VMware vSAN 

vSAN 7 is the latest version of VMware's software-defined storage solution for virtual machines that supports enterprise hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) systems as an integral part of vSphere.
Within the ESXi hypervisor, vSAN is fully integrated into VMware vSphere as a distributed software layer that aggregates the storage of individual ESXi hosts in a cluster into a shareable storage pool.

By unifying infrastructure virtualization, VMware enables IT admins to deliver services anytime, anywhere and on any device, from the data center to the cloud to mobile devices. Computing and storage can be managed from a single platform.

Business Benefits with vSAN from VMware

IT teams benefit from simplified operations with vSAN, while business agility is significantly improved through unified infrastructure, processes and tools - from the edge of the network to the core to the cloud.
Unified policies and process automation reduce IT management efforts to a few simple clicks. As a result, IT staff can devote more time to important strategic IT projects instead of spending valuable time on routine tasks. With VMware vSAN, organizations can reduce the cost and complexity of traditional storage solutions while taking the easiest path to Hyperconverged Infrastructure and Hybrid Cloud.

The integrated Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) solution vSAN, as vSphere-native storage, also facilitates the extension of existing virtualizations in an organization while helping to increase agility and reduce complexity, IT costs, TCO and business risks. Deploying VMware vSAN thus not only accelerates infrastructure modernization, but also makes it scalable to meet future needs, giving organizations a strategic and economic advantage.

How does VMware vSAN 7 work?

first, vSAN aggregates all local or direct-attached data storage devices to create a single storage pool that can be shared among all hosts in a vSAN cluster. All virtual machines running server applications with vSAN run on the same hardware that provides the storage.

Flash-based storage such as SSDs, NVMe devices or NVDIMMs act as the storage's caching memory, and HDDs or SSDs are used to store data. HDD, SSD storage and cache storage together form a disk group. Multiple hosts and their disk groups can in turn be combined into different types of clusters, such as Standard clusters, stretched clusters, or 2-node clusters.

Storage policies are a fundamental component of vSAN: They control the storage services and also define the parameters for replication or mirroring. vSAN is very easy to configure with the tools available from VMware and is perfectly integrated into the VMware ecosystem.

The result is a stable, high-performance and horizontally scalable architecture. Among other things, this also enables performance benefits, as storage can be directly allocated to a local virtual machine (VM), thus also helping to reduce operating costs.

The benefits of VMware vSAN 7 at a glance

- vSAN provides flash-optimized, secure shared storage all critical virtualized workloads in an enterprise, accessed easily and directly through the VMware Native vSphere® user interface.

- The vSAN Software Defined Storage system is suitable for typical enterprise-wide applications and virtual desktop environments (VDI), as well as for branch office servers.

- vSAN runs on industry-standard x86 servers and components - with the advantage of up to 50% lower TCO compared to traditional storage.

- As the first solution with native, software-based and FIPS 140-2 validated HCI encryption in this segment, vSAN 7 provides the agility needed to easily scale IT - without compromise.

- By fully integrating vSAN with the ESXi hypervisor, local physical storage resources from ESXi hosts can be virtualized and turned into storage pools, which in turn can be partitioned and allocated to virtual machines and applications according to their quality of service requirements.

- With vSAN, there is no need for external shared storage, while storage configuration is simplified via Storage Policy-Based Management (SPBM).

- By creating storage policies for virtual machines (VM), storage requirements and functions can be defined individually, including for resource unification.

- All data is stored in duplicate - for maximum availability and redundancy, even if a complete node should fail. With vSAN, the security of internal data is thus significantly increased.

- The developer-oriented infrastructure enables IT administrators to flexibly create applications to manage VMs and containers.

- Based on vSAN's hyper-converged infrastructure, it is possible to develop a unified digital control plane - with consistent operations from edge to core to cloud, from edge to core, for cloud-inherent security for data at rest as well as transferred from numerous public cloud providers.

- In addition, vSAN enables hybrid storage solutions for private cloud and hybrid cloud, including support from leading cloud providers.