At VMware Explore 2024, the session “VMware vSAN ESA: Your Storage Platform for VMware Cloud Foundation” provided a comprehensive look into how vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) is transforming storage solutions for modern data centers. Led by Duncan Epping and Pete Koehler, this session highlighted the capabilities and benefits of vSAN ESA within VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).
Key Features of vSAN ESA:
- Next-Generation Storage Architecture:
- Designed to handle today’s and tomorrow’s workloads with efficiency and resilience.
- Offers both aggregated and disaggregated configurations for flexible deployment options.
- Performance and Efficiency:
- Erasure Coding with RAID-5/6: Delivers the performance of RAID-1 with the space efficiency of RAID-5/6, optimizing capacity while maintaining performance.
- Granular Snapshotting: vSAN ESA integrates snapshots at the VM level without impacting performance, unlike traditional LUN-based snapshots.
- Data Protection and Management:
- Integrated Data Protection: Includes scalable snapshots and simplified recovery options, making it easier to protect and recover VMs.
- Protection Groups: Offers flexible and easy-to-manage options for snapshot frequency, retention, and immutability, supporting dynamic VM assignments.
- Flexible Deployment:
- vSAN Max: Enables disaggregated storage for independent scaling of compute and storage resources, enhancing cost efficiency and operational flexibility.