Enabling vSAN automatically configures and registers a storage provider for each host in the vSAN cluster.

vSAN storage providers are built-in software components that communicate datastore capabilities to vCenter Server. A storage capability typically is represented by a key-value pair, where the key is a specific property offered by the datastore. The value is a number or range that the datastore can provide for a provisioned object, such as a virtual machine home namespace object or a virtual disk. You can also use tags to create user-defined storage capabilities and reference them when defining a storage policy for a virtual machine. For information about how to apply and use tags with datastores, see the vSphere Storage documentation.

The vSAN storage providers report a set of underlying storage capabilities to vCenter Server. They also communicate with the vSAN layer to report the storage requirements of the virtual machines. For more information about storage providers, see the vSphere Storage documentation.

vSAN registers a separate storage provider for each host in the vSAN cluster, using the following URL:

http://host_ip:8080/version.xml

where host_ip is the actual IP of the host.

Verify that the storage providers are registered.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to vCenter Server.
  2. Click the Configure tab, and click Storage Providers.

Results

The storage providers for vSAN appear on the list. Each host has a storage provider, but only one storage provider is active. Storage providers that belong to other hosts are in standby. If the host that currently has the active storage provider fails, the storage provider for another host becomes active.
Note: You cannot manually unregister storage providers used by vSAN. To remove or unregister the vSAN storage providers, remove corresponding hosts from the vSAN cluster and then add the hosts back. Make sure that at least one storage provider is active.