vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-55-storage-guide

Working with Virtual SAN 19Virtual SAN is a distributed layer of software that runs natively as a part of the ESXi hypervisor. VirtualSAN aggregates local or direct-attached storage disks of a host cluster and creates a single storage poolshared across all hosts of the cluster.While supporting VMware features that require shared storage, such as HA, vMotion, and DRS, VirtualSAN eliminates the need for an external shared storage and simplifies storage configuration and virtualmachine provisioning activities.CAUTION In this vSphere 5.5 release, Virtual SAN is included as a Public Beta feature. You can test andexperiment with Virtual SAN, however, VMware does not expect it to be used in a production environment.VMware cannot commit to troubleshoot, provide workarounds or provide fixes for Virtual SAN. However,if you do encounter any issues, VMware is interested in any feedback you are willing to share. Please submita support request through the normal access methods.This chapter includes the following topics:• “About Virtual SAN,” on page 173• “Enabling Virtual SAN,” on page 180• “Managing Disk Groups,” on page 183• “Monitoring Virtual SAN,” on page 185• “Managing Virtual SAN,” on page 186• “Virtual SAN and Storage Policy-Based Management,” on page 188• “Troubleshooting Virtual SAN,” on page 190About Virtual SANVirtual SAN virtualizes local physical storage resources of ESXi hosts and turns them into storage pools thatcan be carved up and assigned to virtual machines and applications according to their quality of servicerequirements.You can activate Virtual SAN when you create host clusters or enable Virtual SAN on existing clusters.When enabled, Virtual SAN aggregates all local storage disks available on the hosts into a single datastoreshared by all hosts. You can later expand the datastore by adding storage devices or hosts to the cluster.The hosts in the Virtual SAN cluster do not need to be identical. Even the hosts that have no local disks canparticipate and run their virtual machines on the Virtual SAN datastore, as, for example, host 2 in theillustration.VMware, Inc. 173