How to bootstrap vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) on unsupported hardware…
I was recently chatting with a fellow colleague who asked an interesting question about the memory overhead between running vSAN Original Storage Architecture (OSA) versus the new vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) from a VMware Homelab perspective. I honestly did not know the answer as I […]
vSAN Features
vSAN Space Efficiency Features Compression Only vSAN OSA Compression Beginning with vSphere 7U1, vSAN now supports “Compression Only”. Compression is applied directly at the cluster-level and implemented per disk group. The compression algorithm will take a 4K block and try to compress […]
VMware vSAN 8 Witness Deployment – IP / Login Issues – irgNET
Not only the vSphere 8 update is currently pending for many, but also the vSAN must be updated accordingly. Especially with regard to vSAN Streched or ROBO clusters with a Witness Appliance.
How To Use the vSAN Quick Sizer for Express Storage Architecture (vSAN ESA)
In this video, we walk through using the vSAN QuickSizer. The vSAN Quicksizer is a quick way to validate the usable capacity of a specific cluster configuration. This is in contrast to the traditional sizing tool workflow where you bring a workload requirement and have the sizer recommend […]
How To Use the vSAN Quick Sizer for Express Storage Architecture (vSAN ESA)
In this video, we walk through using the vSAN QuickSizer. The vSAN Quicksizer is a quick way to validate the usable capacity of a specific cluster configuration. This is in contrast to the traditional sizing tool workflow where you bring a workload requirement and have the sizer recommend […]
🏆 VMware Leads the HCI Market in Q3 of 2022, According to IDC
VMware is excited to announce that it is the leading HCI software vendor for Q3 of 2022, according to data provided in the IDC Worldwide Converged Systems Tracker. Systems running VMware accounted for 40.76% of the market share, representing more adoption than the following four vendors combined.
Cross connecting vSAN Datastores with HCI Mesh in vSAN 8 OSA
Yesterday I had a discussion internally on Slack about a configuration for a customer. The customer had multiple locations and had the potential to create various clusters within locations, or across locations. Now, as most of you know, I have been talking a lot about stretched clusters […]
Quick Tip – How to check if vSAN TRIM/UNMAP is enabled in VMware Cloud on AWS Cluster?
While the original question was for checking whether a specific VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC-A) cluster has the vSAN TRIIM/UNMAP feature enabled, the solutions below is applicable to any recent vSAN 7.x or 8.x deployment. There are two ways you check, either using the vSphere UI by selecting the cluster and navigating to Configure->vSAN->Services and […]
Should I always use vSAN ESA, or can I go for vSAN OSA?
Starting to get this question more often, should I always use vsAN ESA, or are there reasons to go for vSAN OSA? The answer is simple, whether you should use ESA or OSA can only be answered by the most commonly used phrase in consultancy: it depends. What does it depend on? Well, your […]
Best of VMware vSAN 2022
As we ring in the new year, we wanted to spotlight vSAN news and updates over the past 12 innovative, inspiring and award-winning months. So, without further ado, here’s the best of vSAN 2022. Announcing vSAN+ In July, we announced VMware vSAN +, our new, premier hyperconverged infrastructure […]
Dell VxRail System Design and Best Practices – will be released on Dec 23, 2022
My new book “Dell VxRail System Design and Best Practices” will be released on Dec 23, 2022. This book is for system architects, system administrators, or consultants involved in planning and designing VxRail HCI. The reader is expected to have equivalent knowledge and administration experience [..]
irgNET-Lab 7.0 U1 – #vSAN OSA Expansion
Welcome to my next HomeLab Update. In this post we will talk about my VMware vSAN OSA expansion.
When and How to enable VMware vSAN Large Cluster Support
We are running a large Kubernetes cluster in production on vSphere 7.0U1 with vSAN. The size of the cluster was initially 32 hosts and the vSAN Large cluster support was also in a disabled state. Because it is needed only when the cluster grows beyond the 32-host limit. Next, due to workload […]
Announcing New Editions of vSAN+
VMware announces the availability of two new editions of vSAN+, our premier hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) offering which extends vSAN’s capabilities to now deliver cloud-connected services that help IT administrators to centralize management and enhance the efficiency of their vSAN […]
🏆 Five Times a Winner! VMware vSAN wins CRN’s Product of the Year Award for Soft…
VMware is pleased to announce that VMware vSAN has won CRN’s Product of the Year in the Software Defined Storage category for 2022! This is the fifth time that vSAN has won the award since vSAN was introduced in 2014, and the first time that VMware vSAN+, our new, premier hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) offering which […]
Stripe Width Storage Policy Rule in the vSAN ESA
Should the “Number of disk stripes per object” storage policy rule be used for VMs running in the vSAN Express Storage Architecture? Read on to learn the answer!
Dell VxRail discovery with IP Adresse
If you have a problem with the IPv6 multicast discovery during the VxRail initial cluster deployment, here’s another option!! You can add hosts via IP address by klicking the + button in the top right corner and add all hosts by IP Address and root password. But first you need to configure […]
vSAN 8.0 ESA – Dude, where’s my vSAN disk group?
Last week I was talking to a customer and he mentioned that he deployed vSAN 8.0 in his lab and he was shocked that when he wanted to define disk groups he noticed that they don’t exist anymore. Well, not in vSAN 8.0 ESA (Express Storage Architecture) that is. They do still exist in the […]
vSAN 8.0 ESA – Introducing Adaptive RAID-5
Starting with vSAN 8.0 ESA (Express Storage Architecture) VMware has introduced an adaptive RAID-5 mechanism. What does this mean? Essentially, vSAN deploys a particular RAID-5 configuration depending on the size of the cluster! There are two options, let’s list them out and discuss them […]
vSAN Storage Policies inside out – Part 1
As vSAN is a policy-based storage system, storage policies play an active role in how storage objects are stored in a vSAN datastore. If you require prior knowledge of the basic concepts of vSAN, please look at my other post on vSAN architectural details.
