John Nicholson

Recent Posts

VMware vSAN HCI Mesh

Introducing VMware vSAN HCI Mesh

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VMware vSAN HCI Mesh   The Scale out architecture of VMware vSAN enables powerful non-disruptive scale-up or scale-out capabilities. You can non-disruptively expand capacity and performance by adding hosts to a cluster (scale-out) or just grow capacity by adding disks to a host (scale-up). As application workloads organically grow, this enables performance to be right Read more...
vsan 7 vsan file services

Top-3 New Features in vSAN 7: #2 – vSAN File Services

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Setting up vSAN File Services vSAN File Services adds a critical service to VMware Cloud Foundation. Layering a distributed protocol access layer on top of vSAN's existing shared nothing distributed object store. Simplify operations and remove complexity by integrating File workloads into the infrastructure itself. For more information on how to use this with Kubernetes Read more...

What is the Maximum vSAN VMDK Size?

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How big should my VMDKs be on vSAN? I recently was asked about VMDK size best practices with vSAN. The maximum supported VMDK size is 62TB. Much like discussions around the largest size for a vSAN or vSphere cluster (Check out this post!), this is very much a nuanced operational discussion with a lot of Read more...
UCP-UC

Hitachi UCP-HC Powered by vSAN

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Recently Hitachi Vantara released an update to their vSAN powered UCP-HC product suite and I took some time catching up with Dinesh Singh. UCP-HC - Standing up a Cluster UCP-HC is Hitachi's product that evolved on from their previous EVO:RAIL appliance offering to allow automation and standup of vSAN powered HCI. UCP-HC now uses UCP Read more...
Common vSAN Networking

Common vSAN Networking, NIC and Switch Questions

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This post will wrap up some common vSAN networking questions and includes helpful links for solutions to network-related configuration, device selection, and device configuration. The vSAN Networking Guide on StorageHub also holds a lot of great content on this subject. vSAN Networking Update Part - 1 What should I consider when shopping for a switch? Read more...

VMware Cloud Foundation Migration Guide Update

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A major update to Workload Migration Strategies with VMware Cloud Foundation I co-authored with Health Johnson. This paper outlines how to at scale migrate existing workloads, running on your legacy vSphere infrastructure, into your VMware Cloud Foundation based private cloud. It covers two common migration approaches and includes live migration options for important tier 1 Read more...
capacity changes

Is VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Single Socket Supported?

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Previously to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) you needed to check if hosts where on the VCF Compatability Guide. This being a subset of the ReadyNode program was limited to fewer options that only included two-socket servers.   As of VCF 3.0, this has changed. Along with Bring Your Own Network (BYON), we no longer certify Read more...
VMware Cloud Foundation

How vSAN Simplifies VMware Cloud Foundation

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I recently was asked about the operational benefits and cost of ownership of using vSAN with VMware Cloud Foundation. Jeff Hunter posted an excellent blog covering why "VMware Cloud Foundation Starts with vSAN." Having worked with vSAN in production, it simplified how we provisioned and managed storage. While no single action in standing up a Read more...
SPBM policy exceptions

SPBM Policy Exception Cases

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vSAN Object Types There are a number of different object types within VMware vSAN. The most common ones are: VM home namespace – Location for VM configuration and log files. VM swap object – Created for the VM swap file (only created when the VM is powered on). VMDK – Stores the data that is Read more...
Domain design vSAN

VMware Validated Design – vSAN Management Domain Design

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I recently had some discussions with a customer trying to decide on some design decisions for a VMware Validated Design (VVD) being deployed. While a lot of design decisions are fairly straight forward, (The Distributed Switch is arguably superior to the standard switch) a lot of vSAN data services decisions require some nuance and understanding Read more...