A vSAN powered environment ushers in unprecedented levels of flexibility across a variety of topologies. This flexibility leads to inevitable questions around recommended practices and guidance. These are questions that may come up prior to or during the time of installation, configuration, and operation, but the answers may not be found in step-by-step guides or other resources. Since vSAN provides storage resources in a different way compared to other architectures, it is good to understand where operational similarities and differences exist with these other architectures.
VMware vSAN Operations Guidance is a new document on StorageHub that was developed to provide practical guidance for vSphere administrators who are looking for advice on the day-to-day operation of vSAN. It complements other VMware material on vSAN, including step-by-step material found in VMware Docs, KB articles, detailed information on StorageHub, and blog posts on VirtualBlocks.
This initial release provides guidance on 69 topics across 15 categories. This is just the beginning. In the future, we will be introducing dozens of new topics to help drive good operational practices throughout all aspects of vSAN operations. While users often want a single and simple "best practice" the conditions and needs of our customers vary, which is why there is so much flexibility built into vSAN. The guidance provided applies to the most common scenarios we see but also notes when a recommendation may be different to accommodate other needs.
VMware continues to make each new version of vSAN easier to operate. This naturally changes some of the recommendations and practices that we suggest. With that in mind, the guidance provided will accommodate the very latest version of vSAN (6.7 U3) but will note when operational recommendations may have recently been changed due to product enhancements.
The guidance found in this document was a group effort across the vSAN Technical Marketing Team. Stay tuned for updates to this guide in the future.
Take our vSAN 6.7 Hands-On Lab here, and our vSAN 6.7 Advanced Hands-On Lab here!
