Use VSAN in a cluster that hosts are connected to san and use shared storage

[baber]

Hi

I am using EMC san as shared storage in my virtual infrastructure but on the all of my hosts in the cluster (13 esxi hosts) I have 3SSD disks + 2 SAS disks now want to know can I implement VSAN in this cluster with these local disks or had to create a new cluster to use them ?

BR

[TheBobkin]

Hello baber​

Provided your SSDs are certified for cache-tier usage with vSAN and the HDDs are on the vSAN HCL and you have adequate controllers and you have the necessary level of vSAN licensing and the servers support the major version of ESXi you plan on running on them, then yes, you could configure it for vSAN.

This being said, just because you can enable something this doesn't necessarily make it a good idea or something that you would benefit from doing - designing/using servers for one purpose and then at a later point shoe-horning vSAN into them is not always a good idea without properly designing it out for a purpose and usage (e.g. in this case without adding anything all you could do is 2 Disk-Groups with 1 SDD + 1 HDD each or one DG with 1 SSD and 2 HDDs neither of which is a great nor spacious design).

Bob

[baber]

So thanks

Actually we bought SSD disks for use VFLASH but as I understod VSAN is more suitable rather than VFRC on the other hand I have enterprise plus license / esxi 6.7 and HP DL580 G10

now I think if I want use better frm SSD disk it's better create and configure VSAN in my cluster and reside some of machines on that.  is that correct ?

[depping]

vSAN is not part of the Enterprise Plus license, you will need to separately license it. Also, you need to make sure you disk controller, the flash devices and the capacity devices are ALL on the vSAN HCL. Is that the case? (vmwa.re/hclc)

[srodenburg]

If we forget licensing for a second (Duncan already addresses that), yes it is possible. I've done it in migration scenario's where clustered ESXi hosts formed a vSAN Environment and several hosts still had their FC HBA's connected to their "old SAN datastores" so we could storage-vmotion VM's over to the vSAN Datastore. Afterwards, the vSAN nodes where powered down one by one and had their FC HBA's removed and clean up etc. until they where pure vSAN nodes.

I did the same with customers who used to have NFS based storage. In all these cases, I built vSAN nodes out of existing ESXi servers, always totally respecting the vSAN HCL and designing the network appropriately for vSAN (this is often overlooked). Those servers are now in the same league as vSAN Ready Nodes.

All of this is possible because vSAN is totally unrelated and independent from other storage technologies. It can co-exist without problems.

In your case Baber and Bobkin already mentioned it, use the correct controllers, get their firmware and drivers correct. Same rules apply for network connectivity. Do it right. Stick to the vSAN HCL, design vSAN properly and don't "hobby about" or else you will be posting about performance and stability problems next... 😉