VMware VMware vSAN is a software-defined storage tier, available with vSphere 5.5 Update 2 or a later release, that virtualizes the local physical storage disks available on a cluster of vSphere hosts. You specify only one datastore when creating an automated desktop pool or an automated farm, and the various components, such as virtual machine files, replicas, user data, and operating system files, are placed on the appropriate solid-state drive (SSD) disks or direct-attached hard disks (HDDs).

vSAN implements a policy-based approach to storage management. When you use vSAN, Horizon 7 defines virtual machine storage requirements, such as capacity, performance, and availability, in the form of default storage policy profiles and automatically deploys them for virtual desktops onto vCenter Server. The policies are automatically and individually applied per disk (vSAN objects) and maintained throughout the life cycle of the virtual desktop. Storage is provisioned and automatically configured according to the assigned policies. You can modify these policies in vCenter. Horizon creates vSAN policies for linked-clone desktop pools, instant-clone desktop pools, full-clone desktop pools, or an automated farm per Horizon cluster.

You can enable encryption for a vSAN cluster to encrypt all data-at-rest (supporting all Horizon 7 desktop pool types) in the vSAN datastore. vSAN encryption is available with vSAN version 6.6 or later. For more information about encrypting a vSAN cluster, see the VMware vSAN documentation.

Each virtual machine maintains its policy regardless of its physical location in the cluster. If the policy becomes noncompliant because of a host, disk, or network failure, or workload changes, vSAN reconfigures the data of the affected virtual machines and load-balances to meet the policies of each virtual machine.

While supporting VMware features that require shared storage, such as HA, vMotion, and DRS, vSAN eliminates the need for an external shared storage infrastructure and simplifies storage configuration and virtual machine provisioning activities.

Important: The vSAN feature available with vSphere 6.0 and later releases contains many performance improvements over the feature that was available with vSphere 5.5 Update 2. With vSphere 6.0 this feature also has broader HCL (hardware compatibility) support. Also, VMware vSAN 6.0 supports an all-flash architecture that uses flash-based devices for both caching and persistent storage.

Requirements and Limitations

The vSAN feature has the following limitations when used in a Horizon 7 deployment:

  • This release does not support using the Horizon 7 space-efficient disk format feature, which reclaims disk space by wiping and shrinking disks.
  • vSAN does not support the View Composer Array Integration (VCAI) feature because vSAN does not use NAS devices.
Note: vSAN is compatible with the View Storage Accelerator feature. vSAN provides a caching layer on SSD disks, and the View Storage Accelerator feature provides a content-based cache that reduces IOPS and improves performance during boot storms.

The vSAN feature has the following requirements:

  • vSphere 5.5 Update 2 or a later release.
  • Appropriate hardware. For example, VMware recommends a 10GB NIC and at least one SSD and one HDD for each capacity-contributing node. For specifics, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.
  • A cluster of at least three ESXi hosts. You need enough ESXi hosts to accommodate your setup even if you use two ESXi hosts with a vSAN stretched cluster. For more information, see the vSphere Configuration Maximums document.
  • SSD capacity that is at least 10 percent of HDD capacity.
  • Enough HDDs to accommodate your setup. Do not exceed more than 75% utilization on a magnetic disk.

For more information about vSAN requirements, see "Working with vSAN" in the vSphere 5.5 Update 2 Storage document. For vSphere 6 or later, see the Administering VMware vSAN document. For guidance on sizing and designing the key components of Horizon 7 virtual desktop infrastructures for VMware vSAN, see the white paper at http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vsan/VMW-TMD-Virt-SAN-Dsn-Szing-Guid-Horizon-View.pdf.