In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, a grasp of leading-edge technologies is essential for efficiently managing workloads, optimizing resources, and enhancing storage capabilities. If you haven’t had the chance to peruse our recent technical blogs from the last quarter, fret not – we’ve got you covered.
This summary delves into the technical storage blogs recently released, shining a spotlight on the newly unveiled vSAN 8 update 2, with an exciting addition, vSAN Max™. VMware vSAN Max is vSAN’s disaggregated deployment model, providing scalable, cost-effective storage solutions to empower your cloud infrastructure. This innovate approach caters to three primary use cases: driving cost optimization for infrastructure and applications, ensuring operational simplicity with unified storage, and facilitating rapid scaling for cloud-native applications.
Our technical blogs are a treasure trove of valuable insights, best practices, and guidance to help you unlock the full potential of vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) and vSAN Max. Stay informed with the latest updates to keep our storage solutions. Embark on your journey toward a more efficient, agile, and resilient cloud experience right here.
New Technical Blogs for In-Depth Knowledge and Best Practices
Transitioning to vSAN 8 Express Storage Architecture
Transitioning to vSAN ESA helps customers maximize the value of their existing modern hardware by enabling greater levels of performance and efficiency for their workloads. Businesses that are still considering their options to transition to ESA can take advantage of all the latest functional benefits by upgrading to vSAN 8 OSA. Learn more.
RAID 5/6 with Performance of RAID 1 using vSAN Express Storage Architecture
How does the Express Storage Architecture achieve RAID-1 performance when using RAID-5/6 erasure coding? Discover how the vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) in vSAN 8 eliminates the traditional performance/space efficiency trade-off, allowing users to achieve RAID-1 levels of performance while using RAID-5/6 erasure coding. With its patented log-structured file system and optimized data structure, vSAN ESA simplifies administration, guarantees space efficiency, and offers higher levels of resilience, providing significant benefits for vSAN clusters. In this blog post, looks at how this is achieved, and the challenge it solves for administrators.
Security Improvements in vSAN 8 U2
vSAN 8 Update 2 introduces data-in-transit encryption key expiry support. This allows important compliance requirements to be met for specific regulatory requirements. In addition full feature parity for rekey operations is now supported for both vSAN ESA and OSA. Learn more about simplifying and strengthening your environment using infrastructure to secure any app, any cloud, any device.
Yes, You Can Change Things on a vSAN ESA Ready Node
The provided KB article and guidelines offer flexibility in changing various components of vSAN ReadyNode profiles, including CPU, memory, storage devices (NVMe drives), NICs, boot devices, and TPM. However, it’s essential to maintain a balanced configuration and consider factors like rebuild times, NIC upgrades, and endurance class when making changes to ensure optimal vSAN performance and reliability. Read the blog for more details.
Support for ReadyNode Emulated Configurations in vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA)
Unlock flexibility in hardware procurement for your vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) clusters by exploring the support for ReadyNode emulated configurations. Whether using a single SKU ReadyNode or emulating configurations using approved components, this blog provides tips and guidance to ensure compatibility and successful deployment, allowing you to leverage the power and flexibility of vSAN ESA. Let’s look at what is supported.
ESA for All platforms and All Workloads with ESA -AF-O
The introduction of vSAN’s Express Storage Architecture (ESA) has been accompanied by a new ReadyNode profile, ESA-AF-0, designed to expand the use cases of ESA by catering to lower-end hardware requirements, making it more accessible to a wider range of customers. These enhancements are particularly beneficial for smaller data centers and edge environments, eliminating barriers to adopting ESA and positioning it as the preferred choice for new installations and hardware refreshes across various infrastructure scales. Learn more.
The Impact of Storage Device Failure in vSAN ESA versus OSA
What happens when a storage device fails in vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA)? …And how does this compare to vSAN’s Original Storage Architecture (OSA)? Delve into our latest blog, where we explore vSAN ESA innovative approach to storing data resiliently, significantly reducing the impact of storage device failures or maintenance events. Discover how vSAN ESA’s independent storage devices and improved resynchronization mechanisms lead to more efficient, less impactful handling of failures, providing a compelling reason to consider it for your cluster refreshes. Read on to learn more.
Scalability Improvements for the ESA in vSAN 8 U2
Discover how vSAN, with its core focus on scalability, has elevated its capabilities with the vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA), enabling a significant increase in VM density from 200 to 500 VMs per host. Delve into the engineering innovations behind this improvement, including the use of a different snapshot engine, and learn how this enhanced efficiency opens new possibilities for high-density cluster designs and automated testing environments. Optimize your virtual infrastructure for increased efficiency and density, this blog provides valuable insights into the advancements brought by vSAN ESA.
vSAN Prescriptive Disk Claim for the ESA in vSAN U2
Explore the cutting-edge vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) Prescriptive Disk Claim feature introduced in vSAN 8 Update 2, transforming the disk claiming process. Discover how this new capability, combining automation with customization, addresses unique use cases, enhances flexibility, and provides a standardized approach for managing claimed devices in vSAN clusters.
Health and Performance Monitoring Enhancements in vSAN 8U2
Discover the enhanced monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities in vSAN 8 U2, offering administrators a more intuitive and actionable way to identify and resolve issues within their virtualized environments. Explore improvements like the refined “Top Contributors” view, endurance tracking for NVMe devices, and Skyline Health Remediation enhancements, empowering you with comprehensive insights for efficient management of your vSAN clusters.
vSAN Stretched Cluster Improvements in vSAN 8 U2
Explore the latest improvements to vSAN Stretched Clusters in vSAN 8 U2, including simplified configuration for stretched and 2-node clusters, new support for “Medium” sized witness host appliances in ESA, removal of the “None-Stretched Cluster” storage policy rule for enhanced simplicity, and improved detection of performance bottlenecks using the enhanced VM I/O Trip Analyzer. Discover how these enhancements contribute to a more streamlined and efficient vSAN experience.
Auto Policy Remediation Enhancements for ESA in vSAN U2
Explore the enhanced Auto-Policy Management feature in vSAN 8 U2, building on the capabilities introduced in 8 U1, to optimize default storage policies for ESA clusters. Learn how the feature suggests and implements changes based on cluster size, type, and Host Rebuild Reserve settings, ensuring administrators have optimal VM storage policies aligned with their specific cluster configurations.
Explore the groundbreaking vSAN Max and its evolution from the revolutionary vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) in VMware vSAN 8. Gain insights into how vSAN Max, a fully distributed, elastic storage solution, introduces unprecedented capabilities, cost savings, and flexibility for your vSphere clusters, offering a powerful combination with vSAN HCI clusters. Discover the future of hyperconverged solutions and the transformative potential vSAN Max brings to data center environments by delving into this blog.
vSAN Max and the Advantage of Scalability
Explore the architecture of vSAN Max, built on the vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA), to understand how it provides high-performance, Petabyte-scale shared storage for vSphere clusters using commodity servers. Discover the advantages of vSAN Max’s fully distributed, scalable, and efficient design, offering incremental scalability for both performance and capacity, and overcoming the limitations of traditional three-tier storage using modular storage arrays.
Performance Improvements with the Express Storage Architecture (ESA) in vSAN 8 U2
Explore the enhanced performance potential of vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) in vSAN 8 U2, building upon the innovations introduced in vSAN 8 U1. Uncover the adaptive write path optimizations, dynamic memory allocation, and significant performance gains for both traditional vSAN HCI clusters and fully disaggregated storage clusters like vSAN Max, offering insights into maximizing IOPS, throughput, and latency improvements.
Interoperability Improvements for the Express Storage Architecture (ESA) in vSAN 8 U2
With the release of VMware vSAN™ 8 Update 2, the Express Storage Architecture (ESA) achieves feature parity with the Original Storage Architecture (OSA), enhancing efficiency, performance, and scalability. Key features in this update include full support for vSAN File Services, introducing NFS and SMB support for various applications, and enabling data sharing between clusters in different vCenter environments, expanding the capabilities of vSAN ESA and offering new opportunities for Disaggregated Storage sharing through vSAN Max.
Flexible Topologies with vSAN Max
Explore the versatility of vSAN Max in adapting to alternative topologies like stretched clusters, 2-Node clusters, and fault domains for centralized shared storage in vSphere clusters. With its distributed architecture and support for various network topologies, vSAN Max ensures high availability, resilience, and optimal performance, making it a robust choice for diverse infrastructure configurations.
ReadyNode Profiles Certified for vSAN Max
Explore the new vSAN ReadyNode profiles tailored for vSAN Max, VMware’s innovative disaggregated storage solution. Learn how these certified profiles, designed for optimal capacity and performance, provide a balanced and efficient foundation for vSAN Max clusters, ensuring seamless integration with vSphere clusters and meeting diverse storage demands.
In this comprehensive summary, we’ve highlighted recently released key technical blogs focused on VMware’s vSAN ESA and vSAN Max. With the introduction of vSAN Max, a groundbreaking disaggregated deployment model, VMware brings scalability, cost-effectiveness, and innovative storage solutions to the forefront. Stay informed about the latest updates and innovations to ensure your storage infrastructure remains on the cutting edge in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.
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Don’t Miss Any vSAN Tech Zone Content
VMware Cloud Platform Tech Zone is a valuable resource. You can expect resources for new enhancements or explainers and diagrams that help teams familiarize themselves with their vSAN instance. The more confident you are with your technology, the more you can enjoy its capabilities and every new enhancement to the fullest.
Check out our webpage VMware vSAN and What’s New vSAN.
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