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VMware vSAN V6.6 Part II (just the speeds feeds features please)

VMware vSAN v6.6 Part II (just the speeds feeds features please)

In case you missed it, VMware announced vSAN v6.6 hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software defined data infrastructure solution. This is the second of a five-part series about VMware vSAN V6.6. View Part I here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

Image via VMware

For those who are not aware, vSAN is a VMware virtual Storage Area Network (e.g. vSAN) that is software-defined, part of being a software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and software-defined data center (SDDC). Besides being software-defined vSAN is HCI combining compute (server), I/O networking, storage (space and I/O) along with hypervisors, management, and other tools.

Just the Speeds and Feeds Please

For those who just want to see the list of what’s new with vSAN V6.6, here you go:

Native encryption for data-at-rest
Compliance certifications
Resilient management independent of vCenter
Degraded Disk Handling v2.0 (DDHv2)
Smart repairs and enhanced rebalancing
Intelligent rebuilds using partial repairs
Certified file service & data protection solutions
Stretched clusters with local failure protection
Site affinity for stretched clusters
1-click witness change for Stretched Cluster
vSAN Management Pack for vRealize
Enhanced vSAN SDK and PowerCLI
Simple networking with Unicast
vSAN Cloud Analytics with real-time support notification and recommendations
vSAN ConfigAssist with 1-click hardware lifecycle management
Extended vSAN Health Services
vSAN Easy Install with 1-click fixes
Up to 50% greater IOPS for all-flash with optimized checksum and dedupe
Support for new next-gen workloads
vSAN for Photon in Photon Platform 1.1
Day 0 support for latest flash technologies
Expanded caching tier choice
Docker Volume Driver 1.1

What’s New and Value Proposition of vSAN 6.6

Let’s take a closer look beyond the bullet list of what’s new with vSAN 6.6, as well as perspectives of those features to address different needs. The VMware vSAN proposition is to evolve and enable modernizing data infrastructures with HCI powered by vSphere along with vSAN.

Three main themes or characteristics (and benefits) of vSAN 6.6 include addressing (or enabling):

Reducing risk while scaling
Reducing cost and complexity
Scaling for today and tomorrow

Image via VMware

Reducing risk while scaling

Reducing (or removing) risk while evolving your data infrastructure with HCI including flexibility of choosing among five support hardware vendors along with native security. This includes native security, availability and resiliency enhancements (including intelligent rebuilds) without sacrificing storage efficiency (capacity) or effectiveness (performance productivity), management and choice.

Image via VMware

Dat level Data at Rest Encryption (DaRE) of all vSAN dat objects that are enabled at a cluster level. The new functionality supports hybrid along with all flash SSD as well as stretched clusters. The VMware vSAN DaRE implementation is an alternative to using self-encrypting drives (SEDs) reducing cost, complexity and management activity. All vSAN features including data footprint reduction (DFR) features such as compression and deduplication are supported. For security, vSAN DaRE integrations with compliance key management technologies including those from SafeNet, Hytrust, Thales and Vormetric among others.

Image via VMware

ESXi HTML 5 based host client, along with CLI via ESXCLI for administering vSAN clusters as an alternative in case your vCenter server(s) are offline. Management capabilities include monitoring of critical health and status details along with configuration changes.

Image via VMware

Health monitoring enhancements include handling of degraded vSAN devices with intelligence proactively detecting impending device failures. As part of the functionality, if a replica of the failing (or possible soon to fail) device exists, vSAN can take action to maintain data availability.

Where to Learn More

The following are additional resources to find out more about vSAN and related technologies.

VMware vSAN 6.6 Part I, Part II (just the speeds feeds please) here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) located here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).
Launch Webcast and registration link (Registration Link for Modernize Your IT with vSAN Innovations)
VMUG Webinar: What’s New Technical Deep Dive
What’s New Blogs (VMware blogs)
Native Data-at-Rest Encryption (VMware blogs)
What’s New Page (VMware)
vSAN 6.6 Datasheet (PDF)
vSAN Customer Page
VMware Storage Hub
Whats New in VSAN 6.6? (Via ComacHogan)
VMware Security Infographic (PDF)
Via Duncan Epping (@DuncanYB) What’s new for vSAN 6.6?
Introducing vSphere 6.5 (VMware blogs)
VMware vSAN 6.5 Licensing Guide (PDFhttps://vmware.can )
vSAN licensing and packaging (@DuncanYB)
Where to get VMware vSphere and related bits (e.g. VMware downloads here)
Data infrastructures primer and overview
vExpert Panel Discussion Hyper-Convergence and vSAN (Webinar)
The NVMe place (www.thenvmeplace.com) and The SSD Place (www.thessdplace.com)
Server StorageIO CI and HCI microsite landing page www.storageio.com/converge

What this all means

With each new release, vSAN is increasing its feature, functionality, resiliency and extensiveness associated with traditional storage and non-CI or HCI solutions. Continue reading more about VMware vSAN 6.6 in Part I here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

Ok, nuff said (for now…).

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the Spring 2017 release of his new book “Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials” (CRC Press).

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

greg