VSAN deployment Questions

[leosilvapaiola]

Hello community!

We are making our first vsan deployment (spoilert alert, rookie questions coming up), we were wondering:

We are presently doing a VSAN install of a 3 node cluster using the Lenovo X3650 M5, I have a few questions that would like you to answer for me.

1. Is it possible to do a VMotion storage migration from a regular datastore to the VSAN Cluster Storage?
2. We are not yet in position of the 10GB Network Switches, the servers has both 10GB and 1GB NICs installed. Is it possible to do the VSAN Cluster setup using the 1GB NICs and later change the configuration to use the 10GB NICs? If possible, How easy is it to do? Would you recommend that approach?
3. VCenter 6.5 is recently released, would you recommend using this version or using VCenter 6.0 ?
4.   Is there any disadvantage in using the VCenter Appliance versus Windows version?

Number 1 I'm almost 100% sure that we can according to documentation but I'd rather ask before it blows in my face.

[GreatWhiteTec]

Answers...

1- Absolutely

2- It is highly recommended that you have vSAN on 10GB network, especially for Prod.

     a- You could do something like LACP and LAGs to aggregate the 1GB links, but a 10GB deployment is recommended given the the way storage is access across the hosts.

     b- Note HA traffic flows through vSAN vmkernel ports when enabled

     c- Moving to 10GB is pretty straight forward... but again 10GB is the way to go

3- vCenter 6.5 will allow you to run vSAN 6.5 which has a lot of performance enhancements.

4- No disadvantages using VCSA, I actually prefer this method over Windows vCenter.

[Jasemccarty · Accepted solution]

leosilvapaiola​ I have to agree with GreatWhiteTec​

1. Storage vMotion - Fully supported to move VM's to vSAN storage.

2. Specific to your vSAN Network:

• If you hae a Hybrid Configuration, then Dedicated 1Gbps NICs are required
• If you have an All-Flash Configuration, then Shared 10Gbps are required
• If you have a Hybrid Configuration with 1Gbps NICs, and choose to change to 10Gbps later, it is supported. There are a few different methods supported to migrate.
• I'd highly recommend looking into using the vSphere Distributed Switch (included in vSAN licensing) to have more control & better configuration options for vSAN when compared to the traditional vSphere Standard Switch.

3. If you plan on using vSAN 6.5, vCenter 6.5 is required. If you plan on using vSAN 6.2, then the latest vCenter for 6.0 would be recommended.

• There are definitely some feature enhancements in vSAN 6.5, but I'd also mention that vSAN 6.2 (with vSphere 6.0 Update 3) has some updates that make is an awesome choice as well.

4. The VCSA appliance is a great alternative to the Windows vCenter installation, without requiring a Windows license. The 6.5 version even includes Update Manager in the VCSA. Very easy, and preferred by many.