Configure a vSAN Cluster

In the previous post we have successfully created a vSAN VMkernel Network for the vSAN Cluster. In this post we will see how to configure a vSAN on the cluster. In this example I'm enabling a vSAN on an existing cluster.

Before we start configuring a vSAN, let's have a quick recap at the characteristics of a vSAN Cluster -

• You can have multiple vSAN clusters for each vCenter Server instance.

• vSAN clusters can include hosts with or without capacity devices. The minimum requirement is three hosts with capacity devices. For best results, create a vSAN cluster with uniformly configured hosts.

• If a host contributes capacity, it must have at least one flash cache device and one capacity device.

• In hybrid clusters, the magnetic disks are used for capacity and flash devices for read and write cache. vSAN allocates 70 percent of all available cache for read cache and 30 percent of available cache for the write buffer. In a hybrid configuration, the flash devices serve as a read cache and a write buffer.

• In all-flash clusters, one designated flash device is used as a write cache, additional flash devices are used for capacity. In all-flash clusters, all read requests come directly from the flash pool capacity.

Prerequisites

You must create a cluster and add hosts to the cluster before using the Configure Virtual SAN wizard to complete the basic configuration.

Procedure

1. Navigate to an existing cluster in the vSphere Web Client.

2. Click the Configure tab. Under vSAN, select General and click the Configure button.

3. On the next page, select vSAN capabilities and click on Next

• (Optional) Select the Deduplication and Compression check box if you want to enable deduplication and compression on the cluster.

• You can select the Allow Reduced Redundancy check box to enable deduplication and compression on a Virtual SAN cluster that has limited resources, such as a three-host cluster with the Primary level of failures to tolerate set to 1. If you allow reduced redundancy, your data might be at risk during the disk reformat operation.

• (Optional) Select the Encryption check box if you want to enable data at rest encryption, and select a KMS.

You would then need to select the fault tolerance mode for the cluster.

• Do not configure - Default setting used for a single-site Virtual SAN cluster.

• Configure two host vSAN cluster - Provides fault tolerance for a cluster that has two hosts at a remote office, with a witness host in the main office. Set the Primary level of failures to tolerate policy to 1.

• Configure stretched cluster - Supports two active sites, each with an even number of hosts and storage devices, and a witness host at a third site.

• Configure fault domains - Supports fault domains that you can use to group Virtual SAN hosts that might fail together. Assign one or more hosts to each fault domain.

4. On the Network validation page, check the settings for Virtual SAN VMkernel adapters, and click Next.

5. On the Claim disks page, select the disks for use by the cluster and click Next.

For each host that contributes storage, select one flash device for the cache tier, and one or more devices for the capacity tier.

6. On the Ready to complete page, review the configuration, and click Finish.

Once you click on Finish you would see multiple tasks in the vCenter for vSAN Cluster Creation. Once all the tasks gets completed you will see that the vSAN is turned on.

We have now successfully created a vSAN Cluster.

Thank you for reading!

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