presented to administrators. What does this mean for you? Clear and concise capacity reporting that tells you what you need to know, and in a way that you expect. Let’s take a look at the new Effective Capacity view in vSAN for VCF 9.1. In all previous versions, vSAN rendered capacity information to the user in the form of raw capacity.
Auto-RAID in VMware vSAN for VCF 9.1 – Comprehensive System-Managed Data Resilience
With every new release comes new features and enhancements. Some capabilities and their benefits are obvious, but target specific challenges and situations. Other enhancements seem subtle and perhaps easy to overlook, but impact multiple features, and benefit nearly every customer in their day-to-day tasks. The new Auto-RAID feature of vSAN in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 falls in the latter category and represents a profound improvement in managing data resilience for vSAN clusters.
What to Look for in Network Switches for VMware vSAN
Since the recent series of blog posts on VMware vSAN networking came out earlier this year, one of the more common questions received has been “What should I use as a Top of Rack (ToR) network switch in my vSAN environment?” Our Broadcom Compatibility Guide (BCG) for vSAN details compatibility and requirements for the hosts that make up a vSAN cluster, but it does not address network switches.
Erasure Codes in VMware vSAN versus Storage Arrays
Data availability is a core competency of enterprise storage systems. For decades, these systems have attempted to deliver high levels of data availability while ensuring that performance and space efficiency expectations are also met. Achieving all three at the same time is not easy. Erasure coding has played an important role in storing data in a resilient yet space-efficient way.
Driving Down Storage Costs with Lower Hardware Requirements for vSAN
It is no secret to our customers and the industry that vSAN ESA powered storage is exceeding expectations. Whether it be the world-class performance that can beat traditional storage arrays, space efficiency capabilities that make it the most cost effective storage for VCF, or delivering all-new protection capabilities, vSAN ESA is delivering on its promises.
vSAN Data Protection in VMware Cloud Foundation - The Solution You Already Own
With a flurry of announcements and new capabilities offered in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, it is sometimes easy to overlook relatively new features hidden in plain sight. Protecting data in a private cloud has been a hot topic as of late, extending well beyond just typical data recovery requirements. Customers are looking to devise practical strategies to protect themselves against ransomware attacks and disaster recovery using solutions that are easy to manage at scale.
Application Versus Infrastructure-Level High Availability with vSAN in VMware Cloud Foundation
Maintaining availability of data and the applications that produce or consume that data might be the most important responsibility of data center administrators. Capabilities like high performance or special data services mean very little if the applications and the data they produce or consume is not readily available. Ensuring availability is a complex topic, as application availability and data availability use different techniques to achieve the desired result.
vSAN Networking - Is RDMA Right for You?
In the past series of posts, we’ve seen how performance of vSAN comes from not only the physical bandwidth capabilities of the network used to connect vSAN hosts, but also by its design. When using vSAN ESA, higher bandwidth networks paired with efficient network designs can help workloads fully exploit today’s server hardware.
vSAN Networking - Teaming for Redundancy
Network teaming capabilities within vSphere exist for more than just the potential of improving performance. Its ability to provide redundant connectivity in the event of a discrete failure of a Network Interface Card (NIC) or a switch makes it a requirement in any production environment. But this does not happen automatically. Designing for failure requires an understanding of how to properly cable hosts to switches, and configure the hypervisor to account for various failure conditions.
vSAN Networking - Teaming for Performance
vSphere has always provided several different ways to use multiple network interface card (NIC) ports together, but what is the best option for vSAN? Let’s explore some of the key points that are relevant to vSAN configurations in a network topology. The post is not intended to be an exhaustive breakdown of all potential network teaming options, but simply a reference to understand the best options available for vSAN in a VCF environment.
vSAN Networking - Optimal Placement of Hosts in Racks
Since vSAN is a cluster-based solution, the placement of hosts in your network racks will impact how much traffic may traverse the spine. Traffic traversing the spine is not necessarily bad, but it should be part of a design exercise when vSAN is introduced in an environment. This post will illustrate some basic layouts of vSAN clusters in racks in an effort to minimize traffic across the spine and potentially improve performance.
vSAN Networking - Network Topologies
Over the past year we’ve seen a surge in adoption of vSAN as the primary storage solution for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). This can likely be attributed to three reasons. First, customer hardware refresh cycles are enabling environments to transition to the vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) which offers supreme levels of performance. We’re also seeing VCF customers revisiting vSAN given the new license model that provides 1 TiB of vSAN capacity for every VCF core licensed.
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vSAN HCI or vSAN Max - Which Deployment Option is Right for You?
Introduction VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware vSphere environments powered by vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) can be an incredibly powerful combination. Customers can run their entire private cloud environment using a revolutionary storage platform integrated into the hypervisor. But the ESA is not limited to running in only a hyperconverged deployment, where storage and compute resources are aggregated into the same hosts that comprise a cluster.
Greater Flexibility with vSAN Max through Lower Hardware and Cluster Requirements
The initial announcement of vSAN Max introduced a new way for customers to provide centralized shared storage for vSphere clusters. Built using the vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA), it offers storage services that is provided entirely by the hypervisor, but using a deployment option that allows you to grow and manage your storage resources independently from your compute resources.
Smaller vSAN ESA ReadyNodes to Accommodate VMware vSphere Foundation’s Trial Capacity Capability
The Express Storage Architecture (ESA) in VMware vSAN provides the ideal storage platform for environments powering their workloads through VMware Cloud Foundation or VMware vSphere Foundation. Storage services are provided entirely by the hypervisor with extraordinary levels of performance, resilience, scalability and flexibility.
Improved Capacity Reporting in VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 and vSAN 8 U2
VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 and vSAN 8 U2 bring new enhancements to the vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) that help you better understand capacity consumption in your ESA powered clusters. This post will look at recent improvements in its ability to account for capacity usage and highlight its ability to store data and metadata in a much more efficient way.
Continuous Performance Improvements in VMware Cloud On AWS
The introduction of VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2017 marked a special moment for VMware customers. It meant that customers could easily run their workloads powered by the same suite of software-defined data center products in AWS just as they do in private cloud environments on premises.
Flexible Topologies with vSAN Max
vSAN's distributed architecture has always been a natural fit for alternative topologies like stretched clusters, 2-Node clusters, and clusters using fault domains. But what about vSAN Max? Let's look at how vSAN Max can help provide centralized shared storage for your vSphere clusters using these alternative topologies.
ReadyNode Profiles Certified for vSAN Max
The announcement of vSAN Max™ marked a significant milestone for VMware and its customers. The ability to provide dedicated, scale-out storage for vSphere clusters using nothing more than commodity servers and VMware’s hypervisor, opens new doors for customers and partners alike.
vSAN Max and the Advantage of Scalability
The introduction of vSAN Max at VMware Explore Las Vegas garnered a lot of attention, and rightly so. Built off of the vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA), it provides high-performance, Petabyte-scale shared storage for vSphere clusters using commodity servers.
Health and Performance Monitoring Enhancements in vSAN 8 U2
As modern data centers grow in sophistication and size, basic monitoring and troubleshooting can become a challenge. The inherent complexity of an environment can sometimes make even the highly experienced administrator uncertain as to what the cause of an identified issue may be, and how best to resolve it.
vSAN Prescriptive Disk Claim for the ESA in vSAN 8 U2
The assignment of storage devices for use by vSAN is a necessary step in the initial configuration of vSAN. The term "disk claiming" as it is known in the product represents this task. While claiming devices for use by vSAN is relatively easy, limitations in hardware, software, and the unique desires to customize which devices were claimed made it challenging to provide a way to claim devices that met the requirements of simple, repeatable, and flexible.
Introducing vSAN Max
The introduction of the vSAN Express Storage Architecture™ (ESA) in VMware vSAN 8 just one year ago marked a monumental advance in VMware's hyperconverged solution. For the past year, we have highlighted just how extraordinary it is in its ability to process and store data faster and more efficiently than ever before. As impressive as that is, perhaps the most powerful aspect of the ESA is its ability to unlock new capabilities for our customers.
Automation Improvements using PowerCLI 13.1 with vSAN 8 U1
With all of the new features and capabilities announced with the release of vSAN 8 U1, it is easy to overlook the new vSAN functionality we've introduced through PowerCLI 13.1. Many of the improvements found in PowerCLI 13.1 make the latest capabilities in vSAN 8 U1 available for scripting and automation. This is an important, but non-trivial effort across multiple engineering teams here at VMware to ensure that vSAN capabilities are available in a programmatic way.
Skyline Health Scoring, Diagnostics and Remediation in vSAN 8 U1
Skyline Health for vSAN plays a significant part in helping customers understand the health and well-being of their vSAN clusters. Included with all versions of vSAN, it actively monitors a cluster using dozens of integrated tests to ensure that a cluster is configured properly, and if there are any environmental conditions affecting the resources and data it serves. Our engineering and product design teams have continually improved the capabilities of Skyline Health for vSAN over the years.
Auto-Policy Management Capabilities with the ESA in vSAN 8 U1
Much like vSAN 8, the Express Storage Architecture (ESA) in vSAN 8 U1 introduces capabilities not possible with our original storage architecture (OSA). Our new "Auto-Policy" Management feature is an optimized, cluster-specific default storage policy that will help administrators run workloads on an ESA cluster using the optimal level of resilience and efficiency. Let's look in more detail at what this feature does, and why we created it.
From VMware, Introduction to vSAN Express Storage Architecture
By Pete Koehler, staff technical marketing architect, VMware, Inc. Summary The vSAN Express Storage Architecture builds on much of what VMware, Inc. has released that has made vSAN the number one hyperconverged solution on the market. This is your chance to do more with what you already have, using the software you already know. Since its debut in March, 2014, VMware has a long and consistent history of turning ideas into product features in vSAN. The company introduced with vSAN 8.
RAID-5/6 with the Performance of RAID-1 using the vSAN Express Storage Architecture
The post, "An Introduction to the vSAN Express Storage Architecture" detailed the key drivers behind VMware's introduction of its revolutionary, optional architecture in vSAN 8. The value of this new architecture is ultimately based on the benefits it delivers to our customers. One of the most noteworthy capabilities the ESA provides is the delivery of highly resilient data in a space-efficient manner using RAID-5/6 erasure coding without any compromise in performance.
Upgrading On-Disk and Object Formats in vSAN
Software updates are one of the most common administrative events found in the enterprise. Small or large, manual or automated, it is the ubiquitous software update that helps introduce new capabilities and resolve existing problems. Data storage can be complex, especially as new capabilities are introduced that require different things from the stored data.
vSAN Objects and Components Revisited
Many of our vSAN customers are familiar with the terms "objects" and "components" but new and experienced users alike occasionally get confused about what they are, why they exist, and how they are different from each other. Whether you are a seasoned vSAN administrator, or a novice looking to better understand how vSAN works, this post explains these concepts in new ways to help you better understand what these terms are, and why they matter.
Dell ObjectScale on VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu
Dell Technologies has engineered a software-defined, enterprise-class, high performance containerized architecture object storage in the VMware Tanzu platform called Objectscale. Dell ObjectScale VMware and Dell Technologies have worked together to provide a framework for cloud-native object storage in vSphere using the vSAN Data Persistence platform: Dell ObjectScale on VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu.
vSAN Stretched Cluster Bandwidth Sizing
Overview This document explains how to size network bandwidth between sites when using vSAN HCI clusters and vSAN Max clusters in a stretched cluster configuration. In stretched cluster configurations, two data fault domains have one or more hosts, and the third fault domain contains a virtual witness appliance to help determine availability of the data sites. In this document each data fault domain will be referred to as a site.
Improving RAID-5/6 in vSAN 7 U3 using Heuristics
Each new release of vSAN demonstrates how VMware is committed to the continual improvement in efficiency and performance of vSAN - all through a simple upgrade of the hypervisor. The engineering teams working on vSAN are always looking for ways to reduce the effort it takes for vSAN to process and store data. Examples of these efforts can be found in the specific performance and efficiency-related enhancements introduced with vSAN 7 U1 and vSAN 7 U2. But the work hasn't stopped there.
The Importance of Space Reclamation for Data Usage Reporting in vSAN
The recent posts on vSAN capacity topics (“Demystifying Capacity Reporting in vSAN” and "Understanding Reserved Capacity Concepts in vSAN") have helped answer a lot of the key questions many of our customers had about how vSAN reports data usage. But there is another aspect to storage consumption and reporting that often gets overlooked: Space reclamation.
Understanding “Reserved Capacity” Concepts in vSAN
In 2020, the release of vSAN 7 U1 introduced new capabilities that helped reduce the amount of free capacity required for a vSAN to perform transient activities and accommodate for host failures. We paired these improvements with a new "Reserved Capacity" capability found in the product, which replaced the guidance on the free capacity recommendations (known as "slack space") for vSAN 7 and earlier.
Asymmetrical vSAN Clusters - What is Allowed, and What is Smart
Can hosts in a vSAN cluster contribute different amounts of resources? Yes, this is supported, but is it smart? Let's sort through this problem to better understand the challenges they introduce, and the guidance to help minimize the effects of asymmetry on your environment. What is an asymmetrical cluster? An asymmetrical cluster is a cluster of hosts where one or more hosts contribute a different amount of resources than the other hosts in a cluster.
Demystifying Capacity Reporting in vSAN
Through the power of storage policies, vSAN provides the administrator the ability to granularly assign unique levels of resilience and space efficiency for data on a vSAN datastore. It is an extraordinarily flexible capability for enterprise storage, but it can sometimes cause confusion with interpreting storage capacity usage. Let's explore how vCenter Server renders the provisioning and usage of storage capacity for better capacity management.
Preparing your Data Center for the Future with Hybrid Cloud
What will your data center look like in one year? How about 3 years? Or 5 years? Any answer other than "I don't know" is probably wrong. Let's look at why this conundrum exists, and the steps you can take to address it. The fate of your organization's IT environment is not as much in your hands as you may believe. Some factors that shape the data center are simply out of your control. Technology changes. Both hardware and software technologies can change, and open up new ways of achieving results.
The Compelling Case for HCI Mesh Compute Clusters
VMware's HCI Mesh feature in vSAN is a great example of how a single feature can immediately improve how resources across an environment are consumed. It initially debuted in vSAN 7 U1 and allowed a vSAN cluster to borrow storage resources from other vSAN clusters. vSAN 7 U2 extended this capability by enabling traditional vSphere clusters to use storage resources provided by a vSAN cluster. The latter is known as an “HCI Mesh Compute Cluster” and is the focus of this post.
vSAN Quick Questions
Ready to further your technical vSAN knowledge? With our new vSAN Quick Questions YouTube series led by John Nicholson and Pete Koehler of VMware, there has never been a better time to achieve a deeper understanding of vSAN storage virtualization! For 100 days, the vSAN team will share a new Quick Questions video daily on our Twitter channel. That’s right, every day! These insightful videos range from 1.5-5 minutes in length, so they’re perfect little bits of wisdom you can soak up at any time.
How vSAN Cluster Topologies Change Network Traffic
The flexibility of vSAN and VCF powered by vSAN gives our customers a multitude of design options to meet virtually any use case: Doing so in ways that make it easy to operate and adjust for future needs. With that flexibility comes questions in both design, and operation. VMware provides guidance on both topics through the vSAN Design Guide, and the vSAN Operations Guide to help you make the best choices for your deployment of vSAN.
#StorageMinute, vSAN File Services - Backups using Snapshots
Welcome back to the #StorageMinute series where we deliver pertinent information on all things storage in bite-sized content. In this episode, we are diving into vSAN File Services, more specifically, backups using snapshots with PowerCLI. You know what they say, data is your best asset! And as the amount of unstructured data continues to accrue, management and protection is of the utmost importance for your organization.
Performance when using vSAN Encryption Services
Data security can place a heavy burden on those responsible for security of their organization’s digital assets. Regulatory requirements and reports of data leakage in the news provide ample motivation to take the matter seriously. Administrators must secure this data, and one way this is achieved is through data encryption. At some point, those responsible for these environments must look at how they can implement data encryption.
vSAN across Industries
For the technical specialists responsible for IT environments, the thought of introducing a new solution in an environment can be equal parts exciting, and daunting. Enthusiastic levels of anticipation can come from the possibility that a new solution will offer the ability to achieve better results or do so more efficiently.
vSAN Demonstrations
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