Before you enable Virtual SAN on a cluster and ESXi hosts, you must construct the necessary network to carry the Virtual SAN communication.

Virtual SAN provides a distributed storage solution, which implies exchanging data across the ESXi hosts that participate in the cluster. Preparing the network for installing Virtual SAN includes certain configuration aspects.

For information about network design guidelines, see Designing the Virtual SAN Network.

Placing Hosts in the Same Subnet

Hosts must be connected in the same subnet for best networking performance. In Virtual SAN 6.0 and later, you can also connect hosts in the same Layer 3 network if required.

Enabling IP Multicast on the Physical Switches

Verify that the physical switches are configured for multicast traffic so that the hosts can exchange Virtual SAN metadata. Configure an IGMP snooping querier on the physical switches for delivery of multicast messages only through the physical switch ports that are connected to the Virtual SAN hosts.

If you have several Virtual SAN clusters in the same subnet, change the default multicast address for the added cluster.

Dedicating Network Bandwidth on a Physical Adapter

Allocate at least 1 Gbps bandwidth for Virtual SAN. You might use one of the following configuration options:

  • Dedicate 1-GbE physical adapters for a hybrid host configuration.
  • Use dedicated or shared 10-GbE physical adapters for all-flash configurations.
  • Use dedicated or shared 10-GbE physical adapters for hybrid configurations if possible.
  • Direct Virtual SAN traffic on a 10-GbE physical adapter that handles other system traffic and use vSphere Network I/O Control on a distributed switch to reserve bandwidth for Virtual SAN.

Configuring a Port Group on a Virtual Switch

Configure a port group on a virtual switch for Virtual SAN.

  • Assign the physical adapter for Virtual SAN to the port group as an active uplink.

    In the case of a NIC team for network availability, select a teaming algorithm based on the connection of the physical adapters to the switch.

  • If designed, assign Virtual SAN traffic to a VLAN by enabling tagging in the virtual switch.

Examining the Firewall on a Host for Virtual SAN

Virtual SAN sends messages on certain ports on each host in the cluster. Verify that the host firewalls allow traffic on these ports.

Table 1. Ports on the Hosts in Virtual SAN
Virtual SAN Service Traffic Direction Communicating Nodes Transport Protocol Port
Virtual SAN Vendor Provider (vsanvp) Incoming and outgoing vCenter Server and ESXi TCP 8080
Virtual SAN Clustering Service ESXi UDP 12345, 23451
Virtual SAN Transport ESXi TCP 2233
Unicast agent ESXi UDP 12321