VMware Virtual SAN 6.0What’s New Technical Walkthrough

Raiko Mesterheide

Systems Engineer

The Software-Defined Data Center

Transform storage

by aligning it with app demands

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Expand virtual compute to all

applications

Virtualize the network for speed

and efficiency

Managementtools give wayto automation

VMware Software-Defined Storage

3

vSphere

Storage Policy-Based Mgmt

Virtual SAN

Storage Policy-Based Mgmt

SAN / NAS

vSphere Virtual Volumes

Virtual Datastore

VMware Software-Defined Storage

Virtual Datastore

Bringing the Efficient Operational Model of Virtualization to Storage and Availability

Storage Policy-Based Management:

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vSphereStorage Policy-Based Mgmt

Virtual SAN

Capacity

Performance

Availability

2 Failures to tolerate

Reserve thick 10 GB

Flash Read Cache10 %

• Intelligent storage placement at scale

• Dynamic adjustments in real time

• Automated policy enforcement

App-centric Control Plane That Across Storage Tiers

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Virtual SAN

Virtual SAN Puts The App In ChargeVM-centric Service Levels for Simpler and Automated Storage Management Through App-centric Approach

1. Define storage policy

2. Apply policy at VM creation

✖ Hardware-centric, vendor-specific management

✖ Slow provisioning, rigid storage constructs (LUNs, Volumes)

✖ Data services aligned to storage container, not directly with VM needs

✖ Frequent data migrations

Fast, VM-centric provisioning No need to manage LUNs, Vols. Resources and data service are

automatically provisioned and maintained

Easy to change without data migration

Today

Virtual SAN

Storage Policy

Capacity

Availability

Performance

Virtual SAN DatastoreLUN

LUN

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VMware Virtual SAN : Hybrid

vSphere + Virtual SAN

…

• Software-defined storage built into vSphere

• Runs on any standard x86 server

• Pools flash-based devices into a shared datastore

• Managed through per-VM storage policies

• Delivers High performance through flash acceleration

• 2x more IOPS with VSAN Hybrid

• Up to 40K IOPS/host

• Highly resilient - zero data loss in the event of hardware failures

• Deeply integrated with the VMware stack

Virtual SAN

Hard disksSSDHard disks

SSDHard disks

SSD

Virtual SAN Datastore

Radically Simple Hypervisor-Converged Storage Software

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VMware Virtual SAN : All-Flash

vSphere + Virtual SAN

…

• Flash-based devices used for caching as well as persistence

• Cost-effective all-flash 2-tier model:

o Cache is 100% write: using write-intensive, higher grade flash-based devices

o Persistent storage: can leverage lower cost read-intensive flash-based devices

• Very high IOPS: up to 90K(1) IOPS/Host

• Consistent performance with sub-millisecond latencies

Virtual SAN All-Flash

Virtual SAN All-Flash Datastore

NEW in 6.0

SSDs SSDs SSDs

(1) All performance numbers are subject to final benchmarking results. Please refer to guidance published at GA

Extremely High Performance with Predictability

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Enterprise-Class Scale and PerformanceEnhancements

in 6.0

Hosts / Cluster 32 64 64

IOPS / Host 20K 40K 90K

VMs / Host 100 200 200

VMs / Cluster 3200 6400 6400

Virtual SAN

5.5

Virtual SAN

6.0 Hybrid

Virtual SAN

6.0 All-Flash

Note: All performance numbers are subject to final benchmarking results. Please refer to guidance published at GA

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Virtual SAN 6.0 Now Ready For Business-Critical Apps

VDI DR Test/Dev

Virtual InfrastructureBest storage for VMs

Optimized for Virtual Infrastructure

Enterprise-class

Ready for business critical apps

VMware Virtual SANHardware

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Hardware Requirements

Any Server on the VMware Compatibility Guide

All flash-based devices, and storage controllers MUST be listed on the VMware Compatibility Guide for VSAN

1Gb/10Gb NIC

SAS/SATA Controllers (RAID Controllers must work in “pass-through” or RAID0” mode)

SAS/SATA//PCIe SSD

SAS/NL-SAS/SATA HDD

At least 1 of each(Except All-Flash)

4GB to 8GB USB, SD Cards

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Flash Based Devices

In Virtual SAN hybrid ALL read and write operations always go directly to the Flash tier.

Flash based devices serve two purposes in Virtual SAN hybrid architecture

1. Non-volatile Write Buffer (30%)– Writes are acknowledged when they enter prepare stage on the flash-based devices.

– Reduces latency for writes

2. Read Cache (70%)– Cache hits reduces read latency

– Cache miss – retrieve data from the magnetic devices

Choice of hardware is the #1 performance differentiator between Virtual SAN configurations.

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Flash Based Devices

In Virtual SAN all-flash read and write operations always go directly to the Flash devices.

Flash based devices serve two purposes in Virtual SAN All Flash:

1. Cache Tier (write buffer)– High endurance flash devices.

– Listed on VCG

2. Capacity Tier– Low endurance flash devices

– Listed on VCG

Choice of hardware is the #1 performance differentiator between Virtual SAN configurations.

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Network

• 1Gb / 10Gb supported for hybrid architecture– 10Gb shared with NetIOC for QoS will support most environments

– If 1GB then recommend dedicated links for Virtual SAN

• 10Gb only supported for all-flash architecture– 10Gb shared with NIOC for QoS will support most environment

• Jumbo Frames will provide nominal performance increase– Enable for greenfield deployments

– Enable in large deployments to reduce CPU overhead

• Virtual SAN supports both VSS & VDS– NetIOC requires VDS

• Network bandwidth performance has more impact on host evacuation, rebuild times than on workload performance

VMware Virtual SAN

High Density Direct Attached Storage

2015 & 2016

– Manage disks in enclosures – helps enable blade environment

– Flash acceleration provided on the server or in the subsystem

– Data services delivered via the VSAN Data Services and platform capabilities

– Direct attached and disks (flash devices, and magnetic devices) are Supports combination of direct attached disks and high density attached disks (SSDs and HDDs) per disk group.

– Supported HDDASs will be tightly controlled by the HCL (exact list TBD).

• Applies to HDDASs and controllers

• Also supported on Virtual SAN 5.5

HDDAS

Blade Servers

HDDSSD

vSphere + Virtual SAN

VMware Virtual SAN – VCG and Ready Nodes

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1

2

1

2

www.vmware.com/go/virtualsan-hcl

Virtual SAN Hardware Quick Reference Guide• 5 Ready Node profile guidelines• Sizing assumptions• Design considerations

Virtual SAN Ready Nodes• List components and quantity

that make up each Ready Node• Info on how to quote/order the

Ready Node

3

3 Always use certified components!• Drivers and firmware• Supportability • Increase customer satisfaction• Reduce rework and time-to-

market

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VMware Virtual SAN: One Destination SDDC & SDS, Three Paths

Component Based

…using the VMware Virtual SAN Compatibility Guide (VCG) (1)

Choose individual components …

SSD or PCIe

SAS/NL-SAS/ SATA HDDs

Any Server on vSphere Hardware Compatibility List

HBA/RAID Controller

Virtual SAN Ready Node

40+ OEM validated server configurations ready for Virtual SAN deployment (2)

Note: 1) Components must be chosen from Virtual SAN HCL, using any other components is unsupported – see Virtual SAN VMware Compatibility Guide Page2) VMware continues to update/add list of the available Ready Nodes, please refer to Virtual SAN VMware Compatibility Guide Page for latest list3) Product availability varies by countries. Please contact your local VMware partners for details, pricing and availability – click here

Maximum Flexibility Maximum Ease of Use

VMware EVO:RAIL

A Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Appliance

(HCIA) for the SDDC

Each EVO:RAIL HCIA is pre-built on a qualified and optimized

2U/4 Node server platform.

Sold via a single SKU by VMware Qualified EVO:RAIL Partners (QEPs) (3)

Software + Hardware Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

There are 5 VSAN Ready Node Profiles – Server Workload

Virtual SAN All Flash - Server

Server Low Profile

Server Medium Profile

Server High Profile

• Up to 30VMs

• Up to 4K IOPs

• 5TB raw capacity

• Up to 60VMs

• Up to 24K IOPs

• 8TB raw capacity

• Up to 120VMs

• Up to 40K IOPs

• 14.4TB raw capacity

Virtual SAN Hybrid - Server

Server Medium Profile

Server High Profile

• Up to 60VMs

• Up to 60K IOPs

• 8TB raw capacity• Capacity 8x1TB SSD• Caching 2x200GB SSD

• Up to 120VMs

• Up to 80K IOPs

• 12TB raw capacity• Capacity 12x1TB SSD• Caching 2x400GB SSD

For complete details on the sizing assumptions and design considerations of the Ready Node profiles, please refer to the “Virtual SAN Hardware Quick Reference Guide” on the Virtual SAN VMware Compatibility Guide Page

VMWARE FIELD & PARTNER USE ONLY - CONFIDENTIAL

There are 4 VSAN Ready Node Profiles – VDI Workload

Virtual SAN All Flash - VDI

VDI Linked Clones Profile

VDI Full Clones Profile

• Up to 100 desktops

• Up to 10K IOPs

• 1.2TB raw capacity

• Up to 100 desktops

• Up to 10K IOPs

• 10.8TB raw capacity

For complete details on the sizing assumptions and design considerations of the Ready Node profiles, please refer to the “Virtual SAN Hardware Quick Reference Guide” on the Virtual SAN VMware Compatibility Guide Page

Virtual SAN Hybrid - VDI

VDI Linked Clones Profile

VDI Full Clones Profile

• Up to 200 desktops

• 1.6TB raw capacity• Capacity 4x400GB SSD• Caching 1x400GB SSD

• Up to 200 desktops

• 9.6TB raw capacity• Capacity 12x800GB SSD

• Caching 2x400GB SSD

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2x VMs per host 62TB Virtual DisksSnapshots and

Clone

• Greater capacity allocations per VMDK

• VMDK >2TB are supported

• Larger supported capacity of snapshots and clones per VMs

• 32 per Virtual Machine

• Larger Consolidation Ratios

• Due to increase of supported components per hosts

• 9000 Components per Host

Virtual SAN Performance and Scale Improvements

Host Scalability

• Cluster support raised to match vSphere

• Up to 64 nodes per cluster in vSphere

• VSAN can scale up to 64 nodes.

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Disk Format VSAN 5.5 to 6.0Disk Serviceability

Functions

• In-Place modular rolling upgrade

• Seamless In-place Upgrade

• Seamless Upgrade Rollback Supported

• Upgrade performed from RVC CLI

• PowerCLI integration for automation and management

• Ability to manage flash-based and magnetic devices.

• Storage consumption models for policy definition

• Default Storage Policies

• Resync Status dashboard in UI

• VM capacity consumption per VMDK

• Disk/Disk group evacuation

• New On-Disk Format

• New delta-disk type vsanSparse

• Performance Based snapshots and clones

Virtual SAN 6.0 New Features

VSAN Platform

• New Caching Architecture for all-flash VSAN

• Virtual SAN Health Services

• Proactive Rebalance

• Fault domains support

• High Density Storage Systems with Direct Attached Storage

• File Services via 3rd party

• Limited support hardware encryption and checksum

VMFS-L VSAN FS

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Virtual SAN 6.0 Enables Both Hybrid or All-Flash Architectures

Hybrid All-Flash

30K IOPS/Host 90K IOPS/Hostpredictable sub-millisecond latency

New!

CachingSSD, PCIe, Ultra DIMM etc.Read cache / Write buffer

SSD, PCIe, Ultra DIMM etc.Write-only buffer

Magnetic Disks Flash Devices

DataPersistence

Virtual SAN Flash Caching Architectures

disk group disk group

capacity capacity

read cache read cache 10% of projected used capacity High Endurance devices

- 2 to 3 TBW per dayCache Tier

Capacity Tier

Size for remainder of capacity Magnetic devices Price on best $/GB

disk group disk group

capacity capacity

write buffer write bufferCache Tier

Capacity Tier

Size for remainder of capacity Lower required endurance

- 0.2 TBW per day sufficient Price on best $/GB

10% of projected used capacity High Endurance devices

- 2 to 3 TBW per day

Hybrid

All-Flash

All-Flash Cache Tier Sizing

Cache tier should have 10% of the anticipated consumed storage capacity

Cache is entirely write-buffer in all-flash architecture

Cache devices should be high write endurance models: Choose 2+ TBW/day or 3650+/5 year

Total cache capacity percentage should be based on use case requirements.

– For general recommendation visit the VMware Compatibility Guide.

– For write-intensive workloads a higher amount should be configured.

– Increase cache size if expecting heavy use of snapshots

Measurement Requirements ValuesProjected VM space usage 20GB

Projected number of VMs 1000

Total projected space consumption per VM 20GB x 1000 = 20,000 GB = 20 TB

Target flash cache capacity percentage 10%

Total flash cache capacity required 20TB x .10 = 2 TB

VMware Virtual SAN 6.0Usability Improvements

• vCenter can manage multiple vsanDatastores with different sets of requirements.

• Each vsanDatastore can have a different default profile assigned.

Default Storage Policies

vSphere + Virtual SAN

Hard disksHard disksSSD SSD Hard disksSSD

…vSphere + Virtual SAN

Hard disksHard disksSSD SSD Hard disksSSD

…

vCenter Server

VSAN default policy

BCAdefault policy

Virtual Machine Usability Improvements

• Virtual SAN 6.0 adds functionality to visualize Virtual SAN datastore resource utilization when a VM Storage Policy is created or edited.

• Virtual SAN’s free disk space is raw capacity. – With replication, actual usable space is lesser.

• New UI shows real usage on– Flash Devices

– Magnetic Disks

– Displayed in the vSphere Web Client and RVC:

Virtual Machine >2TB VMDKs

• In VSAN 5.5, the max size of a VMDK was limited to 2TB.– Max size of a VSAN component is 255GB.– Max number of stripes per object was 12.

• In VSAN 6.0 the limit has been increased to allow VMDK up to 62TB.– Objects are still striped at 255GB.

• 62TB limit is the same as VMFS and NFS so VMDK can be

Resynchronization Status

• Virtual SAN might need to move data around in the background: change policy, host failure, long term/permanent component loss, user triggered reconfig, maintenance mode, etc.

• UI Resync Dashboard shows the VMs and objects that are resyncing and remaining bytes to sync.

Proactive Rebalance

• Proactive rebalance is a new feature introduced in 6.0 to address two typical use cases:

– Adding a new node to an existing vsan cluster or bringing a node out of decommission state.

– Leverage the new nodes even if the fullness of existing disks are below 80%.

– Rebalance would be more effective if it can be started earlier than disk almost full.

• Performed through RVC

– vsan.proactive_rebalance --start ~/computers/cluster

VMware Virtual SANFailure Scenarios

Fault Domains

Rack A

Fault Domain A Fault Domain B Fault Domain C

Virtual SAN Cluster

Rack CRack B

vmdk witness

raid-1

vmdk

raid-1

vmdkwitnessvmdk

In Virtual SAN 5.5 assumed different hosts have independent failure behavior.

For FTT=n, VSAN creates (n+1) replicas on (n+1) unique hosts

Failure protection example in Virtual SAN 5.5

Four racks with two hosts each

FTT=2 to protect against one rack failure requires 3 replicas

Fault Domains

vsanDatastore

R1 R2 R3

VSAN network VSAN network VSAN network VSAN network

esx-1 esx-2 esx-3 esx-4 esx-5 esx-6 esx-7 esx-8

Virtual SAN ClusterRack A Rack B Rack C Rack D

An example of Virtual SAN 6.0 utilizing new fault domain feature with four racks with two hosts each

Four defined fault domains

FD1 = esx-1, esx-2

FD2 = esx-3, esx-4

FTT=2 to protect against one rack failure requires only 2 replicas

Fault Domains

FD3 = esx-5, esx-6

FD4 = esx-7, esx-8

Rack A Rack B Rack C Rack D

W

vsanDatastore

R1 R2

VSAN network VSAN network VSAN network VSAN network

esx-1 esx-2 esx-3 esx-4 esx-5 esx-6 esx-7 esx-8

Virtual SAN Cluster

W

vSphere admins can configure fault domains and their definitions from:

• vSphere Web Client

• ESXCLI

Fault Domain Configuration

Number of failures to tolerate (FTT) are applied based on fault domains and no longer on hosts.– Example: FTT=n, (2n + 1) fault domains are required

– Provisioning failures can occur due to misconfigured hosts or unsatisfiable number of fault domains.

Fault domains are configurable though host profiles – Host profile configurations are persistent across reboots

– Once reconfiguration begins objects will be out of compliance for a period of time

– Once the objects are synchronize they will be back in compliance

Failure Domain

New RVC commands provide visibility and management capabilities to the failure domains configuration:

• vsan.fault_domains /Datacenter/Computer/VSAN

• vsan.fault_domains --help

Fault Domains

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Virtual SAN Objects, Components, Witness

• New Quorum computation:

– Each fault domain must have equal number of votes during quorum computation.

– In VSAN 5.5, each component has only one vote and VSAN may add additional witnesses to

equalize votes.

– In VSAN 6.0, each component initially has only one vote and VSAN may increase number of

votes for certain components to equalize votes.

VMware Virtual SAN 6.0Interoperability

File Services with NexentaConnect

• NexentaConnect complements VMware Virtual SAN simplified operating and storage consumption models by:

– Adding file services (SMB, NFS) on top of Virtual SAN

– Provide similar ease of management capabilities

– Leveraging Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) and underlying storage technologies

• NexentaConnect is used for storing files while VSAN is for virtual machine storage

• Offers vSphere Administrators flexibility and benefits such as

– Abstracted pool of files services

– High performance NFS and SMB network shares

– Live monitoring capabilities

– Disaster Recovery planning capabilities

• This is a 3rd party solution and not developed by VMware

vSphere + Virtual SAN

Hard disksHard disksSSD SSD Hard disksSSD

…

Virtual SAN Shared Datastore

vRealize Automation

• vRealize Automation Advanced complements VMware Virtual SAN simplified operating and storage consumption models by:

– Delivering a dynamic storage service level allocation on top of Virtual SAN.

– Leveraging Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) and underlying Virtual SAN storage technologies.

vRealize Operations

• Day to Day Operations Management

– Enable Alerting & Notification for troubleshooting VSAN related failures and performance issues

– Provide a single pane of glass for simplified and automated operations management for VSAN by means of exploratory dashboards, heat maps etc

• Analytics and Future Capacity Planning

– Analyze Health, Risk and Efficiency of Virtual SAN cluster around performance, capacity and availability

– Enable use of advanced analytics, reporting and planning capabilities for physical infrastructure supporting Virtual SAN

PowerCLI

• PowerCLI 6.0 delivers a set of Virtual SAN related cmdlets (no longer a fling) for managing Virtual SAN.

– Some of the existing cmdlets were altered to work with Virtual SAN.

• Here is some of the new cmdlets:

– Export-SpbmStoragePolicy

– Get-SpbmCapability

– Get-SpbmCompatibleStorage

– Get-SpbmEntityConfiguration

– Get-SpbmStoragePolicy

– Get-VSANDisk

– Get-VsanDiskGroup

– Import-SpbmStoragePolicy

– New-SpbmRule

– New-SpbmRuleSet

– New-SpbmStoragePolicy

– New-VsanDisk

– New-VsanDiskGroup

– Remove-SpbmStoragePolicy

– Remove-VsanDisk

– Remove-VsanDiskGroup

– Set-SpbmEntityConfiguration

– Set-SpbmStoragePolicy

Disaster Recovery For The Software-Defined Data Center

• VM-centric, storage-independent replication simplifies protection

• Flexible storage topologies (External to Virtual SAN or vCloud Air)

vSphere Replication

Production Site Recovery Site

vSphere

Site Recovery Manager

vSphere Replication

VDPA backup replication

VD

PA

Backupdatastore

Virtual SAN

Virtual SAN

External Storage

Backupdatastore

vSphere

vSphere Replication

• Storage-efficient dedupe reduces storage investments

• WAN-efficient backup data replication enables basic DR

vSphere Data Protection Advanced

• Server side economics lower storage costs

• Hyper-convergence on x86 platform reduces DR footprint

Virtual SAN

• Centralized recovery plans enables DR scale for thousands of VMs

• DR workflow automation reduces OpEx on DR management

Site Recovery Manager

• DR as a Service to vCloud Air shifts DR investments from CapEx to OpEx

• Fully delivered and supported by VMware

vCloud Air Disaster Recovery

Site Recovery Manager

VMware Virtual SANMonitoring & Troubleshooting

Ruby vSphere Console (RVC)

• New RVC commands for management and configurations purposes have been added

• Here is the list of the new commands:

– vsan.v2_ondisk_upgrade

– vsan.proactive_rebalance

– vsan.purge_inaccessible_vswp_objects

– vsan.enable_capacity_flash

– vsan.host_claim_disks_differently

– vsan.host_wipe_non_vsan_disk

– vsan.host_evacuate_data

– vsan.host_exit_evacuation

– vsan.scrubber_info

– basic.screenlog

Virtual SAN Health

Virtual SAN Health Services: is designed deliver troubleshooting and health reports to vSphere Administrators about Virtual SAN 6.0 subsystems and their dependencies such as:

– Cluster Health– Network Health– Data Health– Limits Health– Physical Disk Health

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