You can use the Configure Virtual SAN wizard to complete the basic configuration of your Virtual SAN cluster.

Prerequisites

You must create a cluster and add hosts to the cluster before using the Configure Virtual SAN wizard to complete the basic configuration.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to an existing cluster in the vSphere Web Client.
  2. Click the Configure tab.
  3. Under Virtual SAN, select General and click the Configure button.
  4. Select Virtual SAN capabilities.
    1. Select the mode in which storage devices must be claimed.
      Option Description
      Automatic Claims all empty devices on the included hosts for Virtual SAN. Virtual SAN in automatic mode claims only local devices on the ESXi hosts in the cluster. You can add any remote, nonshared devices manually.
      Manual Requires manual claiming of the devices on the included hosts. New devices on the host are not added to Virtual SAN. With the manual mode, two methods of organizing devices into disk groups exist, semi-automatic and manual.
      Note: When you use this mode, a Virtual SAN datastore is created, with the initial size of zero byte. The datastore remains unusable until you manually claim devices.
    2. Select the Enable check box if you want to enable deduplication and compression on the cluster.
      You can select the Allow Reduced Redundancy check box to enable deduplication and compression on a Virtual SAN cluster that has limited resources, such as a three-host cluster with the Number of failures to tolerate set to 1. If you allow reduced redundancy, your data might be at risk during the disk reformat operation.
    3. Select the fault tolerance mode for the cluster.
      Option Description
      Do not configure Default setting used for a single-site Virtual SAN cluster.
      2 host virtual SAN cluster Provides fault tolerance for a cluster that has two hosts at a remote office, with a witness host in the main office. Set the Number of failures to tolerate policy to 1.
      Stretched cluster Supports two active sites, each with an even number of hosts and storage devices, and a witness host at a third site.
      Configure fault domains Supports fault domains that you can use to group Virtual SAN hosts that might fail together. Assign one or more hosts to each fault domain.
  5. Click Next.
  6. On the Network validation page, check the settings for Virtual SAN VMkernel adapters, and click Next.
  7. (Optional) If you chose to use the manual mode to claim disks, claim the disks for use by the cluster and click Next.
  8. Follow the wizard to complete the configuration of the cluster, based on the fault tolerance mode.
    1. If you selected Configure two host Virtual SAN cluster, choose a witness host for the cluster, and claim disks for the witness host.
    2. If you selected Configure stretched cluster, define fault domains for the cluster, choose a witness host, and claim disks for the witness host.
    3. If you selected Configure fault domains, define fault domains for the cluster.
    For more information about fault domains, see Managing Fault Domains in Virtual SAN Clusters.
    For more information about stretched clusters, see Extending a Datastore Across Two Sites with Stretched Clusters.
  9. On the Ready to complete page, review the configuration, and click Finish.