What is vSAN? vSAN is an abbreviation for virtual storage area network, and it simply abstracts the local level storage of hosts and turns it into a pool. It is then utilized as shared storage.
vSAN is a kind of virtual clustered datastore that uses the local storage of ESXi hosts to create a logical pool of storage provided as a datastore to the ESXi hosts. One of the most advantageous features of the vSAN datastore is that it supports all vSphere features such as vMotion, Storage vMotion, DRS, HA, and so on.
Furthermore, vSAN is a one-of-a-kind object-based storage system that effectively uses VM storage policies to ensure the proper placement of the virtual machine with the appropriate configuration. There is no need for other appliance installs since it is already included within the hypervisor.
What Are the Advantages of Using vSAN?
One of the primary advantages of hyper-converged systems like vSAN is how they minimize the administrative burden on data center operators. In general, we’re seeing organizations investing today in modern data center infrastructure to drive long-term savings. Those investments are created through operational simplicity, automation, and a shift toward a scale-out, software-defined commodity architecture. Organizations do not value many of the duties necessary to operate conventional infrastructure, or they are seen as an obstacle to substantial change. When asked to name the essential advantage of vSAN, the main response is VMware.
If you’re in a VMware environment and use VMware as your hypervisor, you can predict your decision. That capacity does not need you to go out and overlay on someone else’s storage.
Additionally, vSAN makes diagnostics and troubleshooting more accessible, and the system provides flexibility. vSAN clusters may be designed to be readily extended while also enabling companies to reduce licensing costs since organizations can choose either hyper-convergence-specific nodes or construct their own solution with more conventional hardware.
How Does vSAN Encryption Function?
vSAN encrypts anything in the vSAN data storage when businesses activate Encryption. All virtual computers and their accompanying data are safeguarded since all files are encrypted, and only an administrator with encryption credentials may execute encryption and decryption procedures. Since they’re part of the VMware environment, the nodes have that security, where it’s tough to go in there and meddle with the node and the encryption process.
vSAN’s Key Features:
Following an understanding of what is vsan, it is essential to get acquainted with the fundamental features of virtual storage area networks.
- It is entirely software-defined.
- The various storage rules may be defined per disk or VM. It aids in the balancing and automation of VM storage provisioning.
- It reduces memory and CPU depletion while improving performance.
- It is quite easy to set up and use.
- Data encryption for storage in a vSAN datastore is supported by vSAN. It utilizes the AES 256 cipher for Encryption.
- It is quite simple to scale up and scale down vSAN as needed.
- vSAN is well suited to space-saving technologies like compression and deduplication.
- vSAN is compatible with all flash and hybrid architectures that utilize Flash disks in addition to magnetic drives and cache for capacity.
How Does vSAN Safeguard VMware Environments?
Additional vSAN capabilities, such as vSAN Encryption and multifactor authentication (MFA), may aid in the security of your VMware environment.
To safeguard data storage at rest, VMware vSAN supports native Encryption. Encryption is enabled and configured at the data-store level by the platform; mainly, vSAN encrypts data during write operations to disks used for cache or regular storage. Because the vSAN Encryption system is hardware-independent, it can be used on any host with a solid-state or hard disk drive. Self-encrypting drives are no longer required.
MFA enhances vSAN’s capacity to protect VMware environments by including physical aspects in the authentication process, such as a common access card or similar smart card, in addition to just confirming a user’s credentials.
Moreover, VMware vSAN uses extended clusters to safeguard sites by offering clusters with both local and geographically distant sites. Using vSphere, you can design and manage extended clusters, protect distinct VMs, and alter rules. Also, you may utilize vSAN to find VMs that have not been replicated through stretched clusters.
Finally, vSAN can identify, report, and remedy issues that may occur before a storage failure. This minimizes danger and data loss.
What Are the Distinctions Between All-Flash and Hybrid vSAN?
Data center administrators may use vSAN’s functionality in an all-flash environment or a hybrid architecture. Flash storage is employed across the whole system in an all-flash vSAN. In contrast, a hybrid vSAN only uses flash at the cache layer, with spinning disk storage utilized throughout the remainder of the system.
Of course, an all-flash vSAN would provide better overall performance. Data center operators must be aware that flash storage costs have decreased dramatically in recent years, making all-flash a viable choice for many use cases. Still, hybrid solutions are more inexpensive, and the choice will eventually come down to any particular firm’s performance needs and budget.
Additionally, there’s a lot of demand for all-flash, and many people use hybrid. Hyper-converged infrastructure has indeed developed to the point where it can no longer be categorized as a single product. It has to be a bit more flexible regarding how the user may adjust it. Also, the price of flash is constantly falling, but so is the price of spinning disks. If you cannot afford all of the flash required for your capacity, a hybrid is an excellent choice.
