Great VMware slide deck on VMware VSAN specs, limitations, and pricing.

1. © 2014 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.
VMware Virtual SAN 5.5
Technical Deep Dive – March 2014
Alberto Farronato, VMware
Wade Holmes, VMware
March, 2014

2. Software-Defined Storage
2
Bringing the efficient operational model of virtualization to storage
Virtual Data Services
Data Protection Mobility Performance
Policy-driven Control Plane
SAN / NAS
SAN/NAS Pool
Virtual Data Plane
x86 Servers
Hypervisor-converged
Storage pool
Object Storage Pool
Cloud Object
Storage
Virtual SAN

3. Virtual SAN: Radically Simple Hypervisor-Converged Storage
3
vSphere + VSAN
…
• Runs on any standard x86 server
• Policy-based management framework
• Embedded in vSphere kernel
• High performance flash architecture
• Built-in resiliency
• Deep integration with VMware stack
The Basics
Hard disks
SSD
Hard disks
SSD
Hard disks
SSD
VSAN Shared Datastore

4. 12,000+
Virtual SAN Beta
Participants
95%
Beta customers
Recommend
VSAN
90%
Believe VSAN will
Impact Storage like
vSphere did to
Compute
Unprecedented Customer Interest And Validation
4

5. Why Virtual SAN?
5
• Two click Install
• Single pane of glass
• Policy-driven
• Self-tuning
• Integrated with VMware stack
Radically Simple
• Embedded in vSphere kernel
• Flash-accelerated
• Up to 2M IOPs from 32 nodes
cluster
• Granular and linear scaling
High Performance Lower TCO
• Server-side economics
• No large upfront investments
• Grow-as-you-go
• Easy to operate with powerful
automation
• No specialized skillset

6. Two Ways to Build a Virtual SAN Node
6
Completely Hardware Independent
1. Virtual SAN Ready Node
…with multiple options available at GA + 30
Preconfigured server ready to use Virtual
SAN…
2. Build Your Own
…using the Virtual SAN Compatibility Guide*
Choose individual components …
SSD or PCIe
SAS/NL-SAS/ SATA HDDs
Any Server on vSphere
Hardware Compatibility List
HBA/RAID Controller
⃰ Note: For additional details, please refer to Virtual SAN VMware Compatibility Guide Page
⃰ Components for Virtual SAN must be chosen from Virtual SAN HCL, using any other components is unsupported

7. Broad Partner Ecosystem Support for Virtual SAN
7
Storage
Server / Systems
Solution
Data Protection
Solution

8. Virtual SAN Simplifies And Automates Storage Management
8
Per VM Storage Service Levels From a Single Self-tuning Datastore
Storage Policy-Based Management
Virtual SAN
Shared Datastore
vSphere + Virtual SAN
SLAs
Software Automates
Control of Service Levels
No more LUNs/Volumes!
Policies Set Based
on Application Needs
Capacity
Performance
Availability
Per VM
Storage Policies
“Virtual SAN is easy to deploy,
just a few check boxes. No
need to configure RAID.”
— Jim Streit
IT Architect, Thomson Reuters

9. Virtual SAN Delivers Enterprise-Grade Scale
9
2M
IOPS
3,200
VMs
4.4
Petabytes
Maximum Scalability per Virtual SAN Cluster
32
Hosts
“Virtual SAN’s allows us to build out
scalable heterogeneous storage
infrastructure like the Facebooks and
Googles of the world. Virtual SAN allows
us to add scale, add resources, while
being able to service high performance
workloads.”
— Dave Burns
VP of Tech Ops, Cincinnati Bell

10. High Performance with Elastic and Linear Scalability
10
80K 160K
320K
480K
640K
253K
505K
1M
1.5M
2M
4 8 16 24 32
IOPS
Number of Hosts In Virtual SAN Cluster
Mixed 100% Read
286
473
677
767
805
3 5 7 8
Number of Hosts In Virtual SAN Cluster
Number of VDI VMs
VSAN All SSD Array
Notes: based on IOmeter benchmark
Mixed = 70% Read, 4K 80% random Notes: Based on View Planner benchmark
Up to 2M IOPs in 32 Node Cluster Comparable VDI density to an All Flash Array

11. Virtual SAN is Deeply Integrated with VMware Stack
11
Ideal for VMware Environments
CONFIDENTIAL – NDA ONLY
vMotion
vSphere HA
DRS
Storage vMotion
vSphere
Snapshots
Linked Clones
VDP Advanced
vSphere Replication
Data Protection
VMware View
Virtual Desktop
vCenter Operations Manager
vCloud Automation Center
IaaS
Cloud Ops and Automation
Site Recovery Manager
Disaster Recovery
Site A Site B
Storage Policy-Based Management

12. Virtual SAN 5.5 – Pricing And Packing
12
VSAN Editions and Bundles
Virtual SAN
Virtual SAN with Data
Protection
Virtual SAN for Desktop
Overview
• Standalone edition
• No capacity, scale or
workload restriction
• Bundle of Virtual SAN and
vSphere Data Protection Adv.
• Standalone edition
• VDI only (VMware or Citrix)
• Concurrent or named users
Licensing Per CPU Per CPU Per User
Price (USD) $2,495
$2,875
(Promo ends Sept 15th 2014)
$50
Features
Persistent data store   
Read / Write caching   
Policy-based Management   
Virtual Distributed Switch   
Replication
(vSphere Replication)
  
Snapshots and clones
(vSphere Snapshots & Clones)
  
Backup
(vSphere Data Protection Advanced)

Not for Public Disclosure
NDA Material only
Do not share with Public until GA
Note: Regional pricing in standard VMware currencies applies. Please check local pricelists for more detail.

13. Virtual SAN – Launch Promotions
13
Virtual SAN
with Data
Protection
Virtual SAN
(1 CPU)
vSphere Data
Protection
Advanced
(1 CPU)
VSA to VSAN
upgrade
Virtual SAN
(6 CPUs per
bundle)
Register and
download promo
Virtual SAN
(1 CPU)
Beta PromoBundle Promos
20% 20% 20%
Not for Public Disclosure
NDA Material only
Do not share with Public until GA
$9,180 / bundle$2,875 / CPU $1,996 / CPU
Promo Discount
Promo Price
End Date
Terms
9/15/2014 9/15/2014 6/15/2014
• Min purchase of 10 CPUs
• First purchase only
Note: Regional pricing for promotions exist in standard VMware currencies. Please check local pricelists for more detail.

14. Virtual SAN Reduces CAPEX and OPEX for Better TCO
14
CAPEX
• Server-side economics
• No Fibre Channel network
• Pay-as-you-grow
OPEX
• Simplified storage configuration
• No LUNs
• Managed directly through
vSphere Web Client
• Automated VM provisioning
• Simplified capacity planning
As Low as
$0.50/GB2
As Low as
$0.25/IOPS
5X Lower
OPEX4
Up to 50%
TCO
Reduction
As Low as
$50/Desktop
1
1. Full clones
2. Usable capacity
3. Estimated based on 2013 street pricing, Capex (includes storage hardware + Software License costs)
4. Source: Taneja Group
Not for Public Disclosure
NDA Material only
Do not share with Public until GA

15. Flexibly Configure For Performance And Capacity
15
Performance
2xCPU – 8-core
128GB Memory
2xCPU – 8-core
128GB Memory
2xCPU – 8-core
128GB Memory
1x
400GB MLC SSD
(~15% of usable capacity)
1x
400GB MLC SSD
(~10% of usable capacity)
2x
400GB MLC SSD
(~4% of usable capacity)
5x
1.2TB 10K SAS
7x
2TB 7.2K NL-SAS
10x
4TB 7.2K NL-SAS
IOPS1
Raw Capacity
~20-15K
6TB
~15-10K
14TB
~10-5K
40TB
Capacity
1. Mix workload 70% Read, 80% Random
Estimated based on 2013 street pricing, Capex (includes storage hardware + Software License costs)
$0.32/IOPS
$2.12/GB
$0.57/IOPS
$1.02/GB
$1.38/IOPS
$0.52/GB
Not for Public Disclosure
NDA Material only
Do not share with Public until GA

16. • Compared to external storage at scale
• Estimated based on 2013 street pricing, Capex (includes storage hardware + Software License costs)
• Additional savings come from reduced Opex through automation
• Virtual SAN configuration: 9 VMs per core, with 40GB per VM, 2 copies for availability and 10% SSD for performance
Granular Scaling Eliminates Overprovisioning
Delivers Predictable Scaling and ability to Control Costs
VSAN enables
predictable linear
scaling
Spikes correspond to
scaling out due to
IOPs requirements
16
$40
$90
$140
$190
$240
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
StorageCostPerDesktop
Number of Desktops
$/VDI Storage Cost
Virtual SAN Midrange Hybrid Array
Not for Public Disclosure
NDA Material only
Do not share with Public until GA

17. Running a Google-like Datacenter
17
Modular infrastructure. Break-Replace Operations
"From a break fix perspective, I think
there's a huge difference in what
needs to be done when a piece of
hardware fails. I can have anyone
on my team go back and replace a
1U or 2U servers. … essentially
modularizing my datacenter and
delivering a true Software-Defined
Storage architecture."
— Ryan Hoenle
Director of IT, DOE Fund

18. Hardware Requirements
18
Any Server on the VMware
Compatibility Guide
• SSD, HDD, and Storage Controllers must be listed on the VMware Compatibility Guide for VSAN
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=vsan
• Minimum 3 ESXi 5.5 Hosts, Maximum Hosts ―I’ll tell you later……‖
1Gb/10Gb NIC
SAS/SATA Controllers (RAID Controllers must work in
―pass-through‖ or RAID0‖ mode
SAS/SATA/PCIe SSD
SAS/NL-SAS/SATA HDD
At least 1 of
each
4GB to 8GB USB, SD Cards

19. Flash Based Devices
VMware SSD Performance Classes
– Class A: 2,500-5,000 writes per second
– Class B: 5,000-10,000 writes per second
– Class C: 10,000-20,000 writes per second
– Class D: 20,000-30,000 writes per second
– Class E: 30,000+ writes per second
Examples
– Intel DC S3700 SSD ~36000 writes per second -> Class E
– Toshiba SAS SSD MK2001GRZB ~16000 writes per second
-> Class C
Workload Definition
– Queue Depth: 16 or less
– Transfer Length: 4KB
– Operations: write
– Pattern: 100% random
– Latency: less than 5 ms
Endurance
– 10 Drive Writes per Day (DWPD), and
– Random write endurance up to 3.5 PB on 8KB transfer size
per NAND module, or 2.5 PB on 4KB transfer size per
NAND module
19

20. Flash Capacity Sizing
 The general recommendation for sizing Virtual SAN's flash capacity is to have 10% of the anticipated
consumed storage capacity before the Number of Failures To Tolerate is considered.
 Total flash capacity percentage should be based on use case, capacity and performance requirements.
– 10% is a general recommendation, could be too much or it may not be enough.
Measurement Requirements Values
Projected VM space usage 20GB
Projected number of VMs 1000
Total projected space consumption per VM 20GB x 1000 = 20,000 GB = 20 TB
Target flash capacity percentage 10%
Total flash capacity required 20TB x .10 = 2 TB

21. Multi-level cell SSD (or better) or
PCIe SSD
SAS/NL-SAS HDD
Select SATA HDDs
Any Server on vSphere
Hardware Compatibility List
* Note: For additional details, please refer to Virtual SAN VMware Compatibility Guide
6Gb enterprise-grade
HBA/RAID Controller
1 2 Build your ownVSAN Ready Node
…with 10 different options between
multiple 3rd party vendors available at GA
Preconfigured server ready to use VSAN…
…using the VSAN Compatibility Guide*
Choose individual components …
Two Ways to Build a Virtual SAN Node
Radically Simple Hypervisor-Converged Storage

22. Virtual SAN Implementation Requirements
• Virtual SAN requires:
– Minimum of 3 hosts in a cluster configuration
– All 3 host MUST!!! contribute storage
• vSphere 5.5 U1 or later
– Locally attached disks
• Magnetic disks (HDD)
• Flash-based devices (SSD)
– Network connectivity
• 1GB Ethernet
• 10GB Ethernet (preferred)
22
esxi-01
local storage local storage local storage
vSphere 5.5 U1 Cluster
esxi-02 esxi-03
cluster
HDDHDD HDD

23. Virtual SAN Scalable Architecture
23
• Scale up and Scale out architecture – granular and linearly storage, performance and compute
scaling capabilities
– Per magnetic disks – for capacity
– Per flash based device – for performance
– Per disk group – for performance and capacity
– Per node – for compute capacity
disk group disk group disk group
VSAN network VSAN networkVSAN network
vsanDatastore
HDD
disk group
HDD HDD HDD
disk group
VSAN network
HDD
scaleup
scale out

24. Oh yeah! Scalability…..
24
vsanDatastore
4.4 Petabytes
2 Million IOPS
32 Hosts

25. Storage Policy-based Management
• SPBM is a storage policy framework built into vSphere that enables virtual machine policy
driven provisioning.
• Virtual SAN leverages this new framework in conjunction with VASA API’s to expose
storage characteristics to vCenter:
– Storage capabilities
• Underlying storage surfaces up to vCenter and what it is capable of offering.
– Virtual machine storage requirements
• Requirements can only be used against available capabilities.
– VM Storage Policies
• Construct that stores virtual machine’s storage provisioning requirements based on storage capabilities.
25

26. Storage Policy Wizard
SPBM
VSAN object
VSAN object manager
virtual disk
VSAN objects may be
(1) mirrored across hosts &
(2) striped across disks/hosts to meet VM
storage profile policies
Datastore Profile
Virtual SAN SPBM Object Provisioning Mechanism

27. Virtual SAN Disk Groups
• Virtual SAN uses the concept of disk groups to pool together flash devices and magnetic disks
as single management constructs.
• Disk groups are composed of at least 1 flash device and 1 magnetic disk.
– Flash devices are use for performance (Read cache + Write buffer).
– Magnetic disks are used for storage capacity.
– Disk groups cannot be created without a flash device.
27
disk group disk group disk group disk group
Each host: 5 disk groups max. Each disk group: 1 SSD + 1 to 7 HDDs
disk group
HDD HDDHDDHDDHDD

28. Virtual SAN Datastore
• Virtual SAN is an object store solution that is presented to vSphere as a file system.
• The object store mounts the VMFS volumes from all hosts in a cluster and presents them as a
single shared datastore.
– Only members of the cluster can access the Virtual SAN datastore
– Not all hosts need to contribute storage, but its recommended.
28
disk group disk group disk group disk group
Each host: 5 disk groups max. Each disk group: 1 SSD + 1 to 7 HDDs
disk group
VSAN network VSAN network VSAN network VSAN networkVSAN network
vsanDatastore
HDD HDDHDDHDDHDD

29. Virtual SAN Network
• New Virtual SAN traffic VMkernel interface.
– Dedicated for Virtual SAN intra-cluster communication and data replication.
• Supports both Standard and Distributes vSwitches
– Leverage NIOC for QoS in shared scenarios
• NIC teaming – used for availability and not for bandwidth aggregation.
• Layer 2 Multicast must be enabled on physical switches.
– Much easier to manage and implement than Layer 3 Multicast
29
Management Virtual Machines vMotion Virtual SAN
Distributed Switch
20 shares 30 shares 50 shares 100 shares
uplink1 uplink2
vmk1 vmk2vmk0

30. Virtual SAN Network
• NIC teamed and load balancing algorithms:
– Route based on Port ID
• active / passive with explicit failover
– Route based on IP Hash
• active / active with LACP port channel
– Route based on Physical NIC load
• active / active with LACP port channel
Management Virtual Machines vMotion Virtual SAN
Distributed Switch
100 shares 150 shares 250 shares 500 shares
uplink1 uplink2
vmk1 vmk2vmk0
Multi chassis link aggregation capable switches

31. VMware Virtual SAN
Interoperability Technologies and Products

32. VMware Virtual SAN
Configuration Walkthrough

33. Configuring VMware Virtual SAN
• Radically Simple configuration procedure
33
Setup Virtual SAN
Network
Enable Virtual SAN
on the Cluster
Select Manual or
Automatic
If Manual, create
disk groups

34. Configure Network
34
• Configure the new dedicated Virtual SAN network
– vSphere Web Client network template configuration feature.

35. Enable Virtual SAN
• One click away!!!
– Virtual SAN configured in Automatic mode, all empty local disks are claimed by Virtual SAN for the
creation of the distributed vsanDatastore.
– Virtual SAN configured in Manual mode, the administrator must manually select disks to add the the
distributed vsanDatastore by creating Disk Groups.
35

36. Virtual SAN Datastore
• A single Virtual SAN Datastore is created and mounted, using storage from all multiple hosts
and disk groups in the cluster.
• Virtual SAN Datastore is automatically presented to all hosts in the cluster.
• Virtual SAN Datastore enforces thin-provisioning storage allocation by default.
36

37. Virtual SAN Capabilities
• Virtual SAN currently surfaces five unique storage capabilities to vCenter.
37

38. Number of Failures to Tolerate
• Number of failures to tolerate
– Defines the number of hosts, disk or network failures a storage object can tolerate. For ―n‖ failures
tolerated, ―n+1‖ copies of the object are created and ―2n+1‖ host contributing storage are required.
38
vsan network
vmdkvmdk witness
esxi-01 esxi-02 esxi-03 esxi-04
~50% of I/O ~50% of I/O
Virtual SAN Policy: ―Number of failures to tolerate = 1‖
raid-1

39. Number of Disk Stripes Per Object
• Number of disk stripes per object
– The number of HDDs across which each replica of a storage object is distributed. Higher values may
result in better performance.
39
vsan network
stripe-2b witness
esxi-01 esxi-02 esxi-03 esxi-04
stripe-1b
stripe-1a stripe-2a
raid-0raid-0
VSAN Policy: ―Number of failures to tolerate = 1‖ + ―Stripe Width =2‖
raid-1

40. Managing Failure Scenarios
 Through policies, VM’s on Virtual SAN can tolerate multiple failures
– Disk Failure – degraded event
– SSD Failure – degraded event
– Controller Failure – degraded event
– Network Failure – absent event
– Server Failure – absent event
 VM’s continue to run
 Parallel rebuilds minimize performance pain
– SSD Fail – immediately
– HDD Fail – immediately
– Controller Fail – immediately
– Network Fail – 60 minutes
– Host Fail – 60 minutes
40

41. Virtual SAN Storage Capabilities
• Force provisioning
– if yes, the object will be provisioned even is the policy specified in the storage policy is not satisfiable
with the resources currently available.
• Flash read cache reservation (%)
– Flash capacity reserved as read cache for the storage object. Specified as a percentage of logical size
of the object.
• Object space reservation (%)
– Percentage of the logical size of the storage object that will be reserved (thick provisioned) upon VM
provisioning. The rest of the storage object is thin provisioned.
41

42. VM Storage Policies Recommendations
• Number of Disk Stripes per object
– Should be left at 1, unless the IOPS requirements of the VM is not being met by the flash layer.
• Flash Read Cache Reservation
– Should be left at 0, unless there is a specific performance requirement to be met by a VM.
• Proportional Capacity
– Should be left at 0, unless thick provisioning of virtual machines is required.
• Force Provisioning
– Should be left disabled, unless the VM needs to be provisioned, even if not in compliance.
42

43. Failure Handling Philosophy
 Traditional SANs
– Physical drive needs to be replaced to get back to full redundancy
– Hot-spare disks are set aside to take role of failed disks immediately
– In both cases: 1:1 replacement of disk
 Virtual SAN
– Entire cluster is a ―hot-spare‖, we always want to get back to full redundancy
– When a disk fails, many small components (stripes or mirrors of objects) fail
– New copies of these components can be spread around the cluster for balancing
– Replacement of the physical disk just adds back resources

44. Understanding Failure Events
 Degraded events are responsible to trigger the immediate recovery operations.
– Triggers the immediate recovery operation of objects and components
– Not configurable
 Any of the following detected I/O errors are always deemed degraded:
– Magnetic disk failures
– Flash based devices failures
– Storage controller failures
 Any of the following detected I/O errors are always deemed absent:
– Network failures
– Network Interface Cards (NICs)
– Host failures
44

45. Maintenance Mode – planned downtime
 3 Maintenance mode options:
 Ensure accessibility
 Full data migration
 No data migration

46. For more information, visit:
http://www.vmware.com/products/virtual-san