IT infrastructures based on hyperconverged solutions are on the rise. A hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) combines computing, virtualization, storage and networking in one central cluster. Users can easily scale in scope in line with their computing and storage resources, and these capacities become a single entity without needing a central storage system. VMware vSAN is one of the most well-known, popular and best hyperconverged solutions available. Read more about vSAN and its benefits here.
What is VMware vSAN and what does it do?
vSAN is the software-defined and enterprise-class storage platform from VMware. It’s the only solution of its type to be fully integrated in the hypervisor – other solutions use a separate virtual machine running on top of the hypervisor for each host. Gartner has named VMware as a Leader in their Magic Quadrant for HCI.
HCI based on vSAN technology allows you to combine computing and storage on one integrated platform. VMware’s HCI solution consists of:
- vSphere, the market-leading hypervisor;
- The vCenter server, a complete and integrated computing and storage management solution;
- The vSAN storage solution.
vSAN ensures you no longer need to buy and manage separate storage arrays, hardware or cabling. You set policies to automatically control availability and performance, which you can customise and assign to individual VMs. And if your needs and requirements change, you can easily update your rules and policies in just a few clicks with no downtime. Techniques such as deduplication and compression improve efficiency in your storage environment even further. And for higher performance and capacity, simply add the required components to an existing vSAN cluster.
