Introduction to vSAN Network

You can use vSAN to provision the shared storage within vSphere. vSAN aggregates local or direct-attached storage devices of a host cluster and creates a single storage pool shared across all hosts in the vSAN cluster.

vSAN is a distributed and shared storage solution that depends on a highly available, properly configured network for vSAN storage traffic. A high performing and available network is crucial to a successful vSAN deployment. This guide provides recommendations on how to design and configure a vSAN network.

vSAN has a distributed architecture that relies on a high-performing, scalable, and resilient network. All host nodes within a vSAN cluster communicate over the IP network. All the hosts must maintain IP unicast connectivity, so they can communicate over a Layer 2 or Layer 3 network. For more information on the unicast communication, see Using Unicast in vSAN Network.

Releases prior to vSAN version 6.6 require IP multicast. If possible, always use the latest version of vSAN. For more information on multicast, see Using Multicast in vSAN Network.