Administering VMware

vSAN
Update 3
VMware vSphere 7.0
VMware vSAN 7.0
Administering VMware vSAN

You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware website at:

https://docs.vmware.com/

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 Contents

About Administering VMware vSAN 7

1 Introduction to vSAN 8

2 Configuring and Managing a vSAN Cluster 9

Configure a Cluster for vSAN Using the vSphere Client 9
Enable vSAN on an Existing Cluster 11
Disable vSAN 12
Edit vSAN Settings 13
View vSAN Datastore 14
Upload Files or Folders to vSAN Datastores 16
Download Files or Folders from vSAN Datastores 16

3 Using vSAN Policies 18

About vSAN Policies 18
View vSAN Storage Providers 22
About the vSAN Default Storage Policy 23
Change the Default Storage Policy for vSAN Datastores 24
Define a Storage Policy for vSAN Using vSphere Client 25

4 Expanding and Managing a vSAN Cluster 28

Expanding a vSAN Cluster 28
Expanding vSAN Cluster Capacity and Performance 29
Use Quickstart to Add Hosts to a vSAN Cluster 29
Add a Host to the vSAN Cluster 30
Configuring Hosts Using Host Profile 31
Sharing Remote Datastores with HCI Mesh 33
View Remote Datastores 35
Mount Remote Datastore 36
Unmount Remote Datastore 36
Monitor HCI Mesh 36
Working with Maintenance Mode 38
Check a Host's Data Migration Capabilities 39
Place a Member of vSAN Cluster in Maintenance Mode 40
Managing Fault Domains in vSAN Clusters 42
Create a New Fault Domain in vSAN Cluster 43
Move Host into Selected Fault Domain 44
Move Hosts out of a Fault Domain 44

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Rename a Fault Domain 44

Remove Selected Fault Domains 45
Tolerate Additional Failures with Fault Domain 45
Using the vSAN iSCSI Target Service 46
Enable the iSCSI Target Service 47
Create an iSCSI Target 47
Add a LUN to an iSCSI Target 48
Resize a LUN on an iSCSI Target 49
Create an iSCSI Initiator Group 49
Assign a Target to an iSCSI Initiator Group 50
Disable the iSCSI Target Service 50
Monitor vSAN iSCSI Target Service 51
vSAN File Service 51
Limitations and Considerations 53
Configure File Services 53
Edit vSAN File Service 59
Create a File Share 60
View File Shares 62
Access File Shares 62
Edit a File Share 64
Manage SMB File Share 65
Delete a File Share 65
vSAN Distributed File System Snapshot 66
Rebalance Workload on vSAN File Service Hosts 67
Reclaiming Space with Unmap 68
Upgrade File Service 68
Monitor Performance 69
Monitor Capacity 70
Monitor Health 70
Migrate a Hybrid vSAN Cluster to an All-Flash Cluster 71
Shutting Down and Restarting the vSAN Cluster 71
Shut Down the vSAN Cluster Using the Shutdown Cluster Wizard 72
Restart the vSAN Cluster 73
Manually Shut Down and Restart the vSAN Cluster 73

5 Device Management in a vSAN Cluster 77

Managing Disk Groups and Devices 77
Create a Disk Group on a vSAN Host 78
Claim Storage Devices for a vSAN Cluster 79
Claim Disks for vSAN Direct 80
Working with Individual Devices 80

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Add Devices to the Disk Group 81

Check a Disk or Disk Group's Data Migration Capabilities 82
Remove Disk Groups or Devices from vSAN 82
Recreate a Disk Group 83
Using Locator LEDs 84
Mark Devices as Flash 85
Mark Devices as HDD 85
Mark Devices as Local 86
Mark Devices as Remote 86
Add a Capacity Device 87
Remove Partition From Devices 87

6 Increasing Space Efficiency in a vSAN Cluster 89

Introduction to vSAN Space Efficiency 89
Reclaiming Space with SCSI Unmap 89
Using Deduplication and Compression 90
Deduplication and Compression Design Considerations 92
Enable Deduplication and Compression on a New vSAN Cluster 92
Enable Deduplication and Compression on Existing vSAN Cluster 93
Disable Deduplication and Compression 93
Reducing VM Redundancy for vSAN Cluster 94
Adding or Removing Disks with Deduplication and Compression Enabled 95
Using RAID 5 or RAID 6 Erasure Coding 95
RAID 5 or RAID 6 Design Considerations 96

7 Using Encryption in a vSAN Cluster 97

vSAN Data-In-Transit Encryption 97
Enable Data-In-Transit Encryption on a vSAN Cluster 98
vSAN Data-At-Rest Encryption 98
How Data-At-Rest Encryption Works 99
Design Considerations for Data-At-Rest Encryption 100
Set Up the Standard Key Provider 100
Enable Data-At-Rest Encryption on a New vSAN Cluster 106
Generate New Data-At-Rest Encryption Keys 107
Enable Data-At-Rest Encryption on Existing vSAN Cluster 108
vSAN Encryption and Core Dumps 109

8 Upgrading the vSAN Cluster 113

Before You Upgrade vSAN 114
Upgrade the vCenter Server 116
Upgrade the ESXi Hosts 116

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About the vSAN Disk Format 117

Upgrading vSAN Disk Format Using vSphere Client 119
Upgrade vSAN Disk Format Using RVC 120
Verify the vSAN Disk Format Upgrade 122
About vSAN Object Format 122
Verify the vSAN Cluster Upgrade 123
Using the RVC Upgrade Command Options 123
vSAN Build Recommendations for vSphere Lifecycle Manager 124

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About Administering VMware vSAN

Administering VMware vSAN describes how to configure and manage a vSAN cluster in a
®
VMware vSphere environment. In addition, Administering VMware vSAN explains how to
manage the local physical storage resources that serve as storage capacity devices in a vSAN
cluster, and how to define storage policies for virtual machines deployed to vSAN datastores.

At VMware, we value inclusion. To foster this principle within our customer, partner, and internal
community, we create content using inclusive language.

Intended Audience
This information is for experienced virtualization administrators who are familiar with virtualization
technology, day-to-day data center operations, and vSAN concepts.

For more information about vSAN and how to create a vSAN cluster, see the vSAN Planning and
Deployment Guide.

For more information about monitoring a vSAN cluster and fixing problems, see the vSAN
Monitoring and Troubleshooting Guide.

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Introduction to vSAN
1
VMware vSAN is a distributed layer of software that runs natively as a part of the ESXi
hypervisor. vSAN aggregates local or direct-attached capacity devices of a host cluster and
creates a single storage pool shared across all hosts in the vSAN cluster.

While supporting VMware features that require shared storage, such as HA, vMotion, and DRS,
vSAN eliminates the need for external shared storage and simplifies storage configuration and
virtual machine provisioning activities.

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Configuring and Managing a vSAN
Cluster 2
You can configure and manage a vSAN cluster by using the vSphere Client, esxcli commands,
and other tools.

This chapter includes the following topics:

n Configure a Cluster for vSAN Using the vSphere Client

n Enable vSAN on an Existing Cluster

n Disable vSAN

n Edit vSAN Settings

n View vSAN Datastore

n Upload Files or Folders to vSAN Datastores

n Download Files or Folders from vSAN Datastores

Configure a Cluster for vSAN Using the vSphere Client

You can use the HTML5-based vSphere Client to configure your vSAN cluster.

Note You can use Quickstart to quickly create and configure a vSAN cluster. For more
information, see "Using Quickstart to Configure and Expand a vSAN Cluster" in vSAN Planning
and Deployment .

Note vSAN HCI Mesh compute clusters have limited configuration options.

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Prerequisites

Verify that your environment meets all requirements. See "Requirements for Enabling vSAN" in
vSAN Planning and Deployment.

Create a cluster and add hosts to the cluster before enabling and configuring vSAN.

Procedure

1 Navigate to an existing host cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, select Services.

4 Click Configure vSAN to open the Configure vSAN wizard.

5 Select the type of vSAN cluster to configure, and click Next.

n Single site cluster. For more information, see "vSAN Deployment Options" in vSAN
Planning and Deployment.

n Single site cluster with custom fault domains.

n Two node vSAN cluster.

n Stretched cluster.

n vSAN HCI Mesh compute cluster. For more information, see "Sharing Remote Datastores
with HCI Mesh" in Administering VMware vSAN.

6 Configure the vSAN services to use, and click Next.

Configure data management features, including deduplication and compression, data-at-rest

encryption, and data-in-transit encryption. For more details, see Edit vSAN Settings.

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7 Claim disks for the vSAN cluster, and click Next.

Each host requires at least one flash device in the cache tier, and one or more devices in
the capacity tier. For more details, see "Managing Disk Groups and Devices" in Administering
VMware vSAN.

8 Review the configuration, and click Finish.

Results

Enabling vSAN creates a vSAN datastore and registers the vSAN storage provider. vSAN storage
providers are built-in software components that communicate the storage capabilities of the
datastore to vCenter Server.

What to do next

Claim disks or create disk groups. See "Managing Disk Groups and Devices" in Administering
VMware vSAN.

Verify that the vSAN datastore has been created. See View vSAN Datastore.

Verify that the vSAN storage provider is registered.

Enable vSAN on an Existing Cluster

You can edit cluster properties to enable vSAN on an existing cluster.

Prerequisites

Verify that your environment meets all requirements. See "Requirements for Enabling vSAN" in
vSAN Planning and Deployment.

Note vSAN HCI Mesh compute clusters have limited configuration options.

Procedure

1 Navigate to an existing host cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, select Services.

4 Click Configure vSAN.

5 Select the type of vSAN cluster to configure, and click Next.

n Single site cluster.

n Single site cluster with custom fault domains.

n Two node vSAN cluster.

n Stretched cluster.

n vSAN HCI Mesh compute cluster. For more information, see "Sharing Remote Datastores
with HCI Mesh" in Administering VMware vSAN.

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Administering VMware vSAN

6 Configure the vSAN services to use, and click Next.

n Configure vSAN performance service. For more information, see "Monitoring vSAN
Performance" in vSAN Monitoring and Troubleshooting.

n Enable File Service. For more information, see "vSAN File Service" in Administering
VMware vSAN.

n Configure vSAN Network options. For more information, see "Designing the vSAN
Network" in vSAN Planning and Deployment .

n Configure vSAN historical health service.

n Configure iSCSI target service. For more information, see "Using the vSAN iSCSI Target
Service" in Administering VMware vSAN.

n Configure Data Management options, including deduplication and compression, data-at-

rest encryption, and data-in-transit encryption.

n Configure capacity reservations and alerts. For more information, see "About Reserved
Capacity" in vSAN Monitoring and Troubleshooting.

n Configure advanced options:

n Object Repair Timer

n Site Read Locality for stretched clusters

n Thin Swap provisioning

n Large Cluster Support for up to 64 hosts

n Automatic Rebalance

7 Claim disks for the vSAN cluster, and click Next.

Each host requires at least one flash device in the cache tier, and one or more devices in the
capacity tier. For more information, see "Managing Disk Groups and Devices" in Administering
VMware vSAN.

8 Review the configuration, and click Finish.

Disable vSAN
You can turn off vSAN for a host cluster.

When you disable the vSAN cluster, all virtual machines and data services located on the vSAN
datastore become inaccessible. If you have consumed storage on the vSAN cluster using the
vSAN-Direct, then the vSAN Direct monitoring services, such as health checks, space reporting,
and performance monitoring, are also disabled. If you intend to use virtual machine while vSAN
is disabled, make sure you migrate virtual machines from vSAN datastore to another datastore
before disabling the vSAN cluster.

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Administering VMware vSAN

Prerequisites

Verify that the hosts are in maintenance mode.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, select Services.

4 Click Turn Off vSAN.

5 On the Turn Off vSAN dialog, confirm your selection.

Edit vSAN Settings

You can edit the settings of your vSAN cluster to configure data management features and
enable services provided by the cluster.

Edit the settings of an existing vSAN cluster if you want to enable deduplication and
compression, or to enable encryption. If you enable deduplication and compression, or if you
enable encryption, the on-disk format of the cluster is automatically upgraded to the latest
version.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN host cluster.

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Administering VMware vSAN

2 Click the Configure tab.

a Under vSAN, select Services.

b Click the Edit or Enable button for the service you want to configure.

n Configure vSAN performance service. For more information, see Monitoring vSAN
Performance in vSAN Monitoring and Troubleshooting.

n Enable File Service. For more information, see "vSAN File Service" in Administering
VMware vSAN .

n Configure vSAN Network options. For more information, see Configuring vSAN
Network in vSAN Planning and Deployment.

n Configure vSAN historical health service.

n Configure iSCSI target service. For more information, see Using the "vSAN iSCSI
Target Service" in Administering VMware vSAN.

n Configure Data Management options, including deduplication and compression, data-

at-rest encryption, and data-in-transit encryption.

n Configure capacity reservations and alerts. For more information, see "About
Reserved Capacity" in vSAN Monitoring and Troubleshooting.

n Configure advanced options:

n Object Repair Timer

n Site Read Locality for stretched clusters

n Thin Swap provisioning

n Large Cluster Support for up to 64 hosts

n Automatic Rebalance

c Modify the settings to match your requirements.

3 Click Apply to confirm your selections.

View vSAN Datastore

After you enable vSAN, a single datastore is created. You can review the capacity of the vSAN
datastore.

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Administering VMware vSAN

Prerequisites

Activate vSAN and configure disk groups.

Procedure

1 Navigate to Storage.

2 Select the vSAN datastore.

3 Click the Configure tab.

4 Review the vSAN datastore capacity.

The size of the vSAN datastore depends on the number of capacity devices per ESXi host
and the number of ESXi hosts in the cluster. For example, if a host has seven 2 TB for
capacity devices, and the cluster includes eight hosts, the approximate storage capacity is 7
x 2 TB x 8 = 112 TB. When using the all-flash configuration, flash devices are used for capacity.
For hybrid configuration, magnetic disks are used for capacity.

Some capacity is allocated for metadata.

n On-disk format version 1.0 adds approximately 1 GB per capacity device.

n On-disk format version 2.0 adds capacity overhead, typically no more than 1-2 percent
capacity per device.

n On-disk format version 3.0 and later adds capacity overhead, typically no more than
1-2 percent capacity per device. Deduplication and compression with software checksum
enabled require additional overhead of approximately 6.2 percent capacity per device.

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Administering VMware vSAN

What to do next

Create a storage policy for virtual machines using the storage capabilities of the vSAN datastore.
For information, see the vSphere Storage documentation.

Upload Files or Folders to vSAN Datastores

You can upload vmdk files to a vSAN datastore. You can also upload folders to a vSAN
datastore. For more information about datastores, see vSphere Storage.

When you upload a vmdk file to a vSAN datastore, the following considerations apply:

n You can upload only stream-optimized vmdk files to a vSAN datastore. VMware stream-
optimized file format is a monolithic sparse format compressed for streaming. If you want to
upload a vmdk file that is not in stream-optimized format, then, before uploading, convert it
to stream-optimized format using the vmware-vdiskmanager command‐line utility. For more
information, see Virtual Disk Manager User’s Guide.

n When you upload a vmdk file to a vSAN datastore, the vmdk file inherits the default policy
of that datastore. The vmdk does not inherit the policy of the VM from which it was
downloaded. vSAN creates the objects by applying the vsanDatastore default policy, which is
RAID -1. You can change the default policy of the datastore. See Change the Default Storage
Policy for vSAN Datastores .

n You must upload a vmdk file to VM home folder.

Procedure

1 Navigate to vSAN Datastore.

2 Click the Files tab.

Option Description

Upload Files a Select the target folder and click Upload Files. You see a message
informing that you can upload vmdk files only in VMware stream-
optimized format. If you try uploading a vmdk file in a different format,
you see an internal server error message.
b Click Upload.
c Locate the item to upload on the local computer and click Open.

Upload Folders a Select the target folder and click Upload Folder. You see a message
informing that you can upload vmdk files only in VMware stream-
optimized format.
b Click Upload.
c Locate the item to upload on the local computer and click Open.

Download Files or Folders from vSAN Datastores

You can download files and folders from a vSAN datastore. For more information about
datastores, see vSphere Storage.

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The vmdk files are downloaded as stream-optimized files with the filename
<vmdkName>_stream.vmdk. VMware stream-optimized file format is a monolithic sparse format
compressed for streaming.

You can convert a VMware stream-optimized vmdk file to other vmdk file formats using the
vmware-vdiskmanager command‐line utility. For more information, see Virtual Disk Manager
User’s Guide.

Procedure

1 Navigate to vSAN Datastore.

2 Click the Files tab and then click Download.

You see a message alerting you that vmdk files are downloaded from the vSAN datastores in
VMware stream-optimized format with the filename extension .stream.vmdk.

3 Click Download.

4 Locate the item to download and then click Download.

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Using vSAN Policies
3
When you use vSAN, you can define virtual machine storage requirements, such as performance
and availability, in a policy. vSAN ensures that each virtual machine deployed to vSAN datastores
is assigned at least one storage policy.

After they are assigned, the storage policy requirements are pushed to the vSAN layer when a
virtual machine is created. The virtual device is distributed across the vSAN datastore to meet
the performance and availability requirements.

vSAN uses storage providers to supply information about underlying storage to the vCenter
Server. This information helps you to make appropriate decisions about virtual machine
placement, and to monitor your storage environment.

This chapter includes the following topics:

n About vSAN Policies

n View vSAN Storage Providers

n About the vSAN Default Storage Policy

n Change the Default Storage Policy for vSAN Datastores

n Define a Storage Policy for vSAN Using vSphere Client

About vSAN Policies

vSAN storage policies define storage requirements for your virtual machines. These policies
determine how the virtual machine storage objects are provisioned and allocated within the
datastore to guarantee the required level of service.

When you enable vSAN on a host cluster, a single vSAN datastore is created and a default
storage policy is assigned to the datastore.

When you know the storage requirements of your virtual machines, you can create a storage
policy referencing capabilities that the datastore advertises. You can create several policies to
capture different types or classes of requirements.

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Administering VMware vSAN

Each virtual machine deployed to vSAN datastores is assigned at least one virtual machine
storage policy. You can assign storage policies when you create or edit virtual machines.

Note If you do not assign a storage policy to a virtual machine, vSAN assigns a default policy.
The default policy has Failures to tolerate set to 1, a single disk stripe per object, and a thin-
provisioned virtual disk.

The VM swap object and the VM snapshot memory object do not adhere to the storage policies
assigned to a VM. These objects are configured with Failures to tolerate set to 1. These objects
might not have the same availability as other objects that have been assigned a policy with a
different value for Failures to tolerate.

Table 3-1. Storage Policy Rules

Capability Description

Failures to tolerate (FTT) Defines the number of host and device failures that a virtual machine
object can tolerate. For n failures tolerated, each piece of data written is
stored in n+1 places, including parity copies if using RAID 5 or RAID 6.
If fault domains are configured, 2n+1 fault domains with hosts
contributing capacity are required. A host which does not belong to a
fault domain is considered its own single-host fault domain.
You can select a data replication method that optimizes for performance
or capacity. RAID-1 (Mirroring) uses more disk space to place the
components of objects but provides better performance for accessing
the objects. RAID-5/6 (Erasure Coding) uses less disk space, but
performance is reduced.

Note If you do not want vSAN to protect a single mirror copy of virtual
machine objects, you can specify No data redundancy . However, the
host might experience unusual delays when entering maintenance mode.
The delays occur because vSAN must evacuate the object from the host
for the maintenance operation to complete successfully. Setting No data
redundancy means that your data is unprotected, and you might lose
data when the vSAN cluster encounters a device failure.

Note If you create a storage policy and you do not specify a value for
FTT, vSAN creates a single mirror copy of the VM objects. It can tolerate
a single failure. However, if multiple component failures occur, your data
might be at risk.

Site disaster tolerance In a stretched cluster, this rule defines the number of additional host
failures that an object can tolerate after the number of failures defined by
FTT is reached.
None - standard cluster is the default value. For a stretched cluster, you
can choose to keep data on the Preferred or Secondary site for host
affinity.
Host mirroring - 2 node cluster defines the number of additional failures
that an object can tolerate after the number of failures defined by FTT
is reached. vSAN performs object mirroring at the disk group level. Each
data host must have at least three disk groups to use this rule.
Site mirroring - stretched cluster defines the number of additional host
failures that an object can tolerate after the number of failures defined by
FTT is reached.

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Table 3-1. Storage Policy Rules (continued)

Capability Description

Number of disk stripes per object The minimum number of capacity devices across which each replica of
a virtual machine object is striped. A value higher than 1 might result in
better performance, but also results in higher use of system resources.
Default value is 1. Maximum value is 12.
Do not change the default striping value.
In a hybrid environment, the disk stripes are spread across magnetic
disks. For an all-flash configuration, the striping is across flash devices
that make up the capacity layer. Make sure that your vSAN environment
has sufficient capacity devices present to accommodate the request.

Flash read cache reservation Flash capacity reserved as read cache for the virtual machine object.
Specified as a percentage of the logical size of the virtual machine disk
(vmdk) object. Reserved flash capacity cannot be used by other objects.
Unreserved flash is shared fairly among all objects. Use this option only
to address specific performance issues.
You do not have to set a reservation to get cache. Setting read cache
reservations might cause a problem when you move the virtual machine
object because the cache reservation settings are always included with
the object.
The Flash Read Cache Reservation storage policy attribute is supported
only for hybrid configurations. You must not use this attribute when
defining a VM storage policy for an all-flash cluster.
Default value is 0%. Maximum value is 100%.

Note By default, vSAN dynamically allocates read cache to storage

objects based on demand. This feature represents the most flexible and
the most optimal use of resources. As a result, typically, you do not need
to change the default 0 value for this parameter.

To increase the value when solving a performance problem, exercise

caution. Over-provisioned cache reservations across several virtual
machines can cause flash device space to be wasted on over-
reservations. These cache reservations are not available to service the
workloads that need the required space at a given time. This space
wasting and unavailability might lead to performance degradation.

Force provisioning If the option is set to Yes, the object is provisioned even if the Failures
to tolerate, Number of disk stripes per object, and Flash read cache
reservation policies specified in the storage policy cannot be satisfied by
the datastore. Use this parameter in bootstrapping scenarios and during
an outage when standard provisioning is no longer possible.
The default No is acceptable for most production environments. vSAN
fails to provision a virtual machine when the policy requirements are not
met, but it successfully creates the user-defined storage policy.

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Table 3-1. Storage Policy Rules (continued)

Capability Description

Object space reservation Percentage of the logical size of the virtual machine disk (vmdk) object
that must be reserved, or thick provisioned when deploying virtual
machines. The following options are available:
n Thin provisioning (default)
n 25% reservation
n 50% reservation
n 75% reservation
n Thick provisioning

Disable object checksum If the option is set to No, the object calculates checksum information to
ensure the integrity of its data. If this option is set to Yes, the object does
not calculate checksum information.
vSAN uses end-to-end checksum to ensure the integrity of data by
confirming that each copy of a file is exactly the same as the source file.
The system checks the validity of the data during read/write operations,
and if an error is detected, vSAN repairs the data or reports the error.
If a checksum mismatch is detected, vSAN automatically repairs
the data by overwriting the incorrect data with the correct data.
Checksum calculation and error-correction are performed as background
operations.
The default setting for all objects in the cluster is No, which means that
checksum is enabled.

IOPS limit for object Defines the IOPS limit for an object, such as a VMDK. IOPS is calculated
as the number of I/O operations, using a weighted size. If the system
uses the default base size of 32 KB, a 64-KB I/O represents two I/O
operations.
When calculating IOPS, read and write are considered equivalent, but
cache hit ratio and sequentiality are not considered. If a disk’s IOPS
exceeds the limit, I/O operations are throttled. If the IOPS limit for object
is set to 0, IOPS limits are not enforced.
vSAN allows the object to double the rate of the IOPS limit during the
first second of operation or after a period of inactivity.

When working with virtual machine storage policies, you must understand how the storage
capabilities affect the consumption of storage capacity in the vSAN cluster. For more information
about designing and sizing considerations of storage policies, see "Designing and Sizing a vSAN
Cluster" in Administering VMware vSAN.

How vSAN Manages Policy Changes

vSAN 6.7 Update 3 and later manages policy changes to reduce the amount of transient space
consumed across the cluster. Transient capacity is generated when vSAN reconfigures objects
for a policy change.

When you modify a policy, the change is accepted but not applied immediately. vSAN batches
the policy change requests and performs them asynchronously, to maintain a fixed amount of
transient space.

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Policy changes are rejected immediately for non-capacity related reasons, such as changing a
RAID5 policy to RAID6 on a five-node cluster.

You can view transient capacity usage in the vSAN Capacity monitor. To verify the status of a
policy change on an object, use the vSAN health service to check the vSAN object health.

View vSAN Storage Providers

Enabling vSAN automatically configures and registers a storage provider for each host in the
vSAN cluster.

vSAN storage providers are built-in software components that communicate datastore
capabilities to vCenter Server. A storage capability typically is represented by a key-value
pair, where the key is a specific property offered by the datastore. The value is a number
or range that the datastore can provide for a provisioned object, such as a virtual machine
home namespace object or a virtual disk. You can also use tags to create user-defined
storage capabilities and reference them when defining a storage policy for a virtual machine.
For information about how to apply and use tags with datastores, see the vSphere Storage
documentation.

The vSAN storage providers report a set of underlying storage capabilities to vCenter Server.
They also communicate with the vSAN layer to report the storage requirements of the
virtual machines. For more information about storage providers, see the vSphere Storage
documentation.

vSAN 6.7 and later releases register only one vSAN Storage Provider for all the vSAN clusters
managed by the vCenter Server using the following URL:

https://<VC fqdn>:<VC https port>/vsanHealth/vsanvp/version.xml

Verify that the storage providers are registered.

Procedure

1 Navigate to vCenter Server.

2 Click the Configure tab, and click Storage Providers.

Results

The storage providers for vSAN appear on the list. Each host has a storage provider, but only
one storage provider is active. Storage providers that belong to other hosts are in standby. If the
host that currently has the active storage provider fails, the storage provider for another host
becomes active.

Note You cannot manually unregister storage providers used by vSAN. To remove or unregister
the vSAN storage providers, remove corresponding hosts from the vSAN cluster and then add
the hosts back. Make sure that at least one storage provider is active.

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About the vSAN Default Storage Policy

vSAN requires that the virtual machines deployed on the vSAN datastores are assigned at least
one storage policy. When provisioning a virtual machine, if you do not explicitly assign a storage
policy to the virtual machine the vSAN Default Storage Policy is assigned to the virtual machine.

The default policy contains vSAN rule sets and a set of basic storage capabilities, typically used
for the placement of virtual machines deployed on vSAN datastores.

Table 3-2. vSAN Default Storage Policy Specifications

Specification Setting

Failures to tolerate 1

Number of disk stripes per object 1

Flash read cache reservation, or flash capacity used for 0

the read cache

Object space reservation 0

Note Setting the Object space reservation to zero means

that the virtual disk is thin provisioned, by default.

Force provisioning No

You can review the configuration settings for the default virtual machine storage policy when
you navigate to the VM Storage Policies > vSAN Default Storage Policy > Manage > Rule-Set 1:
VSAN.

For best results, consider creating and using your own VM storage policies, even if the
requirements of the policy are same as those defined in the default storage policy. In some
cases, when you scale up a cluster, you must modify the default storage policy to maintain
compliance with the requirements of the Service Level Agreement for VMware Cloud on AWS.

When you assign a user-defined storage policy to a datastore, vSAN applies the settings for
the user-defined policy on the specified datastore. At any point, you can assign only one virtual
machine storage policy as the default policy to the vSAN datastore.

Characteristics
The following characteristics apply to the vSAN Default Storage Policy.

n The vSAN default storage policy is assigned to all virtual machine objects if you do not assign
any other vSAN policy when you provision a virtual machine. The VM Storage Policy text box
is set to Datastore default on the Select Storage page. For more information about using
storage policies, see the vSphere Storage documentation.

Note VM swap and VM memory objects receive the vSAN Default Storage Policy with Force
provisioning set to Yes.

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n The vSAN default policy only applies to vSAN datastores. You cannot apply the default
storage policy to non-vSAN datastores, such as NFS or a VMFS datastore.

n Because the default virtual machine storage policy is compatible with any vSAN datastore in
the vCenter Server, you can move your virtual machine objects provisioned with the default
policy to any vSAN datastore in the vCenter Server.

n You can clone the default policy and use it as a template to create a user-defined storage
policy.

n You can edit the default policy, if you have the StorageProfile.View privilege. You must have
at least one vSAN enabled cluster that contains at least one host. Typically you do not edit
the settings of the default storage policy.

n You cannot edit the name and description of the default policy, or the vSAN storage provider
specification. All other parameters including the policy rules are editable.

n You cannot delete the default policy.

n The default storage policy is assigned when the policy that you assign during virtual machine
provisioning does not include rules specific to vSAN.

Change the Default Storage Policy for vSAN Datastores

You can change the default storage policy for a selected vSAN datastore.

Prerequisites

Verify that the VM storage policy you want to assign as the default policy to the vSAN datastore
meets the requirements of virtual machines in the vSAN cluster.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN datastore.

2 Click Configure.

3 Under General, click the Default Storage Policy Edit button, and select the storage policy that
you want to assign as the default policy to the vSAN datastore.

You can choose from a list of storage policies that are compatible with the vSAN datastore,
such as the vSAN Default Storage Policy and user-defined storage policies that have vSAN
rule sets defined.

4 Select a policy and click OK.

The storage policy is applied as the default policy when you provision new virtual machines
without explicitly specifying a storage policy for a datastore.

What to do next

You can define a new storage policy for virtual machines. See Define a Storage Policy for vSAN
Using vSphere Client.

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Define a Storage Policy for vSAN Using vSphere Client

You can create a storage policy that defines storage requirements for a VM and its virtual
disks. In this policy, you reference storage capabilities supported by the vSAN datastore.

Prerequisites

n Verify that the vSAN storage provider is available. See View vSAN Storage Providers.

n Required privileges: Profile-driven storage.Profile-driven storage view and Profile-driven

storage.Profile-driven storage update

Procedure

1 Navigate to Policies and Profiles, then click VM Storage Policies.

2 Click the Create a new VM storage policy icon ( ).

3 On the Name and description page, select a vCenter Server.

4 Type a name and a description for the storage policy and click Next.

5 On the Policy structure page, select Enable rules for "vSAN" storage, and click Next.

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6 On the vSAN page, define the policy rule set, and click Next.

a On the Availability tab, define the Site disaster tolerance and Failures to tolerate.

Availability options define the rules for failures to tolerate, Data locality, and Failure
tolerance method.

n Site disaster tolerance defines the type of site failure tolerance used for virtual
machine objects.

n Failures to tolerate defines the number of host and device failures that a virtual
machine object can tolerate, and the data replication method.

For example, if you choose Dual site mirroring and 2 failures - RAID-6 (Erasure Coding),
vSAN configures the following policy rules:

n Failures to tolerate: 1

n Secondary level of failures to tolerate: 2

n Data locality: None

n Failure tolerance method: RAID-5/6 (Erasure Coding) - Capacity

b On the Storage Rules tab, define the encryption, space efficiency, and storage tier rules
that can be used along with the HCI Mesh to distinguish the remote datastores.

n Encryption services: Defines the encryption rules for virtual machines that you deploy
with this policy. You can choose one of the following options:

n Data-At-Rest encryption: Encryption is enabled on the virtual machines.

n No encryption: Encryption is not enabled on the virtual machines.

n No preference: Makes the virtual machines compatible with both Data-At-Rest

encryption and No encryption options.

n Space Efficiency: Defines the space saving rules for the virtual machines that you
deploy with this policy. You can choose one of the following options:

n Deduplication and compression: Enables both deduplication and compression on

the virtual machines. Deduplication and compression are available only on all-flash
disk groups. For more information, see Deduplication and Compression Design
Considerations.

n Compression only: Enables only compression on the virtual machines.

Compression is available only on all-flash disk groups. For more information, see
Deduplication and Compression Design Considerations.

n No space efficiency: Space efficiency features are not enabled on the virtual
machines. Choosing this option requires datastores without any space efficiency
options to be turned on.

n No preference: Makes the virtual machines compatible with all the options.

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n Storage tier: Specifies the storage tier for the virtual machines that you deploy
with this policy. You can choose one of the following options. Choosing the No
preference option makes the virtual machines compatible with both hybrid and all
flash environments.

n All flash

n Hybrid

n No preference

c On the Advanced Policy Rules tab, define advanced policy rules, such as number of disk
stripes per object and IOPS limits.

d On the Tags tab, click Add Tag Rule, and define the options for your tag rule.

Make sure that the values you provide are within the range of values advertised by
storage capabilities of the vSAN datastore.

7 On the Storage compatibility page, review the list of datastores under the COMPATIBLE and
INCOMPATIBLE tabs and click Next.

To be eligible, a datastore does not need to satisfy all rule sets within the policy. The
datastore must satisfy at least one rule set and all rules within this set. Verify that the vSAN
datastore meets the requirements set in the storage policy and that it appears on the list of
compatible datastores.

8 On the Review and finish page, review the policy settings, and click Finish.

Results

The new policy is added to the list.

What to do next

Assign this policy to a virtual machine and its virtual disks. vSAN places the virtual machine
objects according to the requirements specified in the policy. For information about applying the
storage policies to virtual machine objects, see the vSphere Storage documentation.

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Cluster 4
After you have set up your vSAN cluster, you can add hosts and capacity devices, remove hosts
and devices, and manage failure scenarios.

This chapter includes the following topics:

n Expanding a vSAN Cluster

n Sharing Remote Datastores with HCI Mesh

n Working with Maintenance Mode

n Managing Fault Domains in vSAN Clusters

n Using the vSAN iSCSI Target Service

n vSAN File Service

n Migrate a Hybrid vSAN Cluster to an All-Flash Cluster

n Shutting Down and Restarting the vSAN Cluster

Expanding a vSAN Cluster

You can expand an existing vSAN cluster by adding hosts or adding devices to existing hosts,
without disrupting any ongoing operations.

Use one of the following methods to expand your vSAN cluster.

n Add new ESXi hosts to the cluster that are configured using the supported cache and
capacity devices. See Add a Host to the vSAN Cluster. When you add a device or add a host
with capacity, vSAN automatically distributes data to the newly added device. See "Configure
Automatic Rebalance" in vSAN Monitoring and Troubleshooting.

n Move existing ESXi hosts to the vSAN cluster by using host profile. See Configuring Hosts
Using Host Profile. New cluster members add storage and compute capacity. You must
manually create a subset of disk groups from the local capacity devices on the newly added
host. See Create a Disk Group on a vSAN Host.

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Verify that the hardware components, drivers, firmware, and storage I/O controllers that
you plan on using are certified and listed in the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://
www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php. When adding capacity devices, make
sure that the devices are unformatted and not partitioned, so that vSAN can recognize and
claim the devices.

n Add new capacity devices to ESXi hosts that are cluster members. You must manually add
the device to the disk group on the host. See Add Devices to the Disk Group.

Expanding vSAN Cluster Capacity and Performance

If your vSAN cluster is running out of storage capacity or when you notice reduced performance
of the cluster, you can expand the cluster for capacity and performance.

n Expand the storage capacity of your cluster either by adding storage devices to existing disk
groups or by adding disk groups. New disk groups require flash devices for the cache. For
information about adding devices to disk groups, see Add Devices to the Disk Group. Adding
capacity devices without increasing the cache might reduce your cache-to-capacity ratio to
an unsupported level. For more information See vSAN Planning and Deployment.

n Improve the cluster performance by adding at least one cache device (flash) and one
capacity device (flash or magnetic disk) to an existing storage I/O controller or to a new
host. Or you can add one or more hosts with disk groups to produce the same performance
impact after vSAN completes a proactive rebalance in the vSAN cluster.

Although compute-only hosts can exist in a vSAN cluster, and consume capacity from other
hosts in the cluster, add uniformly configured hosts for efficient operation. For best results, add
hosts with cache and capacity devices to expand the cluster capacity. Although it is best to use
the same or similar devices in your disk groups, any device listed on the vSAN HCL is supported.
Try to distribute capacity evenly across hosts and disk groups. For information about adding
devices to disk groups, see Add Devices to the Disk Group.

After you expand the cluster capacity, perform a manual rebalance to distribute resources evenly
across the cluster. For more information, see vSAN Monitoring and Troubleshooting.

Use Quickstart to Add Hosts to a vSAN Cluster

If you configured your vSAN cluster through Quickstart, you can use the Quickstart workflow to
add hosts and storage devices to the cluster.

When you add new hosts to the vSAN cluster, you can use the Cluster configuration wizard to
complete the host configuration. For more information about Quickstart, see "Using Quickstart to
Configure and Expand a vSAN Cluster in vSAN Planning and Deployment.

Note If you are running vCenter Server on a host, the host cannot be placed into maintenance
mode as you add it to a cluster using the Quickstart workflow. The same host also can be running
a Platform Services Controller. All other VMs on the host must be powered off.

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Prerequisites

n The Quickstart workflow must be available for your vSAN cluster.

n No network configuration performed through the Quickstart workflow has been modified
from outside of the Quickstart workflow.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the cluster in the vSphere Client.

2 Click the Configure tab, and select Configuration > Quickstart.

3 On the Add hosts card, click Launch to open the Add hosts wizard.

a On the Add hosts page, enter information for new hosts, or click Existing hosts and select
from hosts listed in the inventory.

b On the Host summary page, verify the host settings.

c On the Ready to complete page, click Finish.

4 On the Cluster configuration card, click Launch to open the Cluster configuration wizard.

a On the Configure the distributed switches page, enter networking settings for the new
hosts.

b (optional) On the Claim disks page, select disks on each new host.

c (optional) On the Create fault domains page, move the new hosts into their
corresponding fault domains.

For more information about fault domains, see Managing Fault Domains in vSAN Clusters.

d On the Ready to complete page, verify the cluster settings, and click Finish.

Add a Host to the vSAN Cluster

You can add ESXi hosts to a running vSAN cluster without disrupting any ongoing operations.
The new host's resources become associated with the cluster.

Prerequisites

n Verify that the resources, including drivers, firmware, and storage I/O controllers, are listed
in the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/
search.php.

n VMware recommends creating uniformly configured hosts in the vSAN cluster, so you have
an even distribution of components and objects across devices in the cluster. However,
there might be situations where the cluster becomes unevenly balanced, particularly during
maintenance or if you overcommit the capacity of the vSAN datastore with excessive virtual
machine deployments.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

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2 Right-click the cluster and select Add Hosts. The Add hosts wizard appears.

Option Description

New hosts a Enter the host name or IP address.

b Enter the user name and password associated with the host.

Existing hosts a Select hosts that you previously added to vCenter Server.

3 Click Next.

4 View the summary information and click Next.

5 Review the settings and click Finish.

The host is added to the cluster.

What to do next

Verify that the vSAN Disk Balance health check is green.

For more information about vSAN cluster configuration and fixing problems, see "vSAN Cluster
Configuration Issues" in vSAN Monitoring and Troubleshooting.

Configuring Hosts Using Host Profile

When you have multiple hosts in the vSAN cluster, you can use the profile of an existing vSAN
host to configure the rest of the hosts in the vSAN cluster.

The host profile includes information about storage configuration, network configuration, and
other characteristics of the host. If you are planning to create a cluster with many hosts, such as
8, 16, 32, or 64 hosts, use the host profile feature. Host profiles enable you to add more than one
host at a time to the vSAN cluster.

Prerequisites

n Verify that the host is in maintenance mode.

n Verify that the hardware components, drivers, firmware, and storage I/O controllers are listed
in the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/
search.php.

Procedure

1 Create a host profile.

a Navigate to the Host Profiles view.

b Click the Extract Profile from a Host icon ( ).

c Select the host that you intend to use as the reference host and click Next.

The selected host must be an active host.

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d Type a name and description for the new profile and click Next.

e Review the summary information for the new host profile and click Finish.

The new profile appears in the Host Profiles list.

2 Attach the host to the intended host profile.

a From the Profile list in the Host Profiles view, select the host profile to be applied to the
vSAN host.

b Click the Attach/Detach Hosts and clusters to a host profile icon ( ).

c Select the host from the expanded list and click Attach to attach the host to the profile.

The host is added to the Attached Entities list.

d Click Next.

e Click Finish to complete the attachment of the host to the profile.

3 Detach the referenced vSAN host from the host profile.

When a host profile is attached to a cluster, the host or hosts within that cluster are also
attached to the host profile. However, when the host profile is detached from the cluster,
the association between the host or hosts in the cluster and that of the host profile remains
intact.
a From the Profile List in the Host Profiles view, select the host profile to be detached from
a host or cluster.

b Click the Attach/Detach Hosts and clusters to a host profile icon ( ).

c Select the host or cluster from the expanded list and click Detach.

d Click Detach All to detach all the listed hosts and clusters from the profile.

e Click Next.

f Click Finish to complete the detachment of the host from the host profile.

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4 Verify the compliance of the vSAN host to its attached host profile and determine if any
configuration parameters on the host are different from those specified in the host profile.

a Navigate to a host profile.

The Objects tab lists all host profiles, the number of hosts attached to that host profile,
and the summarized results of the last compliance check.

b Click the Check Host Profile Compliance icon ( ).

To view specific details about which parameters differ between the host that failed
compliance and the host profile, click the Monitor tab and select the Compliance view.
Expand the object hierarchy and select the non-compliant host. The parameters that
differ are displayed in the Compliance window, below the hierarchy.

If compliance fails, use the Remediate action to apply the host profile settings to the host.
This action changes all host profile-managed parameters to the values that are contained
in the host profile attached to the host.

c To view specific details about which parameters differ between the host that failed
compliance and the host profile, click the Monitor tab and select the Compliance view.

d Expand the object hierarchy and select the failing host.

The parameters that differ are displayed in the Compliance window, below the hierarchy.

5 Remediate the host to fix compliance errors.

a Select the Monitor tab and click Compliance.

b Right-click the host or hosts to remediate and select All vCenter Actions > Host Profiles >
Remediate.

You can update or change the user input parameters for the host profiles policies by
customizing the host.

c Click Next.

d Review the tasks that are necessary to remediate the host profile and click Finish.

The host is part of the vSAN cluster and its resources are accessible to the vSAN cluster. The
host can also access all existing vSAN storage I/O policies in the vSAN cluster.

Sharing Remote Datastores with HCI Mesh

vSAN clusters can share their datastores with other vSAN clusters. You can provision VMs
running on the local cluster use storage space on the remote datastore.

Use the Datastore Sharing view to monitor and manage remote datastores mounted on the local
vSAN cluster. Each client vSAN cluster can mount remote datastores from server vSAN clusters
located within the same data center managed by the vCenter Server. Each compatible vSAN
cluster also can act as a server, and allow other vSAN clusters to mount its local datastores.

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Mounting a remote datastore with HCI Mesh is a cluster-wide configuration. You can mount a
remote datastore to a vSAN cluster, which is then mounted to all hosts in the cluster.

When you provision a new virtual machine, you can select a remote datastore that is mounted to
the client cluster. Assign any compatible storage policy configured for the datastore.

Monitor views for capacity, performance, health, and placement of virtual objects show the status
of remote objects and datastores.

HCI Mesh vSAN has the following design considerations:

n Clusters must be managed by the same vCenter Server and be located within the same data
center.

n Clusters must be running 7.0 Update 1 or later.

n A vSAN cluster can serve its local datastore to up to five client vSAN clusters.

n A client cluster can mount up to five remote datastores from one or more vSAN server
clusters.

n A single remote datastore can be mounted to up to 128 vSAN hosts, including hosts in the
vSAN server cluster.

n All objects that make up a VM must reside on the same datastore.

n For vSphere HA to work with HCI Mesh, configure the following failure response for Datastore
with APD: Power off and restart VMs.

n Client hosts that are not part of a cluster are not supported. You can configure a single host
compute-only cluster, but vSphere HA does not work unless you add a second host to the
cluster.

The following features are not supported with HCI Mesh:

n vSAN data-in-transit encryption

n vSAN stretched clusters

n vSAN 2-node clusters

The following configurations are not supported with HCI Mesh:

n Remote provisioning of vSAN file share, iSCSI volumes, or CNS persistent volumes. You can
provision them on the local vSAN datastore, but not on any remote vSAN datastore.

n Air-gapped vSAN networks or clusters using multiple vSAN VMkernel ports

n vSAN communication over RDMA

HCI Mesh Compute-only Client

vSAN 7.0 Update 2 and later enables you to configure a non-vSAN cluster as an HCI Mesh client.
The hosts in an HCI Mesh compute-only client cluster do not need local storage. They can mount
remote datastores from a vSAN cluster located within the same data center.

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HCI Mesh compute-only clusters have the following design considerations:

n vSAN networking must be configured on the client hosts.

n No disk groups can be present on vSAN compute-only hosts.

n No vSAN data management features can be configured on the compute-only cluster.

When you configure a vSphere cluster for vSAN, you can specify it as an HCI Mesh compute
cluster. You can mount a remote datastore, and monitor the capacity, health, and performance of
the remote vSAN datastore.

View Remote Datastores

Use the Datastore Sharing page to view remote datastores mounted to the local vSAN cluster,
and client clusters sharing the local datastore.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the local vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Datastore Sharing.

Results

This view lists information about each datastore mounted to the local cluster.

n Server cluster that hosts the datastore

n Capacity of the datastore

n Free space available

n Number of VMs using the datastore (number of VMs using the compute resources of the local
cluster, but the storage resources of the server cluster)

n Client clusters that have mounted the datastore

What to do next

You can mount or unmount remote datastores from this page.

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Mount Remote Datastore

You can mount one or more datastores from other vSAN clusters managed by the same vCenter
Server.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the local vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Datastore Sharing.

4 Click Mount Remote Datastore.

5 Select a datastore and click Next.

6 Check the datastore compatibility, and click Finish.

Results

The remote datastore is mounted to the local vSAN cluster.

What to do next

When you provision a VM, you can select the remote datastore as the storage resource. Assign a
storage policy that is supported by the remote datastore.

Unmount Remote Datastore

You can unmount a remote datastore from a vSAN cluster.

If no virtual machines on the local cluster are using the remote vSAN datastore, you can unmount
the datastore from your local vSAN cluster.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the local vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Datastore Sharing.

4 Select a remote datastore, and click Unmount.

5 Click Unmount to confirm.

Results

The selected datastore is unmounted from the local cluster.

Monitor HCI Mesh

You can use the vSphere Client to monitor the status of HCI Mesh operations.

vSAN capacity monitor notifies you when remote datastores are mounted to the cluster. You can
select the remote datastore to view its capacity information.

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The Virtual Objects view shows the datastore where virtual objects reside. The Physical disk
placement view for a VM located on a remote datastore shows information about its remote
location.

vSAN health checks report on the status of HCI functions.

n Data > vSAN Object health check shows accessibility information of remote objects.

n Network > Server cluster partition check reports about network partitions between hosts in
the client cluster and the server cluster.

n Network > Latency checks the latency between hosts in the client cluster and the server
cluster.

vSAN cluster performance views include VM performance charts that display the VM level
performance of the client cluster from the perspective of the remote cluster. You can select a
remote datastore to view the performance.

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You can run pro-active tests on remote datastores to verify VM creation and network
performance. The VM creation test creates a VM on the remote datastore. The Network
performance test checks the network performance between all hosts in the client cluster and
all hosts the server clusters.

Working with Maintenance Mode

Before you shut down, reboot, or disconnect a host that is a member of a vSAN cluster, you must
put the host in maintenance mode.

When working with maintenance mode, consider the following guidelines:

n When you place an ESXi host in maintenance mode, you must select a data evacuation mode,
such as Ensure accessibility or Full data migration.

n When any member host of a vSAN cluster enters maintenance mode, the cluster capacity
automatically reduces as the member host no longer contributes storage to the cluster.

n A virtual machine's compute resources might not reside on the host that is being placed
in maintenance mode, and the storage resources for virtual machines might be located
anywhere in the cluster.

n The Ensure accessibility mode is faster than the Full data migration mode because the
Ensure accessibility migrates only the components from the hosts that are essential for
running the virtual machines. When in this mode, if you encounter a failure, the availability of
your virtual machine is affected. Selecting the Ensure accessibility mode does not reprotect
your data during failure and you might experience unexpected data loss.

n When you select the Full data migration mode, your data is automatically reprotected
against a failure, if the resources are available and the Failures to tolerate set to 1 or
more. When in this mode, all components from the host are migrated and, depending
on the amount of data you have on the host, the migration might take longer. With Full
data migration mode, your virtual machines can tolerate failures, even during planned
maintenance.

n When working with a three-host cluster, you cannot place a server in maintenance mode
with Full data migration. Consider designing a cluster with four or more hosts for maximum
availability.

Before you place a host in maintenance mode, you must verify the following:

n If you are using Full data migration mode, verify that the cluster has enough hosts and
capacity available to meet the Failures to tolerate policy requirements.

n Verify that enough flash capacity exists on the remaining hosts to handle any flash
read cache reservations. To analyze the current capacity use per host, and whether a
single host failure might cause the cluster to run out of space and impact the cluster
capacity, cache reservation, and cluster components, run the following RVC command:
vsan.whatif_host_failures. For information about the RVC commands, see the RVC
Command Reference Guide.

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n Verify that you have enough capacity devices in the remaining hosts to handle stripe width
policy requirements, if selected.

n Make sure that you have enough free capacity on the remaining hosts to handle the amount
of data that must be migrated from the host entering maintenance mode.

The Confirm Maintenance Mode dialog box provides information to guide your maintenance
activities. You can view the impact of each data evacuation option.

n Whether or not sufficient capacity is available to perform the operation.

n How much data will be moved.

n How many objects will become non-compliant.

n How many objects will become inaccessible.

Check a Host's Data Migration Capabilities

Use the data migration pre-check to determine the impact of data migration options when
placing a host into maintenance mode or removing it from the cluster.

Before you place a vSAN host into maintenance mode, run the data migration pre-check. The
test results provide information to help you determine the impact to cluster capacity, predicted
health checks, and any objects that will go out of compliance. If the operation will not succeed,
pre-check provides information about what resources are needed.

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Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Monitor tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Data Migration Pre-check.

4 Select a host, a data migration option, and click Pre-check.

vSAN runs the data migration precheck tests.

5 View the test results.

The pre-check results show whether the host can safely enter maintenance mode.

n The Object Compliance and Accessibility tab displays objects that might have issues after
the data migration.

n The Cluster Capacity tab displays the impact of data migration on the vSAN cluster
before and after you perform the operation.

n The Predicted Health tab displays the health checks that might be affected by the data
migration.

What to do next

If the pre-check indicates that you can place the host into maintenance mode, you can click Enter
Maintenance Mode to migrate the data and place the host into maintenance mode.

Place a Member of vSAN Cluster in Maintenance Mode

Before you shut down, reboot, or disconnect a host that is a member of a vSAN cluster, you must
place the host in maintenance mode. When you place a host in maintenance mode, you must
select a data evacuation mode, such as Ensure accessibility or Full data migration.

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When any member host of a vSAN cluster enters maintenance mode, the cluster capacity is
automatically reduced, because the member host no longer contributes capacity to the cluster.

Any vSAN iSCSI targets served by this host are transferred to other hosts in the cluster, and thus
the iSCSI initiator are redirected to the new target owner.

Prerequisites

Verify that your environment has the capabilities required for the option you select.

Procedure

1 Right-click the host and select Maintenance Mode > Enter Maintenance Mode.

2 Select a data evacuation mode and click OK.

Option Description

Ensure accessibility This is the default option. When you power off or remove the host from the
cluster, vSAN ensures that all accessible virtual machines on this host remain
accessible. Select this option if you want to take the host out of the cluster
temporarily, for example, to install upgrades, and plan to have the host back
in the cluster. This option is not appropriate if you want to remove the host
from the cluster permanently.
Typically, only partial data evacuation is required. However, the virtual
machine might no longer be fully compliant to a VM storage policy during
evacuation. That means, it might not have access to all its replicas. If a failure
occurs while the host is in maintenance mode and the Failures to tolerate is
set to 1, you might experience data loss in the cluster.

Note This is the only evacuation mode available if you are working with a
three-host cluster or a vSAN cluster configured with three fault domains.

Full data migration vSAN evacuates all data to other hosts in the cluster, maintains or fixes
availability compliance for the affected components, and protects data when
sufficient resources exist in the cluster. Select this option if you plan to
migrate the host permanently. When evacuating data from the last host
in the cluster, make sure that you migrate the virtual machines to another
datastore and then place the host in maintenance mode.
This evacuation mode results in the largest amount of data transfer and
consumes the most time and resources. All the components on the local
storage of the selected host are migrated elsewhere in the cluster. When
the host enters maintenance mode, all virtual machines have access to
their storage components and are still compliant with their assigned storage
policies.

Note If a virtual machine object that has data on the host is not accessible
and is not fully evacuated, the host cannot enter the maintenance mode.

No data migration vSAN does not evacuate any data from this host. If you power off or remove
the host from the cluster, some virtual machines might become inaccessible.

A cluster with three fault domains has the same restrictions that a three-host cluster has, such
as the inability to use Full data migration mode or to reprotect data after a failure.

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What to do next

You can track the progress of data migration in the cluster. For more information see vSAN
Monitoring and Troubleshooting.

Managing Fault Domains in vSAN Clusters

Fault domains enable you to protect against rack or chassis failure if your vSAN cluster spans
across multiple racks or blade server chassis. You can create fault domains and add one or more
hosts to each fault domain.

A fault domain consists of one or more vSAN hosts grouped according to their physical location
in the data center. When configured, fault domains enable vSAN to tolerate failures of entire
physical racks as well as failures of a single host, capacity device, network link, or a network
switch dedicated to a fault domain.

The Failures to tolerate policy for the cluster depends on the number of failures a virtual
machine is provisioned to tolerate. When a virtual machine is configured with the Failures to
tolerate set to 1 (FTT=1), vSAN can tolerate a single failure of any kind and of any component in
a fault domain, including the failure of an entire rack.

When you configure fault domains on a rack and provision a new virtual machine, vSAN ensures
that protection objects, such as replicas and witnesses, are placed in different fault domains. For
example, if a virtual machine's storage policy has the Failures to tolerate set to N (FTT=n), vSAN
requires a minimum of 2*n+1 fault domains in the cluster. When virtual machines are provisioned
in a cluster with fault domains using this policy, the copies of the associated virtual machine
objects are stored across separate racks.

A minimum of three fault domains are required to support FTT=1. For best results, configure four
or more fault domains in the cluster. A cluster with three fault domains has the same restrictions
that a three host cluster has, such as the inability to reprotect data after a failure and the inability
to use the Full data migration mode. For information about designing and sizing fault domains,
see "Designing and Sizing vSAN Fault Domains" in vSAN Planning and Deployment.

Consider a scenario where you have a vSAN cluster with 16 hosts. The hosts are spread across
four racks, that is, four hosts per rack. To tolerate an entire rack failure, create a fault domain for
each rack. You can configure a cluster of such capacity with the Failures to tolerate set to 1. If
you want the Failures to tolerate set to 2, configure five fault domains in the cluster.

When a rack fails, all resources including the CPU, memory in the rack become unavailable to the
cluster. To reduce the impact of a potential rack failure, configure fault domains of smaller sizes.
Increasing the number of fault domains increases the total amount of resource availability in the
cluster after a rack failure.

When working with fault domains, follow these best practices.

n Configure a minimum of three fault domains in the vSAN cluster. For best results, configure
four or more fault domains.

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n A host not included in any fault domain is considered to reside in its own single-host fault
domain.

n You do not need to assign every vSAN host to a fault domain. If you decide to use fault
domains to protect the vSAN environment, consider creating equal sized fault domains.

n When moved to another cluster, vSAN hosts retain their fault domain assignments.

n When designing a fault domain, place a uniform number of hosts in each fault domain.

For guidelines about designing fault domains, see "Designing and Sizing vSAN Fault Domains"
in vSAN Planning and Deployment.

n You can add any number of hosts to a fault domain. Each fault domain must contain at least
one host.

Create a New Fault Domain in vSAN Cluster

To ensure that the virtual machine objects continue to run smoothly during a rack failure, you can
group hosts in different fault domains.

When you provision a virtual machine on the cluster with fault domains, vSAN distributes
protection components, such as witnesses and replicas of the virtual machine objects across
different fault domains. As a result, the vSAN environment becomes capable of tolerating entire
rack failures in addition to a single host, storage disk, or network failure.

Prerequisites

n Choose a unique fault domain name. vSAN does not support duplicate fault domain names in
a cluster.

n Verify the version of your ESXi hosts. You can only include hosts that are 6.0 or later in fault
domains.

n Verify that your vSAN hosts are online. You cannot assign hosts to a fault domain that is
offline or unavailable due to hardware configuration issue.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Fault Domains.

4 Click the plus icon. The New Fault Domain wizard opens.

5 Enter the fault domain name.

6 Select one or more hosts to add to the fault domain.

A fault domain cannot be empty. You must select at least one host to include in the fault
domain.

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7 Click Create.

The selected hosts appear in the fault domain. Each fault domain displays the used and
reserved capacity information. This enables you to view the capacity distribution across the
fault domain.

Move Host into Selected Fault Domain

You can move a host into a selected fault domain in the vSAN cluster.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Fault Domains.

4 Click and drag the host that you want to add onto an existing fault domain.

The selected host appears in the fault domain.

Move Hosts out of a Fault Domain

Depending on your requirement, you can move hosts out of a fault domain.

Prerequisites

Verify that the host is online. You cannot move hosts that are offline or unavailable from a fault
domain.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Fault Domains.

a Click and drag the host from the fault domain to the Standalone Hosts area.

b Click Move to confirm.

Results

The selected host is no longer part of the fault domain. Any host that is not part of a fault domain
is considered to reside in its own single-host fault domain.

What to do next

You can add hosts to fault domains. See Move Host into Selected Fault Domain.

Rename a Fault Domain

You can change the name of an existing fault domain in your vSAN cluster.

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Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Fault Domains.

a Click the Actions icon on the right side of the fault domain, and choose Edit.

b Enter a new fault domain name.

4 Click Apply or OK.

The new name appears in the list of fault domains.

Remove Selected Fault Domains

When you no longer need a fault domain, you can remove it from the vSAN cluster.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Fault Domains.

4 Click the Actions icon on the right side of the fault domain, and select Delete.

5 Click Delete to confirm.

Results

All hosts in the fault domain are removed and the selected fault domain is deleted from the vSAN
cluster. Each host that is not part of a fault domain is considered to reside in its own single-host
fault domain.

Tolerate Additional Failures with Fault Domain

Fault domains in a vSAN cluster provides resilience and assures that the data is available even
with failures based on policy. With failures to tolerate (FTT) set to 1, the object can tolerate a
failure. However, a temporary failure followed by a permanent failure in a cluster can result in
data loss.

An additional fault domain provides vSAN the ability to create a durability component without
having additional FTTs for the object. vSAN triggers this extra component during planned and
unplanned failures. Unplanned failures include network disconnect, disk failures, and host failures.
Planned failures include Entering Maintenance Mode (EMM). For example, a 6 host cluster with
RAID 6 object cannot create a durability component if there is a host failure.

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vSAN ensures the data availability of the objects when the components go offline and comes
back online unexpectedly based on the FTTs specified in the storage policy. During a failure, the
writes of the failed component is redirected to the durability component. When the component
recovers from the transient failure and comes back online, the durability component disappears
and results in the resynchronization of the component.

Without the durability component in place, if there is a second permanent failure in the cluster
and the mirror object is affected, the object data gets permanently lost even if the failure is
resolved.

Using the vSAN iSCSI Target Service

Use the iSCSI target service to enable hosts and physical workloads that reside outside the vSAN
cluster to access the vSAN datastore.

This feature enables an iSCSI initiator on a remote host to transport block-level data to an iSCSI
target on a storage device in the vSAN cluster. vSAN 6.7 and later releases support Windows
Server Failover Clustering (WSFC), so WSFC nodes can access vSAN iSCSI targets.

After you configure the vSAN iSCSI target service, you can discover the vSAN iSCSI targets from
a remote host. To discover vSAN iSCSI targets, use the IP address of any host in the vSAN
cluster, and the TCP port of the iSCSI target. To ensure high availability of the vSAN iSCSI target,
configure multipath support for your iSCSI application. You can use the IP addresses of two or
more hosts to configure the multipath.

Note vSAN iSCSI target service does not support other vSphere or ESXi clients or initiators,
third-party hypervisors, or migrations using raw device mapping (RDMs).

vSAN iSCSI target service supports the following CHAP authentication methods:

CHAP

In CHAP authentication, the target authenticates the initiator, but the initiator does not
authenticate the target.

Mutual CHAP

In mutual CHAP authentication, an extra level of security enables the initiator to authenticate
the target.

For more information about using the vSAN iSCSI target service, refer to the iSCSI target usage
guide.

iSCSI Targets
You can add one or more iSCSI targets that provide storage blocks as logical unit numbers
(LUNs). vSAN identifies each iSCSI target by a unique iSCSI qualified Name (IQN). You can use the
IQN to present the iSCSI target to a remote iSCSI initiator so that the initiator can access the LUN
of the target.

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Each iSCSI target contains one or more LUNs. You define the size of each LUN, assign a vSAN
storage policy to each LUN, and enable the iSCSI target service on a vSAN cluster. You can
configure a storage policy to use as the default policy for the home object of the vSAN iSCSI
target service.

iSCSI Initiator Groups

You can define a group of iSCSI initiators that have access to a specified iSCSI target. The iSCSI
initiator group restricts access to only those initiators that are members of the group. If you do
not define an iSCSI initiator or initiator group, then each target is accessible to all iSCSI initiators.

A unique name identifies each iSCSI initiator group. You can add one or more iSCSI initiators as
members of the group. Use the IQN of the initiator as the member initiator name.

Enable the iSCSI Target Service

Before you can create iSCSI targets and LUNs and define iSCSI initiator groups, you must enable
the iSCSI target service on the vSAN cluster.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > Services.

2 On the vSAN iSCSI Target Service row, click ENABLE.

The Edit vSAN iSCSI Target Service wizard opens.

3 Edit the vSAN iSCSI target service configuration.

You can select the default network, TCP port, and Authentication method at this time. You
also can select a vSAN storage policy.

4 Click the Enable vSAN iSCSI Target service slider to turn it on and then click APPLY.

Results

The vSAN iSCSI target service is enabled.

What to do next

After the iSCSI target service is enabled, you can create iSCSI targets and LUNs, and define iSCSI
initiator groups.

Create an iSCSI Target

You can create or edit an iSCSI target and its associated LUN.

Prerequisites

Verify that the iSCSI target service is enabled.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

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2 Click the Configure tab.

a Under vSAN, click iSCSI Target Service.

b Click the iSCSI Targets tab.

c Click Add. The New iSCSI Target dialog box is displayed. If you leave the target IQN field
blank, the IQN is generated automatically.

d Enter a target Alias.

e Select a Storage policy, Network, TCP port, and Authentication method.

f Select the I/O Owner Location. This feature is available only if you have configured vSAN
cluster as a stretched cluster. It allows you to specify the site location for hosting the
iSCSI target service for a target. This helps in avoiding the cross site iSCSI traffic. If you
have set the policy as HFT>=1, then in the event of a site failure, the I/O owner location
changes to the alternate site. After the site failure recovery, the I/O owner location
automatically changes back to the original I/O owner location as per the configuration.
You can select one of the following options to set the site location:

n Either: Hosts the iSCSI target service either on Preferred or Secondary site.

n Preferred: Hosts the iSCSI target service on the Preferred site.

n Secondary: Hosts the iSCSI target service on the Secondary site.

3 Click OK.

Results

iSCSI target is created and listed under the vSAN iSCSI Targets section with the information such
as IQN, I/O owner host, and so on.

What to do next

Define a list of iSCSI initiators that can access this target.

Add a LUN to an iSCSI Target

You can add one or more LUNs to an iSCSI target, or edit an existing LUN.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

a Under vSAN, click iSCSI Target Service.

b Click the iSCSI Targets tab, and select a target.

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c In the vSAN iSCSI LUNs section, click Add. The Add LUN to Target dialog box is
displayed.

d Enter the size of the LUN. The vSAN Storage Policy configured for the iSCSI target service
is assigned automatically. You can assign a different policy to each LUN.

3 Click Add.

Resize a LUN on an iSCSI Target

Depending on your requirement, you can increase the size of an online LUN. Online resizing of
the LUN is enabled only if all hosts in the cluster are upgraded to vSAN 6.7 Update 3 or later.

Procedure

1 In the vSphere Client, navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click iSCSI Target Service.

4 Click the iSCSI Targets tab and select a target.

5 In the vSAN iSCSI LUNs section, select a LUN and click Edit. The Edit LUN dialog box is
displayed.

6 Increase the size of the LUN depending on your requirement.

7 Click OK.

Create an iSCSI Initiator Group

You can create an iSCSI initiator group to provide access control for iSCSI targets. Only iSCSI
initiators that are members of the initiator group can access the iSCSI targets.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

a Under vSAN, click iSCSI Target Service.

b Click the Initiator Groups tab, and click the Add a new iSCSI initiator group ( ) icon. The
New Initiator Group dialog box is displayed.

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c Enter a name for the iSCSI initiator group.

d (Optional) To add members to the initiator group, enter the IQN of each member. Use the
following format to enter the member IQN:

iqn.YYYY-MM.domain:name

Where:

n YYYY = year, such as 2016

n MM = month, such as 09

n domain = domain where the initiator resides

n name = member name (optional)

3 Click OK or Create.

What to do next

Add members to the iSCSI initiator group.

Assign a Target to an iSCSI Initiator Group

You can assign an iSCSI target to an iSCSI initiator group. Only those initiators that are members
of the initiator group can access the assigned targets.

Prerequisites

Verify that you have an existing iSCSI initiator group.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

a Under vSAN, click iSCSI Target Service.

b Select the Initiator Groups tab.

c In the Accessible Targets section, click the Add a new accessible target for iSCSI Initiator
group ( ) icon. The Add Accessible Targets dialog box is displayed.

d Select a target from the list of available targets.

3 Click Add.

Disable the iSCSI Target Service

You can disable the vSAN iSCSI target service. Disabling vSAN iSCSI target service does not
delete the LUNs/Targets. If you wish to reclaim the space, delete the LUNs/targets manually
before disabling vSAN iSCSI target service.

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Prerequisites

Workloads running on iSCSI LUNs are stopped when you disable the iSCSI target service. Before
disabling, ensure that there are no workloads running on iSCSI LUNs.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > Services.

2 On the vSAN iSCSI Target Service row, click EDIT.

The Edit vSAN iSCSI Target Service wizard opens.

3 Click the Enable vSAN iSCSI Target Service slider to turn it off and click Apply.

Results

The vSAN iSCSI target service is disabled.

What to do next

Monitor vSAN iSCSI Target Service

You can monitor the iSCSI target service to view the physical placement of iSCSI target
components and to check for failed components. You also can monitor the health status of the
iSCSI target service.

Prerequisites

Verify that you have enabled the vSAN iSCSI target service and created targets and LUNs.

Procedure

1 Browse to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click Monitor and select Virtual Objects. iSCSI targets are listed on the page.

3 Select a target and click View Placement Details. The Physical Placement shows where the
data components of the target are located.

4 Click Group components by host placement to view the hosts associated with the iSCSI data
components.

vSAN File Service

Use the vSAN file service to create file shares in the vSAN datastore that client workstations or
VMs can access. The data stored in a file share can be accessed from any device that has access
rights.

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vSAN File Service is a layer that sits on top of vSAN to provide file shares. It currently supports
SMB, NFSv3, and NFSv4.1 file shares. vSAN File Service comprises of vSAN Distributed File
System (vDFS) which provides the underlying scalable filesystem by aggregating vSAN objects,
a Storage Services Platform which provides resilient file server end points and a control plane
for deployment, management, and monitoring. File shares are integrated into the existing
vSAN Storage Policy Based Management, and on a per-share basis. vSAN file service brings
in capability to host the file shares directly on the vSAN cluster.

Clients Clients Clients

Appliance Appliance Appliance Appliance

VM VM VM VM
Appliance
Protocol Protocol Protocol Protocol VM
Stack Stack Stack Stack

Distributed File System (VDFS)

vSAN vSAN vSAN vSAN ESXi

ESXi ESXi ESXi ESXi

File Services Control Path/

User Interface
Monitoring Services

vCenter

When you configure vSAN file service, vSAN creates a single VDFS distributed file system for
the cluster which will be used internally for management purposes. A file service VM (FSVM) is
placed on each host. The FSVMs manage file shares in the vSAN datastore. Each FSVM contains
a file server that provides both NFS and SMB service.

A static IP address pool should be provided as an input while enabling file service workflow. One
of the IP addresses is designated as the primary IP address. The primary IP address can be used
for accessing all the shares in the file services cluster with the help of SMB and NFSv4.1 referrals.
A file server is started for every IP address provided in the IP pool. A file share is exported by
only one file server. However, the file shares are evenly distributed across all the file servers.
To provide computing resources that help manage access requests, the number of IP addresses
must be equal to the number of hosts in the vSAN cluster.

vSAN file service supports stretched clusters and two-node clusters. A two-node cluster should
have two data node servers in the same location or office, and the witness in a remote or shared
location.

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Limitations and Considerations

Consider the following when configuring vSAN File Service:

n With vSAN 7.0 U3, File Service VMs are powered off and but no longer deleted when the
vSAN cluster enters maintenance mode.

n vSAN 7.0 Update 3 supports two-node configurations and stretched clusters.

n vSAN 7.0 Update 3 supports 64 file servers in a 64 host setup.

n vSAN 7.0 Update 3 supports 100 file shares.

n In releases prior to vSAN 7.0 Update 3, when a host enters maintenance mode, the Protocol
Stack container moves to another FSVM. The FSVM on the host that entered maintenance
mode is deleted. After the host exits maintenance mode, a new FSVM is provisioned.

File Service VMs are powered off and deleted when the vSAN cluster enters maintenance
mode, and recreated when the host exits maintenance mode.

n vSAN File Services VM (FSVM) docker internal network may overlap with the customer
network without warning or reconfiguration.

There is known conflict issue if the specified file service network overlaps with the docker
internal network (172.17.0.0/16). This causes routing problem for the traffic to the correct
endpoint.

As a workaround, specify a different file service network so that it does not overlap with the
docker internal network (172.17.0.0/16).

Configure File Services

You can configure the File Services, which enable you to create file shares on your vSAN
datastore. You can enable vSAN File Services on a regular vSAN cluster, a vSAN stretched
cluster, or a vSAN ROBO cluster.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the following are configured before enabling the vSAN File Services:

n Active Directory (AD) domain if you are planning to create an SMB file share or an NFSv4.1
file share with the Kerberos security.

n A static IP address to use as the single point of access to vSAN file shares. For best
performance, the number of IP addresses must be equal to the number of hosts in the vSAN
cluster.

Note For the file servers, vSAN File Services support only the IPV4 addresses.

n The static IP addresses should be part of the Forward lookup and Reverse lookup zones in
the DNS server.

n All the static IP addresses should be from the same subnet.

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n vSAN File Services are supported on DVS version 6.6.0 or later. Create a dedicated port
group for vSAN File Services in the DVS.

n To enable vSAN File Services, an additional 4 cores CPU and 10 GB physical memory are
required for each host.

n MacLearning and Forged Transmits are enabled as part of the vSAN File Services enablement
process for a provided DVS port group.

For standard switches, the Promiscuous Mode and Forged Transmits are enabled as part of
the vSAN File Services enablement process.

If NSX-based networks are being used, ensure that MacLearning is enabled for the provided
network entity from the NSX admin console, and all the hosts and File Services nodes are
connected to the desired NSX-T network.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > Services.

2 On the File Service row, click Enable.

The Configure File Service wizard opens.

3 Review the checklist on the Introduction page, and click Next.

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4 In the File service agent page, select one of the following options to download the OVF file.

Option Description

Automatic approach This option lets the system search and download the
OVF.

Note
n Ensure that you have configured the proxy and
firewall so that vCenter can access the following
website and download the appropriate JSON file.

https://download3.vmware.com/software/
VSANOVF/FsOvfMapping.json
For more information about configuring the vCenter
DNS, IP address, and proxy settings, see vCenter
Server Appliance Configuration.
n If an OVF is already downloaded and available, then
following the options are available:
n Use current OVF: Lets you use the OVF that is
already available.
n Automatically load latest OVF: Lets the system
search and download the latest OVF.

Manual approach This option allows you to browse and select an OVF that
is already available on your local system.

Note If you select this option, you should upload all the
following files:
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-
x.x.x.x-x_OVF10.mf
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-
x.x.x.x-x-x_OVF10.cert
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-
x.x.x.x-x-x-system.vmdk
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-
x.x.x.x-x-cloud-components.vmdk
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-
x.x.x.x-x-log.vmdk
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-
x.x.x.x-x_OVF10.ovf

5 In the Domain page, enter the following information and click Next:

n File service domain: The domain name should have minimum two characters. The first
character should be an alphabet or a number. The remaining characters can include an
alphabet, a number, an underscore ( _ ), a period ( . ), a hyphen ( - ).

n DNS servers: Enter a valid DNS server to ensure the proper configuration of File Services.

n DNS suffixes: Provide the DNS suffix that is used with the file services. All other
DNS suffixes from where the clients can access these file servers should also be
included. File Services does not support DNS domain with single label, such as "app",

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"wiz", "com" and so on. A domain name given to file services should be of the
format thisdomain.registerdrootdnsname. DNS name and suffix must adhere to the
best practices detailed in https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-
ds/plan/selecting-the-forest-root-domain.

n Directory Service: Configure an Active Directory domain to vSAN File Services for
authentication. If you are planning to create an SMB file share or an NFSv4.1 file share
with Kerberos authentication, then you must configure an AD domain to vSAN File
Services.

Enter appropriate values in the following text boxes to configure the Active Directory
domain to vSAN File Services:

Option Description

AD domain Fully qualified domain name joined by the file server.

Organizational unit (Optional) Contains the computer account that the vSAN File
Services creates. In an organization with complex
hierarchies, create the computer account in a
specified container by using a forward slash mark to
denote hierarchies (for example, organizational_unit/
inner_organizational_unit).

Note By default, the vSAN File Services create the

computer account in the Computers container.

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Option Description

AD username User name to be used for connecting and configuring

the Active Directory service.
This user name authenticates the active directory on
the domain. A domain user authenticates the domain
controller and creates vSAN File Services computer
accounts, related SPN entries, and DNS entries (when
using Microsoft DNS). As a best practice, create a
dedicated service account for the file services.
This user should have the following privileges in the
organizational unit:
n Create and delete Computer Objects.
n Read and Write ms-DS-PrincipleName.
n Read and Write uPNSuffixes.
n (Optional) Add/Update DNS entries

Password Password for the user name of the Active Directory

on the domain. vSAN File Services use the password
to authenticate to AD and to create the vSAN File
Services computer account.

Note
n vSAN File Services does not support the following:

n Read-Only Domain Controllers (RODC) for joining domains because the RODC
cannot create machine accounts. As a security best practice, a dedicated org unit
should be pre-created in the Active Directory and the user name mentioned here
should be controlling this organization.

n Disjoint namespace.

n Spaces in organizational units (OUs) names.

n Multi domain and Single Active Directory Forest environments.

n Only English characters are supported for Active Directory user name.

n Only single AD domain configuration is supported. However, the file servers can
be put on a valid DNS subdomain. For example, an AD domain with the name
example.com can have file server FQDN as name1.eng.example.com.

n Pre-created computer objects for file servers are not supported. Make sure that the
user provided here have sufficient privilege over the organizational unit.

n vSAN File Services update the DNS records for the file servers if the Active Directory
is also used as a DNS server and the user has sufficient permission to update the
DNS records. vSAN File Services also has a Health Check to indicate if the forward
and reverse lookups for file servers are working properly. However, if there are other
proprietary solutions used as DNS servers, the Vi admin should update these DNS
records.

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6 In the Networking page, enter the following information, and click Next:

n Network

n Protocol

n Subnet mask

n Gateway

7 In the IP Pool page, enter the following information, select a Primary IP, and then click Next.

n IP address

n DNS name

n Affinity site: This option is available if you are configuring vSAN file service on a stretched
cluster. This option allows you to configure the placement of the file server on Preferred
or Secondary site. This helps in reducing the cross-site traffic latency. The default value is
Either, which indicates that no site affinity rule is applied to the file server.

Note If your cluster is a ROBO cluster, ensure that the Affinity site value is set to Either.

In a site failure event, the file server affiliated to that site fails over to the other site. The
file server fails back to the affiliated site when it is recovered. Configure more file servers
to one site if more workloads can be expected from a certain site.

Note If the file server contains SMB file shares, then it does not failback automatically
even if the site failure is recovered.

Consider the following while configuring the IP addresses and DNS names:

n To ensure proper configuration of File Services, the IP addresses you enter in the IP
Pool page should be static addresses and the DNS server should have records for those
IP addresses. For best performance, the number of IP addresses must be equal to the
number of hosts in the vSAN cluster.

n You can enter up to 32 IP addresses.

n You can use the following options to automatically fill the IP address and DNS server
name text boxes:

AUTO FILL: This option is displayed after you enter the first IP address in the IP
address text box. Click the AUTO FIL option to automatically fill the remaining fields
with sequential IP addresses, based on the subnet mask and gateway address of the IP
address that you have provided in the first row. You can edit the auto filled IP addresses.

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LOOK UP DNS: This option is displayed after you enter the first IP address in the IP
address text box. Click the LOOK UP DNS option to automatically retrieve the FQDN
corresponding to the IP addresses in the IP address column.

Note
n All valid rules apply for the FQDNs. For more information, see https://tools.ietf.org/
html/rfc953.

n The first part of the FQDN, also known as NetBIOS Name, should not have more than
15 characters.

The FQDNs are automatically retrieved only under the following conditions:

n You should have entered a valid DNS server in the Domain page.

n The IP addresses entered in the IP Pool page should be static addresses and the DNS
server should have records for those IP addresses.

8 Review the settings and click Finish.

Results

The OVF is downloaded and deployed. The file services domain is created and the vSAN file
services is enabled. File servers are started with the IP addresses that were assigned during the
vSAN File Services configuration process.

n The OVF is downloaded and deployed.

n The file services domain is created and the vSAN file services is enabled.

n The file servers are started with the IP addresses that were assigned during the vSAN File
Services configuration process.

n A File Services VM (FSVM) is placed on each host.

Note The FSVMs are managed by the vSAN File Services. Do not perform any operation on
the FSVMs.

Edit vSAN File Service

You can edit and reconfigure the settings of a vSAN File Service.

Prerequisites

n If you are upgrading from vSAN 7.0 to 7.0 Update 1, you can create SMB and NFS Kerberos
file shares. This requires configuring the Active Directory domain to vSAN File Service.

n If there are active shares, changing the Active Directory domain is not permitted as this
action can disrupt the user permissions on the active shares.

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n If your Active Directory password has been changed, then you can edit the Active Directory
configuration settings and provide the new password.

Note This action might cause minor disruption to the inflight I/Os on the file shares.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > Services.

2 On the File Service row, click Edit.

The Configure File Service wizard opens.

3 Make the appropriate configuration changes. You can make the following changes to the
vSAN File Service configuration:

Page Editable Fields

Domain You can edit the following domain-related information:

n File service domain
n DNS servers
n DNS suffixes
n Directory service

Note Changing domain information is a disruptive

action. It might require all clients to use new URLs to
reconnect to the file shares.

Networking You can edit the following networking-related

information:
n Subnet mask
n Gateway

IP Pool You can edit the static IP addresses and DNS names,
except the primary IP address and DNS name.

After making necessary changes, review the changes in the Review page and click Finish.

Results

The changes are applied to the vSAN File Service configuration.

Create a File Share

When the vSAN file service is enabled, you can create one or more file shares on the vSAN
datastore. vSAN File Service does not support using these file shares as datastores on ESXi.

Prerequisites

If you are creating an SMB file share or a NFSv4.1 file share with Kerberos security, then ensure
that you have configured vSAN File Service to an AD domain.

Considerations for Share Name and Usage

n Usernames with non-ascii characters can be used to access share data.

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n Share names cannot exceed 80 characters and can contain English characters, numbers, and
hypen character. Every hyphen character must be preceded and followed by a number or
alphabet. Consecutive hyphens are not allowed.

n For SMB type shares, file and directories can contain any Unicode compatible strings.

n For pure NFSv4 type shares, the file and directories can contain any UTF-8 compatible
strings.

n For pure NFSv3 and NFSv3+NFSv4 shares file and directories can contain only ASCII
compatible strings.

n Migrating any share data from older NFSv3 to new vSAN File Service shares with NFSv4 only
requires conversion of all file and directories names to UTF-8 encoding. There are third part
tools to achieve the same.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > File Shares.

2 Click Add.

The Create file share wizard opens.

3 In the General page, enter the following information and click Next.

n Name: Enter a name for the file share.

n Protocol: Select an appropriate protocol. vSAN File Service supports SMB and NFS file
system protocols.

If you select the SMB protocol, you can also configure the SMB file share to accept only
the encrypted data using the Protocol encryption option.

If you select the NFS protocol, you can configure the file share to support either NFS 3,
NFS 4, or both NFS 3 and NFS 4 versions. If you select NFS 4 version, you can set either
AUTH_SYS or Kerberos security.

Note SMB protocol and Kerberos security for NFS protocol can be configured only
if the vSAN File Service is configured with Active Directory. For more information, see
Configure File Services.

n With SMB protocol, you can hide the files and folders that the share client user does not
have permission to access using the Access based enumeration option.

n Storage Policy: Select an appropriate storage policy.

n Affinity site: This option is available if you are creating a file share on a stretched cluster.
This option helps you place the file share on a file server that belongs to the site of your
choice. Use this option when you prefer low latency while accessing the file share. The
default value is Either, which indicates that the file share is placed on a site with less
traffic on either preferred or secondary site.

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n Storage space quotas: You can set the following values:

n Share warning threshold: When the share reaches this threshold, a warning message
is displayed.

n Share hard quota: When the share reaches this threshold, new block allocation is
denied.

n Labels: A label is a key-value pair that helps you organize file shares. You can attach
labels to each file share and then filter them based on their labels. A label key is a string
with 1~250 characters. A label value is a string and the length of the label value should be
less than 1k characters. vSAN File Service supports up to 5 labels per share.

4 The Net access control page, provides options to define access to the file share. Net access
control options are available only for NFS shares. Select one of the following options and click
Next.

n No access: Select this option to make the file share inaccessible from any IP address.

n Allow access from any IP: Select this option to make the file share accessible from all IP
addresses.

n Customize net access: Select this option to define permissions for specific IP addresses.
Using this option you can specify whether a particular IP address can access, make
changes, or only read the file share. You can also enable or disable Root squash for each
IP address. You can enter the IP addresses in the following formats:

n A single IP address. For example, 123.23.23.123

n IP address along with a subnet mask. For example, 123.23.23.0/8

n A range by specifying a starting IP address and ending IP address separated by a

hyphen ( - ). For example, 123.23.23.123-123.23.23.128

n Asterisk ( * ) to imply all the clients.

5 In the Review page, review the settings, and then click Finish.

A new file share is created on the vSAN datastore.

View File Shares

You can view the list of vSAN file shares.

To view the list of vSAN file shares, navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN >
File Service Shares.

A list of vSAN file shares appears. For each file share, you can view information such as storage
policy, hard quota, usage over quota, actual usage, and so on.

Access File Shares

You can access a file share from a host client.

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Access NFS File Share

You can access a file share from a host client, using an operating system that communicates
with NFS file systems. For RHEL-based Linux distributions, NFS 4.1 support is available in RHEL
7.3 and CentOS 7.3-1611 running kernel 3.10.0-514 or later. For Debian based Linux distributions,
NFS 4.1 support is available in Linux kernel version 4.0.0 or later. All NFS clients must have unique
hostnames for NFSv4.1 to work. You can use the Linux mount command with the Primary IP to
mount a vSAN file share to the client. For example: mount -t nfs4 -o minorversion=1,sec=sys
<primary ip>:/vsanfs/<share name>. NFSv3 support is available for RHEL-based and Debian
based Linux distributions. You can use the Linux mount command to mount a vSAN file share to
the client. For example: mount -t nfs vers=3 <nfsv3_access_point> <localmount_point>.

Example

Sample v41 commands for verifying the NFS file share from a host client:

[root@localhost ~]# mount -t nfs4 -o minorversion=1,sec=sys <primary ip address>:/vsanfs/

TestShare-0 /mnt/TestShare-0
[root@localhost ~]# cd /mnt/TestShare-0/
[root@localhost TestShare-0]# mkdir bar
[root@localhost TestShare-0]# touch foo
[root@localhost TestShare-0]# ls -l
total 0
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 0 Feb 19 18:35 bar
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 0 Feb 19 18:35 foo

Access NFS Kerberos File Share

A Linux client accessing an NFS Kerberos share should have a valid Kerberos ticket.

Sample v41 commands for verifying the NFS Kerberos file share from a host client:

An NFS Kerberos share can be mounted using the following mount command:

[root@localhost ~]# mount -t nfs4 -o minorversion=1,sec=krb5/krb5i/krb5p <primary ip

address>:/vsanfs/TestShare-0 /mnt/TestShare-0
[root@localhost ~]# cd /mnt/TestShare-0/
[root@localhost TestShare-0]# mkdir bar
[root@localhost TestShare-0]# touch foo
[root@localhost TestShare-0]# ls -l
total 0
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 0 Feb 19 18:35 bar
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 0 Feb 19 18:35 foo

Changing Ownership of a NFS Kerberos share

You must log in using the AD domain user name for changing the ownership of a share. The AD
domain user name provided in the file service configuration acts as a sudo user for the Kerberos
file share.

[root@localhost ~]# mount -t nfs4 -o minorversion=1,sec=sys <primary ip address>:/vsanfs/

TestShare-0 /mnt/TestShare-0
[fsadmin@ocalhost ~]# chown user1 /mnt/TestShare-0

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[user1@localhost ~]# ls -l /mnt/TestShare-0

total 0
drwxr-xr-x. 1 user1 domain users 0 Feb 19 18:35 bar
-rw-r--r--. 1 user1 domain users 0 Feb 19 18:35 foo

Access SMB File Share

You can access an SMB file share from a Windows client.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the Windows client is joined to the Active Directory domain that is configured with
vSAN File Service.

Procedure

1 Copy the SMB file share path using the following procedure:

a Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > File Service Shares.

List of all the vSAN file shares appears.

b Select the SMB file share that you want to access from the Windows client.

c Click COPY PATH > SMB.

The SMB file share path gets copied to your clipboard.

2 Log into the Windows client as a normal Active Directory domain user.

3 Access the SMB file share using path that you have copied.

Edit a File Share

You can edit the settings of a vSAN file share.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > File Service Shares.

List of all the vSAN file shares appears.

2 Select the file share that you want to modify and click EDIT.

3 In the Edit file share page, make appropriate changes to the file share settings and click
Finish.

Results

The file share settings are updated.

Note vSAN does not allow file share protocol change between SMB and NFS.

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Manage SMB File Share

vSAN File Service supports the shared folders snap-in for the Microsoft Management Console
(MMC) for managing the SMB shares on the vSAN cluster.

You can perform the following tasks on vSAN File System SMB shares using the MMC tool:

n Manage Access Control List (ACL).

n Close open files.

n View active sessions.

n View open files.

n Close client connections.

Procedure

1 Copy the MMC Command using the following procedure:

a Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > File Service Shares.

List of all the vSAN file shares appears.

b Select the SMB file share that you want to manage from the Windows client using the
MMC tool.

c Click COPY MMC COMMAND.

The MMC command gets copied to your clipboard.

2 Log into the Windows client as a file server admin user. You can configure a user as a file
server admin user when you enable file service. A file service admin user has all the privileges
on the file server.

3 In the search box on the taskbar, type Run, and then select Run.

4 In the Run box, run the MMC command that you have copied to access and manage the SMB
share using the MMC tool.

Delete a File Share

You can delete a file share when you no longer need it. When you delete a file share, all the
snapshots associated with that file share are also deleted.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > File Service Shares.

List of all the vSAN file shares appears.

2 Select the file share that you want to modify and click DELETE.

3 On the Delete file shares dialogue, click DELETE.

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vSAN Distributed File System Snapshot

A snapshot provides a space-efficient and time-based archive of the data. It provides the ability
to retrieve data from a file or a set of files in the event of accidental deletion of a file. A file
system level snapshot provides you information about the files that have been changed and
the changes made to the file. It provides you an automated file recovery service and it is more
efficient compared to the traditional tape-based backup method. A snapshot on its own does not
provide a full disaster recovery solution but it can be used by the third-party backup vendors to
copy the changed files (incremental backup) to a different physical location.

vSAN File Services has a built-in feature that allows you to create a point- in-time image of the
vSAN file share. When the vSAN File Service is enabled, you can create up to 32 snapshots per
share. A vSAN file share snapshot is a file system snapshot that provides a point-in-time image of
a vSAN file share.

Create a Snapshot
When the vSAN file service is enabled, you can create one or more snapshots that provide a
point-in-time image of the vSAN file share. You can create a maximum of 32 snapshots per file
share.

Prerequisites

You should have created a vSAN file share.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > File Service Shares.

A list of vSAN file shares appears.

2 Select the file share for which you want to create a snapshot and then click SNAPSHOTS >
NEW SNAPSHOT.

Create new snapshot dialogue appears.

3 On the Create new snapshot dialogue, provide a name for the snapshot, and click Create.

Results

A point-in-time snapshot for the selected file share is created.

View a Snapshot
You can view the list of snapshots along with the information such as date and time of the
snapshot creation, and its size.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > File Service Shares.

A list of vSAN file shares appears.

2 Select a file share and click SNAPSHOTS.

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Results

A list of snapshots for that file share appears. You can view information such as date and time of
the snapshot creation, and its size.

Delete a Snapshot
You can delete a snapshot when you no longer need it.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and click Configure > vSAN > File Service Shares.

A list of vSAN file shares appears.

2 Select a file share and click SNAPSHOTS.

A list of snapshots of that belongs to the file share you have selected appears.

3 Select the snapshot that you want to delete and click DELETE.

Rebalance Workload on vSAN File Service Hosts

Skyline Health displays the workload balance health status for all the hosts that are part of the
vSAN File Service Infrastructure.

If there is an imbalance in the workload of a host, you can correct it by rebalancing the workload.

Prerequisites

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and then click Monitor > vSAN > Skyline Health.

2 Under Skyline Health, expand File Service and then click Infrastructure Health.

The Infrastructure Health tab displays a list of all the hosts that are part of the vSAN File
Service infrastructure. For each host, the status of workload balance is displayed. If there is
an imbalance in the workload of a host, an alert is displayed in the Description column.

3 Click REMIDIATE IMBALANCE and then REBALANCE to fix the imbalance.

Before proceeding with rebalancing, consider the following:

n During rebalancing, containers in the hosts with an imbalanced workload might be moved
to other hosts. The rebalancing activity might also impact the other hosts in the cluster.

n During the rebalance process, the workloads running on NFS shares are not disrupted.
However, the I/O to SMB shares located in the containers that have moved are disrupted.

Results

The host workload is balanced and the workload balance status turns green.

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Reclaiming Space with Unmap

vSAN 6.7 Update 2 and later supports UNMAP commands that enable you to reclaim storage
space that is mapped to deleted files in the vSAN Distributed File System (VDFS) created by the
guest on the vSAN object.

Deleting or removing files and snapshots frees space within the file system. This free space
is mapped to a storage device until the file system releases or unmaps it. vSAN supports
reclamation of free space, which is also called the unmap operation. You can free storage space
in the VDFS when you delete file shares and snapshots, consolidate file shares and snapshots,
and so on. You can unmap storage space when you delete files or snapshots

Unmap capability is disabled by default. To enable unmap on a vSAN cluster, use the following
RVC command:

vsan.unmap_support –enable

When you enable unmap on a vSAN cluster, you must power off and then power on all VMs. VMs
must use virtual hardware version 13 or above to perform unmap operations.

Upgrade File Service

When you upgrade the file service, the upgrade is performed on a rolling basis. During the
upgrade, the file server containers running on the virtual machines which are undergoing
upgrade fails over to other virtual machines. The file shares remain accessible during the
upgrade. During the upgrade, you might experience some interruptions while accessing the file
shares.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the following are upgraded:

n ESXi Hosts

n vCenter Server

n vSAN disk format

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and then click Configure > vSAN > Services.

2 Under vSAN Services, on the File Service row, click CHECK UPGRADE.

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3 In the Upgrade File Service dialog box, select one of the following deployment options and
then click UPGRADE.

Option Action

Automatic approach This is the default option. This option lets the system search and download
the OVF. After the upgrade begins, you cannot cancel the task.

Note vSAN requires internet connectivity for this option.

Manual approach This option allows you to browse and select an OVF that is already available
on your local system. After the upgrade begins, you cannot cancel the task.

Note If you select this option, you should upload all the following files:
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-x.x.x.x-x_OVF10.mf
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-x.x.x.x-x-x_OVF10.cert
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-x.x.x.x-x-x-
system.vmdk
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-x.x.x.x-x-cloud-
components.vmdk
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-x.x.x.x-x-log.vmdk
n VMware-vSAN-File-Services-Appliance-x.x.x.x-x_OVF10.ovf

Monitor Performance
You can monitor the performance of NFS and SMB file shares.

Prerequisites

Ensure that vSAN Performance Service is enabled. If you are using the vSAN Performance
Service for the first time, you see a message alerting you to enable it. For more information
about vSAN Performance Service, see the vSAN Monitoring and Troubleshooting Guide.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and then click Monitor > vSAN > Performance.

2 Click the FILE SHARE tab.

3 Select one of the following options:

Option Action

Time Range n Select Last to select the number of hours for which you want to view the
performance report.
n Select CUSTOM to select the date and time for which you want to view
the performance report.
n Select SAVE to add the current setting as an option to the Time Range
list.

File share Select the file share for which you want to generate and view the
performance report.

4 Click SHOW RESULTS.

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Results

The throughput, IOPS, and latency metrics of the vSAN file service for the selected period are
displayed.

For more information on vSAN Performance Graphs, see the VMware knowledge base article at
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2144493.

Monitor Capacity
You can monitor the capacity for both native file shares and CNS-managed file shares.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and then click Monitor > vSAN > Capacity.

2 Click CAPACITY USAGE tab.

3 In the Usage breakdown before dedupe and compression section, expand User objects.

Results

The file share capacity information is displayed.

For more information about monitoring vSAN capacity, see the vSAN Monitoring and
Troubleshooting Guide.

Monitor Health
You can monitor the health of both vSAN file service and file share objects.

View vSAN File Service Health

You can monitor the vSAN file service health.

Prerequisites

Ensure that vSAN Performance Service is enabled.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster and then click Monitor > vSAN .

2 In the Skyline Health section, expand File Service.

3 Click the following file service health parameters to view the status.

Option Action

Infrastructure health Displays the file service infrastructure health status per ESXi host. For more
information, click the Info tab.

File Server Health Displays the file server health status. For more information, click the Info tab.

Share health Displays the file service share health. For more information, click the Info
tab.

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Monitor File Share Objects Health

You can monitor the health of file share objects.

To view the file share object health, navigate to the vSAN cluster and then click Monitor > vSAN
> Virtual Objects.

The device information such as name, identifier or UUID, number of devices used for each virtual
machine, and how they are mirrored across hosts is displayed in the VIEW PLACEMENT DETAILS
section.

Migrate a Hybrid vSAN Cluster to an All-Flash Cluster

You can migrate the disk groups in a hybrid vSAN cluster to all-flash disk groups.

The vSAN hybrid cluster uses magnetic disks for the capacity layer and flash devices for the
cache layer. You can change the configuration of the disk groups in the cluster so that it uses
flash devices on the cache layer and the capacity layer.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Remove the hybrid disk groups for each host in the cluster.

a Click the Configure tab.

b Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

c Under Disk Groups, select the disk group to remove, click …, and then click Remove.

d Select Full data migration as a migration mode and click Yes.

3 Remove the physical HDD disks from the host.

4 Add the flash devices to the host.

Verify that no partitions exist on the flash devices.

5 Create the all-flash disk groups on each host.

Shutting Down and Restarting the vSAN Cluster

You can shut down the entire vSAN cluster to perform maintenance or troubleshooting.

Use the Shutdown Cluster wizard to shutdown the vSAN cluster. The wizard performs the
necessary steps and alerts you when it requires user action. You also can manually shut down
the cluster, if necessary.

Note When you shut down a stretched cluster, the witness host remains active.

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Shut Down the vSAN Cluster Using the Shutdown Cluster Wizard
Use the Shutdown cluster wizard to gracefully shut down the vSAN cluster for maintenance or
troubleshooting.

Note If you have a vSphere with Tanzu environment, you must follow the specified order
when shutting down or starting up the components. For more information, see "Shut Down the
vSphere with Tanzu Workload Domain" in the VMware Validated Design Documentation.

Procedure

1 Prepare the vSAN cluster for shutdown.

a Check the vSAN health service to confirm that the cluster is healthy.

b Power off all virtual machines (VMs) stored in the vSAN cluster, except for vCenter Server
VMs, vCLS VMs and file service VMs. If vCenter Server is hosted in the vSAN cluster, do
not power off the vCenter Server VM.

c If this is an HCI Mesh server cluster, power off all client VMs sstored on the cluster. If the
client cluster's vCenter Server VM is stored in this cluster, either migrate or power off the
VM. Once this server cluster is shutdown, it's shared datastore is inaccessible to clients.

d Verify that all resynchronization tasks are complete.

Click the Monitor tab and select vSAN > Resyncing Objects.

Note If any member hosts are in lockdown mode, add the host's root account to the security
profile Exception User list. For more information, see Lockdown Mode in vSphere Security.

2 Right-click the vSAN cluster in the vSphere Client, and select menu Shutdown cluster.

You also can click Shutdown Cluster on the vSAN Services page.

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3 On the Shutdown cluster wizard, verify that the Shutdown pre-checks are green checks.
Resolve any issues that are red exclamations. Click Next.

If vCenter Server appliance is deployed on the vSAN cluster, the Shutdown wizard displays
the vCenter Server notice. Note the IP address of the orchestration host, in case you need it
during the cluster restart. Click Next.

4 Enter a reason for performing the shutdown, and click Shutdown.

The vSAN Services page changes to display information about the shutdown process.

5 Monitor the shutdown process.

vSAN performs the steps to shutdown the cluster, powers off the system VMs, and powers
off the hosts.

Restart the vSAN Cluster

You can restart a vSAN cluster that is shut down for maintenance or troubleshooting.

Procedure

1 Power on the cluster hosts.

If the vCenter Server is hosted on the vSAN cluster, wait for vCenter Server to restart.

2 Right-click the vSAN cluster in the vSphere Client, and select menu Restart cluster.

You also can click Restart Cluster on the vSAN Services page.

3 On the Restart Cluster dialog, click Restart.

The vSAN Services page changes to display information about the restart process.

4 After the cluster has restarted, check the vSAN health service and resolve any outstanding
issues.

Manually Shut Down and Restart the vSAN Cluster

You can manually shut down the entire vSAN cluster to perform maintenance or troubleshooting.

Use the Shutdown Cluster wizard unless your workflow requires a manual shut down. When you
manually shut down the vSAN cluster, do not disable vSAN on the cluster.

Note If you have a vSphere with Tanzu environment, you must follow the specified order
when shutting down or starting up the components. For more information, see "Shut Down the
vSphere with Tanzu Workload Domain" in the VMware Validated Design Documentation.

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Procedure

1 Shut down the vSAN cluster.

a Check the vSAN health service to confirm that the cluster is healthy.

b Power off all virtual machines (VMs) running in the vSAN cluster, if vCenter Server is not
hosted on the cluster. If vCenter Server is hosted in the vSAN cluster, do not power off
the vCenter Server VM.

c Click the Configure tab and turn off HA. As a result, the cluster does not register host
shutdowns as failures.

d Verify that all resynchronization tasks are complete.

Click the Monitor tab and select vSAN > Resyncing Objects.

e If vCenter Server is hosted on the vSAN cluster, power off the vCenter Server VM.

Make a note of the host that runs the vCenter Server VM. It is the host where you must
restart the vCenter Server VM.

f Disable cluster member updates from vCenter Server by running the following command
on the ESXi hosts in the cluster. Ensure that you run the following command on all the
hosts.

esxcfg-advcfg -s 1 /VSAN/IgnoreClusterMemberListUpdates

g Log in to any host in the cluster other than the witness host.

h Run the following command only on that host. If you run the command on multiple hosts
concurrently, it may cause a race condition causing unexpected results.

python /usr/lib/vmware/vsan/bin/reboot_helper.py prepare

The command returns and prints the following:

Cluster preparation is done.

Note
n The cluster is fully partitioned after the successful completion of the command.

n If you encounter an error, resolve the issue based on the error message and try
enabling vCLS retreat mode again.

n If there are unhealthy or disconnected hosts in the cluster, remove the hosts and retry
the command.

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i Place all the hosts into maintenance mode with No Action. If the vCenter Server is
powered off, use the following command to place the ESXi hosts into maintenance mode
with No Action.

esxcli system maintenanceMode set -e true -m noAction

Perform this step on all the hosts.

To avoid the risk of data unavailability while using No Action at the same time on multiple
hosts, followed by a reboot of multiple hosts, see the VMware knowledge base article
at https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/60424. To perform simultaneous reboot of all hosts
in the cluster using a built-in tool, see the VMware knowledge base article at https://
kb.vmware.com/s/article/70650.

j After all hosts have successfully entered maintenance mode, perform any necessary
maintenance tasks and power off the hosts.

2 Restart the vSAN cluster.

a Power on the ESXi hosts.

Power on the physical box where ESXi is installed. The ESXi host starts, locates the VMs,
and functions normally.
If any hosts fail to restart, you must manually recover the hosts or move the bad hosts
out of the vSAN cluster.

b When all the hosts are back after powering on, exit all hosts from maintenance mode. If
the vCenter Server is powered off, use the following command on the ESXi hosts to exit
maintenance mode.

esxcli system maintenanceMode set -e false

Perform this step on all the hosts.

c Log in to one of the hosts in the cluster other than the witness host.

d Run the following command only on that host. If you run the command on multiple hosts
concurrently, it may cause a race condition causing unexpected results.

python /usr/lib/vmware/vsan/bin/reboot_helper.py recover

The command returns and prints the following:

Cluster reboot/power-on is completed successfully!

e Verify that all the hosts are available in the cluster by running the following command on
each host.

esxcli vsan cluster get

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f Enable cluster member updates from vCenter Server by running the following command
on the ESXi hosts in the cluster. Ensure that you run the following command on all the
hosts.

esxcfg-advcfg -s 0 /VSAN/IgnoreClusterMemberListUpdates

g Restart the vCenter Server VM if it is powered off. Wait for the vCenter Server VM to be
powered up and running. To disable vCLS retreat mode, see the VMware knowledge base
article at https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/80472.

h Verify again that all the hosts are participating in the vSAN cluster by running the
following command on each host.

esxcli vsan cluster get

i Restart the remaining VMs through vCenter Server.

j Check the vSAN health service and resolve any outstanding issues.

k (Optional) If the vSAN cluster has vSphere Availability enabled, you must manually restart
vSphere Availability to avoid the following error: Cannot find vSphere HA master
agent.

To manually restart vSphere Availability, select the vSAN cluster and navigate to:

1 Configure > Services > vSphere Availability > EDIT > Disable vSphere HA

2 Configure > Services > vSphere Availability > EDIT > Enable vSphere HA

3 If there are unhealthy or disconnected hosts in the cluster, recover or remove the hosts from
the vSAN cluster. Retry the above commands only after the vSAN health service shows all
available hosts in the green state.

If you have a three-node vSAN cluster, the command reboot_helper.py recover cannot
work in a one host failure situation. As an administrator, do the following:

a Temporarily remove the failure host information from the unicast agent list.

b Add the host after running the following command.

reboot_helper.py recover

Following are the commands to remove and add the host to a vSAN cluster:

#esxcli vsan cluster unicastagent remove -a <IP Address> -t node -u <NodeUuid>

#esxcli vsan cluster unicastagent add -t node -u <NodeUuid> -U true -a <IP Address> -p
12321

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Device Management in a vSAN
Cluster 5
You can perform various device management tasks in a vSAN cluster. You can create hybrid or
all-flash disk groups, enable vSAN to claim devices for capacity and cache, enable or disable LED
indicators on devices, mark devices as flash, mark remote devices as local, and so on.

This chapter includes the following topics:

n Managing Disk Groups and Devices

n Working with Individual Devices

Managing Disk Groups and Devices

When you enable vSAN on a cluster, choose a disk-claiming mode to organize devices into
groups.

vSAN 6.6 and later releases have a uniform workflow for claiming disks across all scenarios. It
groups all available disks by model and size, or by host. You must select which devices to use for
cache and which to use for capacity.

Create a Disk Group on a Host

When you create disk groups, you must specify each host and each device to be used for the
vSAN datastore. You organize cache and capacity devices into disk groups.

To create a disk group, you define the disk group and individually select devices to include
in the disk group. Each disk group contains one flash cache device and one or more capacity
devices.

When you create a disk group, consider the ratio of flash cache to consumed capacity. The
ratio depends on the requirements and workload of the cluster. For a hybrid cluster, consider
using at least 10 percent of flash cache to consumed capacity ratio (not including replicas
such as mirrors). For guidance on determining the cache ratio for all-flash clusters, refer to
Designing vSAN Disk groups – All Flash Cache Ratio Update.

The vSAN cluster initially contains a single vSAN datastore with zero bytes consumed.

As you create disk groups on each host and add cache and capacity devices, the size of the
datastore increases according to the amount of physical capacity added by those devices.
vSAN creates a single distributed vSAN datastore using the local empty capacity available
from the hosts added to the cluster.

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Each disk group includes a single flash cache device. You can create multiple disk groups
manually, and claim a flash cache device for each group.

Note If a new ESXi host is added to the vSAN cluster, the local storage from that host is
not added to the vSAN datastore automatically. You have to create a disk group and add the
devices to the disk group to use the new storage from the new ESXi host.

Claim Disks for vSAN Direct

Use vSAN Direct to enable stateful services to access raw, non-vSAN local storage through a
direct path.

You can claim host-local devices for vSAN Direct, and use vSAN to manage and monitor
those devices. On each local device, vSAN Direct creates and independent VMFS datastore
and makes it available to your stateful application.

Each local vSAN Direct datastore appears as a vSAN-D datastore.

Create a Disk Group on a vSAN Host

You can manually combine specific cache devices with specific capacity devices to define disk
groups on a particular host.

In this method, you manually select devices to create a disk group for a host. You add one cache
device and at least one capacity device to the disk group.

Note Only the vSAN Data Persistence platform can consume vSAN Direct storage. The vSAN
Data Persistence platform provides a framework for software technology partners to integrate
with VMware infrastructure. Each partner must develop their own plug-in for VMware customers
to receive the benefits of the vSAN Data Persistence platform. The platform is not operational
until the partner solution running on top is operational. For more information, see vSphere with
Tanzu Configuration and Management.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Click Claim unused disks.

5 Group by host.

6 Select disks to claim.

n Select the flash device to use for the cache tier.

n Select the disks to use for the capacity tier.

7 Click Create or OK to confirm your selections.

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Results

The new disk group appears in the list.

Claim Storage Devices for a vSAN Cluster

You can select a group of cache and capacity devices, and vSAN organizes them into default disk
groups.

In this method, you select devices to create a disk groups for the vSAN cluster. You need one
cache device and at least one capacity device for each disk group.

Note Only the vSAN Data Persistence platform can consume vSAN Direct storage. The vSAN
Data Persistence platform provides a framework for software technology partners to integrate
with VMware infrastructure. Each partner must develop their own plug-in for VMware customers
to receive the benefits of the vSAN Data Persistence platform. The platform is not operational
until the partner solution running on top is operational. For more information, see vSphere with
Tanzu Configuration and Management.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Click Claim Unused Disks.

5 Select devices to add to disk groups.

n For hybrid disk groups, each host that contributes storage must contribute one flash
cache device and one or more HDD capacity devices. You can add only one cache device
per disk group.

n Select a flash device to be used as cache and click Claim for cache tier.

n Select an HDD device to be used as capacity and click Claim for capacity tier.

n Click Create or OK.

n For all-flash disk groups, each host that contributes storage must contribute one flash
cache device and one or more flash capacity devices. You can add only one cache device
per disk group.

n Select a flash device to be used as cache and click Claim for cache tier.

n Select a flash device to be used for capacity and click Claim for capacity tier.

n Click Create or OK.

To verify the role of each device added to the all-flash disk group, navigate to the Disk Role
column at the bottom of the Disk Management page. The column shows the list of devices
and their purpose in a disk group.

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vSAN claims the devices that you selected and organizes them into default disk groups that
support the vSAN datastore.

Claim Disks for vSAN Direct

You can claim local storage devices as vSAN Direct for use with the vSAN Data Persistence
Platform.

Note Only the vSAN Data Persistence platform can consume vSAN Direct storage. The vSAN
Data Persistence platform provides a framework for software technology partners to integrate
with VMware infrastructure. Each partner must develop their own plug-in for VMware customers
to receive the benefits of the vSAN Data Persistence platform. The platform is not operational
until the partner solution running on top is operational. For more information, see vSphere with
Tanzu Configuration and Management.

Procedure

1 In the vSphere Client, navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Click Claim Unused Disks.

5 On the Claim Unused Disks wizard, select the vSAN Direct tab.

6 Select a device to claim, and select the checkbox to Claim for vSAN Direct.

Note Devices claimed for your vSAN cluster do not appear in the vSAN Direct tab.

7 Click Create.

Results

For each device you claim, vSAN creates a new vSAN Direct datastore.

What to do next

You can click the Datastores tab to display the vSAN Direct datastores in your cluster.

Working with Individual Devices

You can perform various device management tasks in the vSAN cluster, such as adding devices
to a disk group, removing devices from a disk group, enabling or disabling locator LEDs, and
marking devices. You can also add or remove disks that are claimed using the vSAN Direct.

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Add Devices to the Disk Group

When you configure vSAN to claim disks in manual mode, you can add additional local devices to
existing disk groups.

The devices must be the same type as the existing devices in the disk groups, such as SSD or
magnetic disks.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Select the disk group, and click the Add Disks.

5 Select the device that you want to add and click Add.

If you add a used device that contains residual data or partition information, you must
first clean the device. For information about removing partition information from devices,
see Remove Partition From Devices. You can also run the host_wipe_vsan_disks RVC
command to format the device. For more information about RVC commands, see the RVC
Command Reference Guide.

What to do next

Verify that the vSAN Disk Balance health check is green. If the Disk Balance health check issues a
warning, perform a manual rebalance operation during off-peak hours. For more information, see
"Manual Rebalance" in vSAN Monitoring and Troubleshooting.

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Check a Disk or Disk Group's Data Migration Capabilities

Use the data migration pre-check to determine the impact of data migration options when
unmounting a disk or disk group, or removing it from the vSAN cluster.

Run the data migration pre-check before you unmount or remove a disk or disk group from the
vSAN cluster. The test results provide information to help you determine the impact to cluster
capacity, predicted health checks, and any objects that will go out of compliance. If the operation
will not succeed, pre-check provides information about what resources are needed.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Monitor tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Data Migration Pre-check.

4 Select a disk or disk group, choose a data migration option, and click Pre-check.

vSAN runs the data migration precheck tests.

5 View the test results.

The pre-check results show whether you can safely unmount or remove the disk or disk
group.

n The Object Compliance and Accessibility tab displays objects that might have issues after
the data migration.

n The Cluster Capacity tab displays the impact of data migration on the vSAN cluster
before and after you perform the operation.

n The Predicted Health tab displays the health checks that might be affected by the data
migration.

What to do next

If the pre-check indicates that you can unmount or remove the device, click the option to
continue the operation.

Remove Disk Groups or Devices from vSAN

You can remove selected devices from the disk group, or you can remove an entire disk group.

Because removing unprotected devices might be disruptive for the vSAN datastore and virtual
machines in the datastore, avoid removing devices or disk groups.

Typically, you delete devices or disk groups from vSAN when you are upgrading a device or
replacing a failed device, or when you must remove a cache device. Other vSphere storage
features can use any flash-based device that you remove from the vSAN cluster.

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Deleting a disk group permanently deletes the disk membership and the data stored on the
devices.

Note Removing one flash cache device or all capacity devices from a disk group removes the
entire disk group.

Evacuating data from devices or disk groups might result in the temporary noncompliance of
virtual machine storage policies.

Prerequisites

Run data migration pre-check on the device or disk group before you remove it from the cluster.
For more information, see

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Remove a disk group or selected devices.

Option Description

Remove the Disk Group a Under Disk Groups, select the disk group to remove, and click …, then
Remove.
b Select a data evacuation mode.

Remove the Selected Device a Under Disk Groups, select the disk group that contains the device that
you are removing.
b Under Disks, select the device to remove, and click the Remove Disk(s).
c Select a data evacuation mode.

5 Click Yes or Remove to confirm.

The data is evacuated from the selected devices or disk group.

Recreate a Disk Group

When you recreate a disk group in the vSAN cluster, the existing disks are removed from the disk
group, and the disk group is deleted. vSAN recreates the disk group with the same disks.

When you recreate a disk group on a vSAN cluster, vSAN manages the process for you. vSAN
evacuates data from all disks in the disk group, removes the disk group, and creates the disk
group with the same disks.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster in the vSphere Client.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

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4 Under Disk Groups, select the disk group to recreate.

5 Click …, then click the Recreate.

The Recreate Disk Group dialog box appears.

6 Select a data migration mode, and click Recreate.

Results

All data residing on the disks is evacuated. The disk group is removed from the cluster, and
recreated.

Using Locator LEDs

You can use locator LEDs to identify the location of storage devices.

vSAN can light the locator LED on a failed device so that you can easily identify the device. This
is particularly useful when you are working with multiple hot plug and host swap scenarios.

Consider using I/O storage controllers with pass-through mode, because controllers with RAID 0
mode require additional steps to enable the controllers to recognize locator LEDs.

For information about configuring storage controllers with RAID 0 mode, see your vendor
documentation.

Enable and Disable Locator LEDs

You can turn locator LEDs on vSAN storage devices on or off. When you turn on the locator LED,
you can identify the location of a specific storage device.

When you no longer need a visual alert on your vSAN devices, you can turn off locator LEDs on
the selected devices.

Prerequisites

n Verify that you have installed the supported drivers for storage I/O controllers that enable
this feature. For information about the drivers that are certified by VMware, see the VMware
Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.

n In some cases, you might need to use third-party utilities to configure the Locator LED
feature on your storage I/O controllers. For example, when you are using HP you should
verify that the HP SSA CLI is installed.

For information about installing third-party VIBs, see the vSphere Upgrade documentation.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Select a host to view the list of devices.

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5 At the bottom of the page, select one or more storage devices from the list, and enable or
disable the locator LEDs on the selected devices.

Option Action

Turn on LED Enables locator LED on the selected storage device. You can enable locator
LEDs from the Manage tab and click Storage > Storage Devices.

Turn off LED Disables locator LED on the selected storage device. You can disable locator
LEDs from the Manage tab and click Storage > Storage Devices.

Mark Devices as Flash

When flash devices are not automatically identified as flash by ESXi hosts, you can manually
mark them as local flash devices.

Flash devices might not be recognized as flash when they are enabled for RAID 0 mode rather
than passthrough mode. When devices are not recognized as local flash, they are excluded from
the list of devices offered for vSAN and you cannot use them in the vSAN cluster. Marking these
devices as local flash makes them available to vSAN.

Prerequisites

n Verify that the device is local to your host.

n Verify that the device is not in use.

n Make sure that the virtual machines accessing the device are powered off and the datastore
is unmounted.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Select the host to view the list of available devices.

5 From the Show drop-down menu at the bottom of the page, select Not in Use.

6 Select one or more flash devices from the list and click the Mark as Flash Disk.

7 Click Yes to save your changes.

The Drive type for the selected devices appears as Flash.

Mark Devices as HDD

When local magnetic disks are not automatically identified as HDD devices by ESXi hosts, you
can manually mark them as local HDD devices.

If you marked a magnetic disk as a flash device, you can change the disk type of the device by
marking it as a magnetic disk.

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Prerequisites

n Verify that the magnetic disk is local to your host.

n Verify that the magnetic disk is not in use and is empty.

n Verify that the virtual machines accessing the device are powered off.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Select the host to view the list of available magnetic disks.

5 From the Show drop-down menu at the bottom of the page, select Not in Use.

6 Select one or more magnetic disks from the list and click Mark as HDD Disk.

7 Click Yes to save.

The Drive Type for the selected magnetic disks appears as HDD.

Mark Devices as Local

When hosts are using external SAS enclosures, vSAN might recognize certain devices as remote,
and might be unable to automatically claim them as local.

In such cases, you can mark the devices as local.

Prerequisites

Make sure that the storage device is not shared.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Select a host to view the list of devices.

5 From the Show drop-down menu at the bottom of the page, select Not in Use.

6 From the list of devices, select one or more remote devices that you want to mark as local
and click the Mark as local disk.

7 Click Yes to save your changes.

Mark Devices as Remote

Hosts that use external SAS controllers can share devices. You can manually mark those shared
devices as remote, so that vSAN does not claim the devices when it creates disk groups.

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In vSAN, you cannot add shared devices to a disk group.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Select a host to view the list of devices.

5 From the Show drop-down menu at the bottom of the page, select Not in Use.

6 Select one or more devices that you want to mark as remote and click the Mark as remote.

7 Click Yes to confirm.

Add a Capacity Device

You can add a capacity device to an existing vSAN disk group.

You cannot add a shared device to a disk group.

Prerequisites

Verify that the device is formatted and is not in use.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Select a disk group.

5 Click the Add Disks at the bottom of the page.

6 Select the capacity device that you want to add to the disk group.

7 Click OK or Add.

The device is added to the disk group.

Remove Partition From Devices

You can remove partition information from a device so vSAN can claim the device for use.

If you have added a device that contains residual data or partition information, you must remove
all preexisting partition information from the device before you can claim it for vSAN use.
VMware recommends adding clean devices to disk groups.

When you remove partition information from a device, vSAN deletes the primary partition that
includes disk format information and logical partitions from the device.

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Prerequisites

Verify that the device is not in use by ESXi as boot disk, VMFS datastore, or vSAN.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

4 Select a host to view the list of available devices.

5 From the Show drop-down menu, select Ineligible.

6 Select a device from the list and click Erase partitions.

7 Click OK to confirm.

The device is clean and does not include any partition information.

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Increasing Space Efficiency in a
vSAN Cluster 6
You can use space efficiency techniques to reduce the amount of space for storing data. These
techniques reduce the total storage space required to meet your needs.

This chapter includes the following topics:

n Introduction to vSAN Space Efficiency

n Reclaiming Space with SCSI Unmap

n Using Deduplication and Compression

n Using RAID 5 or RAID 6 Erasure Coding

n RAID 5 or RAID 6 Design Considerations

Introduction to vSAN Space Efficiency

You can use space efficiency techniques to reduce the amount of space for storing data. These
techniques reduce the total storage capacity required to meet your needs.

vSAN 6.7 Update 1 and later supports SCSI unmap commands that enable you to reclaim storage
space that is mapped to a deleted vSAN object.

You can use deduplication and compression on a vSAN cluster to eliminate duplicate data and
reduce the amount of space required to store data. Or you can use compression-only vSAN to
reduce storage requirements without compromising server performance.

You can set the Failure tolerance method policy attribute on VMs to use RAID 5 or RAID 6
erasure coding. Erasure coding can protect your data while using less storage space than the
default RAID 1 mirroring.

You can use deduplication and compression, and RAID 5 or RAID 6 erasure coding to increase
storage space savings. RAID 5 or RAID 6 each provide clearly defined space savings over RAID 1.
Deduplication and compression can provide additional savings.

Reclaiming Space with SCSI Unmap

vSAN 6.7 Update 1 and later supports SCSI UNMAP commands that enable you to reclaim
storage space that is mapped to deleted files in the file system created by the guest on the
vSAN object.

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Deleting or removing files frees space within the file system. This free space is mapped to a
storage device until the file system releases or unmaps it. vSAN supports reclamation of free
space, which is also called the unmap operation. You can free storage space in the vSAN
datastore when you delete or migrate a VM, consolidate a snapshot, and so on.

Reclaiming storage space can provide a higher host-to-flash I/O throughput and improve the
flash endurance.

vSAN also supports the SCSI UNMAP commands issued directly from a guest operating system
to reclaim storage space. vSAN supports offline unmaps and inline unmaps. On Linux OS, offline
unmaps are performed with the fstrim(8) command, and inline unmaps are performed when
the mount -o discard command is used. On Windows OS, NTFS performs inline unmaps by
default.

Unmap capability is disabled by default. To enable unmap on a vSAN cluster, use the following
RVC command: vsan.unmap_support –enable

When you enable unmap on a vSAN cluster, you must power off and then power on all VMs. VMs
must use virtual hardware version 13 or above to perform unmap operations.

Using Deduplication and Compression

vSAN can perform block-level deduplication and compression to save storage space. When you
enable deduplication and compression on a vSAN all-flash cluster, redundant data within each
disk group is reduced.

Deduplication removes redundant data blocks, whereas compression removes additional

redundant data within each data block. These techniques work together to reduce the amount of
space required to store the data. vSAN applies deduplication and then compression as it moves
data from the cache tier to the capacity tier. Use compression-only vSAN for workloads that do
not benefit from deduplication, such as online transactional processing.

Deduplication occurs inline when data is written back from the cache tier to the capacity tier. The
deduplication algorithm uses a fixed block size and is applied within each disk group. Redundant
copies of a block within the same disk group are deduplicated.

Deduplication and compression are enabled as a cluster-wide setting, but they are applied on a
disk group basis. When you enable deduplication and compression on a vSAN cluster, redundant
data within a particular disk group is reduced to a single copy.

Note Compression-only vSAN is applied on a per-disk basis.

You can enable deduplication and compression when you create a vSAN all-flash cluster or when
you edit an existing vSAN all-flash cluster. For more information about creating and editing vSAN
clusters, see "Enabling vSAN" in vSAN Planning and Deployment.

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When you enable or disable deduplication and compression, vSAN performs a rolling reformat
of every disk group on every host. Depending on the data stored on the vSAN datastore, this
process might take a long time. Do not perform these operations frequently. If you plan to
disable deduplication and compression, you must first verify that enough physical capacity is
available to place your data.

Note Deduplication and compression might not be effective for encrypted VMs, because
VM Encryption encrypts data on the host before it is written out to storage. Consider storage
tradeoffs when using VM Encryption.

How to Manage Disks in a Cluster with Deduplication and

Compression
Consider the following guidelines when managing disks in a cluster with deduplication and
compression enabled. These guidelines do not apply to compression-only vSAN.

n Avoid adding disks to a disk group incrementally. For more efficient deduplication and
compression, consider adding a disk group to increase the cluster storage capacity.

n When you add a disk group manually, add all the capacity disks at the same time.

n You cannot remove a single disk from a disk group. You must remove the entire disk group to
make modifications.

n A single disk failure causes the entire disk group to fail.

Verifying Space Savings from Deduplication and Compression

The amount of storage reduction from deduplication and compression depends on many factors,
including the type of data stored and the number of duplicate blocks. Larger disk groups tend to
provide a higher deduplication ratio. You can check the results of deduplication and compression
by viewing the Usage breakdown before dedup and compression in the vSAN Capacity monitor.

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You can view the Usage breakdown before dedup and compression when you monitor vSAN
capacity in the vSphere Client. It displays information about the results of deduplication and
compression. The Used Before space indicates the logical space required before applying
deduplication and compression, while the Used After space indicates the physical space used
after applying deduplication and compression. The Used After space also displays an overview of
the amount of space saved, and the Deduplication and Compression ratio.

The Deduplication and Compression ratio is based on the logical (Used Before) space required
to store data before applying deduplication and compression, in relation to the physical (Used
After) space required after applying deduplication and compression. Specifically, the ratio is the
Used Before space divided by the Used After space. For example, if the Used Before space is 3
GB, but the physical Used After space is 1 GB, the deduplication and compression ratio is 3x.

When deduplication and compression are enabled on the vSAN cluster, it might take several
minutes for capacity updates to be reflected in the Capacity monitor as disk space is reclaimed
and reallocated.

Deduplication and Compression Design Considerations

Consider these guidelines when you configure deduplication and compression in a vSAN cluster.

n Deduplication and compression are available only on all-flash disk groups.

n On-disk format version 3.0 or later is required to support deduplication and compression.

n You must have a valid license to enable deduplication and compression on a cluster.

n When you enable deduplication and compression on a vSAN cluster, all disk groups
participate in data reduction through deduplication and compression.

n vSAN can eliminate duplicate data blocks within each disk group, but not across disk groups.

n Capacity overhead for deduplication and compression is approximately five percent of total
raw capacity.

n Policies must have either 0 percent or 100 percent object space reservations. Policies with
100 percent object space reservations are always honored, but can make deduplication and
compression less efficient.

Enable Deduplication and Compression on a New vSAN Cluster

You can enable deduplication and compression when you configure a new vSAN all-flash cluster.

Procedure

1 Navigate to a new all-flash vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

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3 Under vSAN, select Services.

a Click to edit Space Efficiency.

b Select a space efficiency option: Deduplication and compression, or Compression only.

c (Optional) Select Allow Reduced Redundancy. If needed, vSAN reduces the protection
level of your VMs while enabling Deduplication and Compression. For more details, see
Reducing VM Redundancy for vSAN Cluster.

4 Complete your cluster configuration.

Enable Deduplication and Compression on Existing vSAN Cluster

You can enable deduplication and compression by editing configuration parameters on an
existing all-flash vSAN cluster.

Prerequisites

Create an all-flash vSAN cluster.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, select Services.

a Click to edit Space Efficiency.

b Select a space efficiency option: Deduplication and compression, or Compression only.

c (Optional) Select Allow Reduced Redundancy. If needed, vSAN reduces the protection
level of your VMs while enabling Deduplication and Compression. For more details, see
Reducing VM Redundancy for vSAN Cluster.

4 Click Apply to save your configuration changes.

Results

While enabling deduplication and compression, vSAN updates the on-disk format of each disk
group of the cluster. To accomplish this change, vSAN evacuates data from the disk group,
removes the disk group, and recreates it with a new format that supports deduplication and
compression.

The enablement operation does not require virtual machine migration or DRS. The time required
for this operation depends on the number of hosts in the cluster and amount of data. You can
monitor the progress on the Tasks and Events tab.

Disable Deduplication and Compression

You can disable deduplication and compression on your vSAN cluster.

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When deduplication and compression are disabled on the vSAN cluster, the size of the used
capacity in the cluster can expand (based on the deduplication ratio). Before you disable
deduplication and compression, verify that the cluster has enough capacity to handle the size
of the expanded data.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

a Under vSAN, select Services.

b Click Edit.

c Disable Deduplication and Compression.

d (Optional) Select Allow Reduced Redundancy. If needed, vSAN reduces the protection
level of your VMs, while disabling Deduplication and Compression. See Reducing VM
Redundancy for vSAN Cluster.

3 Click Apply or OK to save your configuration changes.

Results

While disabling deduplication and compression, vSAN changes the disk format on each disk
group of the cluster. It evacuates data from the disk group, removes the disk group, and
recreates it with a format that does not support deduplication and compression.

The time required for this operation depends on the number of hosts in the cluster and amount
of data. You can monitor the progress on the Tasks and Events tab.

Reducing VM Redundancy for vSAN Cluster

When you enable deduplication and compression, in certain cases, you might need to reduce the
level of protection for your virtual machines.

Enabling deduplication and compression requires a format change for disk groups. To accomplish
this change, vSAN evacuates data from the disk group, removes the disk group, and recreates it
with a new format that supports deduplication and compression.

In certain environments, your vSAN cluster might not have enough resources for the disk group
to be fully evacuated. Examples for such deployments include a three-node cluster with no
resources to evacuate the replica or witness while maintaining full protection. Or a four-node
cluster with RAID-5 objects already deployed. In the latter case, you have no place to move part
of the RAID-5 stripe, since RAID-5 objects require a minimum of four nodes.

You can still enable deduplication and compression and use the Allow Reduced Redundancy
option. This option keeps the VMs running, but the VMs might be unable to tolerate the full level
of failures defined in the VM storage policy. As a result, temporarily during the format change for
deduplication and compression, your virtual machines might be at risk of experiencing data loss.
vSAN restores full compliance and redundancy after the format conversion is completed.

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Adding or Removing Disks with Deduplication and Compression

Enabled
When you add disks to a vSAN cluster with enabled deduplication and compression, specific
considerations apply.

n You can add a capacity disk to a disk group with enabled deduplication and compression.
However, for more efficient deduplication and compression, instead of adding capacity disks,
create a new disk group to increase cluster storage capacity.

n When you remove a disk form a cache tier, the entire disk group is removed. Removing a
cache tier disk when deduplication and compression are enabled triggers data evacuation.

n Deduplication and compression are implemented at a disk group level. You cannot remove a
capacity disk from the cluster with enabled deduplication and compression. You must remove
the entire disk group.

n If a capacity disk fails, the entire disk group becomes unavailable. To resolve this issue,
identify and replace the failing component immediately. When removing the failed disk group,
use the No Data Migration option.

Using RAID 5 or RAID 6 Erasure Coding

You can use RAID 5 or RAID 6 erasure coding to protect against data loss and increase storage
efficiency. Erasure coding can provide the same level of data protection as mirroring (RAID 1),
while using less storage capacity.

RAID 5 or RAID 6 erasure coding enables vSAN to tolerate the failure of up to two capacity
devices in the datastore. You can configure RAID 5 on all-flash clusters with four or more fault
domains. You can configure RAID 5 or RAID 6 on all-flash clusters with six or more fault domains.

RAID 5 or RAID 6 erasure coding requires less additional capacity to protect your data than RAID
1 mirroring. For example, a VM protected by a Failures to tolerate value of 1 with RAID 1 requires
twice the virtual disk size, but with RAID 5 it requires 1.33 times the virtual disk size. The following
table shows a general comparison between RAID 1 and RAID 5 or RAID 6.

Table 6-1. Capacity Required to Store and Protect Data at Different RAID Levels

RAID Configuration Failures to Tolerate Data Size Capacity Required

RAID 1 (mirroring) 1 100 GB 200 GB

RAID 5 or RAID 6 (erasure 1 100 GB 133 GB

coding) with four fault
domains

RAID 1 (mirroring) 2 100 GB 300 GB

RAID 5 or RAID 6 (erasure 2 100 GB 150 GB

coding) with six fault
domains

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RAID 5 or RAID 6 erasure coding is a policy attribute that you can apply to virtual machine
components. To use RAID 5, set Failure tolerance method to RAID-5/6 (Erasure Coding) -
Capacity and Failures to tolerate to 1. To use RAID 6, set Failure tolerance method to RAID-5/6
(Erasure Coding) - Capacity and Failures to tolerate to 2. RAID 5 or RAID 6 erasure coding does
not support a Failures to tolerate value of 3.

To use RAID 1, set Failure tolerance method to RAID-1 (Mirroring) - Performance. RAID
1 mirroring requires fewer I/O operations to the storage devices, so it can provide better
performance. For example, a cluster resynchronization takes less time to complete with RAID
1.

Note In a vSAN stretched cluster, the Failure tolerance method of RAID-5/6 (Erasure Coding) -
Capacity applies only to the Site disaster tolerance setting.

For more information about configuring policies, see Chapter 3 Using vSAN Policies.

RAID 5 or RAID 6 Design Considerations

Consider these guidelines when you configure RAID 5 or RAID 6 erasure coding in a vSAN
cluster.

n RAID 5 or RAID 6 erasure coding is available only on all-flash disk groups.

n On-disk format version 3.0 or later is required to support RAID 5 or RAID 6.

n You must have a valid license to enable RAID 5/6 on a cluster.

n You can achieve additional space savings by enabling deduplication and compression on the
vSAN cluster.

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Using Encryption in a vSAN
Cluster 7
You can encrypt data-in transit in your vSAN cluster, and encrypt data-at-rest in your vSAN
datastore.

vSAN can encrypt data in transit across hosts in the vSAN cluster. Data-in-transit encryption
protects data as it moves around the vSAN cluster.

vSAN can encrypt data at rest in the vSAN datastore. Data-at-rest encryption protects data on
storage devices, in case a device is removed from the cluster.

This chapter includes the following topics:

n vSAN Data-In-Transit Encryption

n vSAN Data-At-Rest Encryption

vSAN Data-In-Transit Encryption

vSAN can encrypt data in transit, as it moves across hosts in your vSAN cluster.

vSAN can encrypt data in transit across hosts in the cluster. When you enable data-in-transit
encryption, vSAN encrypts all data and metadata traffic between hosts.

vSAN data-in-transit encryption has the following characteristics:

n vSAN uses AES-256 bit encryption on data in transit.

n vSAN data-in-transit encryption is not related to data-at-rest-encryption. You can enable or

disable each one separately.

n Forward secrecy is enforced for vSAN data-in-transit encryption.

n Traffic between data hosts and witness hosts is encrypted.

n File service data traffic between the VDFS proxy and VDFS server is encrypted.

n vSAN file services inter-host connections are encrypted.

vSAN uses symmetric keys that are generated dynamically and shared between hosts. Hosts
dynamically generate an encryption key when they establish a connection, and they use the key
to encrypt all traffic between the hosts. You do not need a key management server to perform
data-in-transit encryption.

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Each host is authenticated when it joins the cluster, ensuring connections only to trusted hosts
are allowed. When a host is removed from the cluster, it is authentication certificate is removed.

vSAN data-in-transit encryption is a cluster-wide setting. When enabled, all data and metadata
traffic is encrypted as it transits across hosts.

Enable Data-In-Transit Encryption on a vSAN Cluster

You can enable data-in-transit encryption by editing the configuration parameters of a vSAN
cluster.

Procedure

1 Navigate to an existing cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, select Services and click the Data-In-Transit Encryption Edit button.

4 Click to enable Data-In-Transit encryption, and select a rekey interval.

5 Click Apply.

Results

Encryption of data in transit is enabled on the vSAN cluster. vSAN encrypts all data moving
across hosts and file service inter-host connections in the cluster.

vSAN Data-At-Rest Encryption

vSAN can encrypt data at rest in your vSAN datastore.

vSAN can perform data at rest encryption. Data is encrypted after all other processing, such as
deduplication, is performed. Data at rest encryption protects data on storage devices, in case a
device is removed from the cluster.

Using encryption on your vSAN datastore requires some preparation. After your environment is
set up, you can enable data-at-rest encryption on your vSAN cluster.

Data-at-rest encryption requires an external Key Management Server (KMS) or a vSphere Native
Key Provider. For more information about vSphere encryption, see vSphere Security.

You can use an external Key Management Server (KMS), the vCenter Server system, and your
ESXi hosts to encrypt data in your vSAN cluster. . vCenter Server requests encryption keys from
an external KMS. The KMS generates and stores the keys, and vCenter Server obtains the key IDs
from the KMS and distributes them to the ESXi hosts.

vCenter Server does not store the KMS keys, but keeps a list of key IDs.

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How Data-At-Rest Encryption Works

When you enable data-at-rest encryption, vSAN encrypts everything in the vSAN datastore. All
files are encrypted, so all virtual machines and their corresponding data are protected. Only
administrators with encryption privileges can perform encryption and decryption tasks.

vSAN uses encryption keys as follows:

n vCenter Server requests an AES-256 Key Encryption Key (KEK) from the KMS. vCenter Server
stores only the ID of the KEK, but not the key itself.

n The ESXi host encrypts disk data using the industry standard AES-256 XTS mode. Each disk
has a different randomly generated Data Encryption Key (DEK).

n Each ESXi host uses the KEK to encrypt its DEKs, and stores the encrypted DEKs on disk.
The host does not store the KEK on disk. If a host reboots, it requests the KEK with the
corresponding ID from the KMS. The host can then decrypt its DEKs as needed.

n A host key is used to encrypt core dumps, not data. All hosts in the same cluster use the
same host key. When collecting support bundles, a random key is generated to re-encrypt
the core dumps. You can specify a password to encrypt the random key.

When a host reboots, it does not mount its disk groups until it receives the KEK. This process can
take several minutes or longer to complete. You can monitor the status of the disk groups in the
vSAN health service, under Physical disks > Software state health.

Encryption Key Persistence

In vSAN 7.0 Update 3 and later, data-at-rest encryption can continue to function even when the
key server is temporarily offline or unavailable. With key persistence enabled, the ESXi hosts can
persist the encryption keys even after a reboot.

Each ESXi host obtains the encryption keys initially and retains them in its key cache. If the ESXi
host has a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), the encryption keys are persisted in the TPM across
reboots. The host does not need to request encryption keys. Encryption operations can continue
when the key server is unavailable, because the keys have persisted in the TPM.

Use the following commands to enable key persistence on a cluster host.

esxcli system settings encryption set --mode=TPM

esxcli system security keypersistence enable

For more information about encryption key persistence, see "Key Persistence Overview" in
vSphere Security.

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Using vSphere Native Key Provider

vSAN 7.0 Update 2 supports vSphere Native Key Provider. If your environment is set up for
vSphere Native Key Provider, you can use it to encrypt virtual machines in your vSAN cluster.
For more information, see "Configuring and Managing vSphere Native Key Provider" in vSphere
Security.

vSphere Native Key Provider does not require an external Key Management Server (KMS).
vCenter Server generates the Key Encryption Key and pushes it to the ESXi hosts. The ESXi
hosts then generate Data Encryption Keys.

vSphere Native Key Provider can coexist with an existing key server infrastructure.

Design Considerations for Data-At-Rest Encryption

Consider these guidelines when working with data-at-rest encryption.

n Do not deploy your KMS server on the same vSAN datastore that you plan to encrypt.

n Encryption is CPU intensive. AES-NI significantly improves encryption performance. Enable

AES-NI in your BIOS.

n The witness host in a stretched cluster does not participate in vSAN encryption. The witness
host does not store customer data, only metadata, such as the size and UUID of vSAN object
and components.

Note If the witness host is an appliance running on another cluster, you can encrypt the
metadata stored on it. Enable data-at-rest encryption on the cluster that contains the witness
host.

n Establish a policy regarding core dumps. Core dumps are encrypted because they can
contain sensitive information. If you decrypt a core dump, carefully handle its sensitive
information. ESXi core dumps might contain keys for the ESXi host and for the data on it.

n Always use a password when you collect a vm-support bundle. You can specify the
password when you generate the support bundle from the vSphere Client or using the
vm-support command.

The password recrypts core dumps that use internal keys to use keys that are based
on the password. You can later use the password to decrypt any encrypted core dumps
that might be included in the support bundle. Unencrypted core dumps or logs are not
affected.

n The password that you specify during vm-support bundle creation is not persisted in
vSphere components. You are responsible for keeping track of passwords for support
bundles.

Set Up the Standard Key Provider

Use a standard key provider to distribute the keys that encrypt the vSAN datastore.

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Before you can encrypt the vSAN datastore, you must set up a standard key provider to support
encryption. That task includes adding the KMS to vCenter Server and establishing trust with the
KMS. vCenter Server provisions encryption keys from the key provider.

The KMS must support the Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) 1.1 standard. See the
vSphere Compatibility Matrices for details.

Add a KMS to vCenter Server

You add a Key Management Server (KMS) to your vCenter Server system from the vSphere
Client.

vCenter Server creates a standard key provider when you add the first KMS instance. If you
configure the key provider on two or more vCenter Servers, make sure you use the same key
provider name.

Note Do not deploy your KMS servers on the vSAN cluster you plan to encrypt. If a failure
occurs, hosts in the vSAN cluster must communicate with the KMS.

n When you add the KMS, you are prompted to set this key provider as a default. You can later
change the default setting.

n After vCenter Server creates the first key provider, you can add KMS instances from the
same vendor to the key provider, and configure all KMS instances to synchronize keys among
them. Use the method documented by your KMS vendor.

n You can set up the key provider with only one KMS instance.

n If your environment supports KMS solutions from different vendors, you can add multiple key
providers.

Prerequisites

n Verify that the Key Management Server is in the vSphere Compatibility Matrixes and is KMIP
1.1 compliant.

n Verify that you have the required privileges: Cryptographer.ManageKeyServers

n Connecting to a KMS by using only an IPv6 address is not supported.

n Connecting to a KMS through a proxy server that requires user name or password is not
supported.

Procedure

1 Log in to the vCenter Server.

2 Browse the inventory list and select the vCenter Server instance.

3 Click Configure and under Security, click Key Providers.

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4 Click Add Standard Key Provider, enter key provider information, and click Add Key
Provider.

You can click Add KMS to add more Key Management Servers.

5 Click Trust.

vCenter Server adds the key provider and displays the status as Connected.

Establish a Standard Key Provider Trusted Connection by Exchanging Certificates

After you add the standard key provider to the vCenter Server system, you can establish a
trusted connection. The exact process depends on the certificates that the key provider accepts,
and on your company policy.

Prerequisites

Add the standard key provider.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vCenter Server.

2 Click Configure and select Key Management Servers.

3 Select the key provider.

The KMS for the key provider is displayed.

4 Select the KMS.

5 From the Establish Trust drop-down menu, select Make KMS trust vCenter.

6 Select the option appropriate for your server and follow the steps.

Option See

vCenter Server Root CA certificate Use the Root CA Certificate Option to Establish a Standard Key Provider
Trusted Connection.

vCenter Server Certificate Use the Certificate Option to Establish a Standard Key Provider Trusted
Connection.

Upload certificate and private key Use the Upload Certificate and Private Key Option to Establish a Standard
Key Provider Trusted Connection.

New Certificate Signing Request Use the New Certificate Signing Request Option to Establish a Standard Key
Provider Trusted Connection.

Use the Root CA Certificate Option to Establish a Standard Key Provider Trusted Connection
Some Key Management Server (KMS) vendors require that you upload your root CA certificate to
the KMS. All certificates that are signed by your root CA are then trusted by this KMS.

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The root CA certificate that vSphere Virtual Machine Encryption uses is a self-signed certificate
that is stored in a separate store in the VMware Endpoint Certificate Store (VECS) on the vCenter
Server system.

Note Generate a root CA certificate only if you want to replace existing certificates. If you do,
other certificates that are signed by that root CA become invalid. You can generate a new root
CA certificate as part of this workflow.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vCenter Server.

2 Click Configure and select Key Management Servers.

3 Select the KMS instance with which you want to establish a trusted connection.

4 From the Establish Trust drop-down menu, select Make KMS trust vCenter.

5 Select vCenter Root CA Certificate and click Next.

The Download Root CA Certificate dialog box is populated with the root certificate that
vCenter Server uses for encryption. This certificate is stored in VECS.

6 Copy the certificate to the clipboard or download the certificate as a file.

7 Follow the instructions from your KMS vendor to upload the certificate to their system.

Note Some KMS vendors require that the KMS vendor restarts the KMS to pick up the root
certificate that you upload.

What to do next

Finalize the certificate exchange. See Finish the Trust Setup for a Standard Key Provider.
Use the Certificate Option to Establish a Standard Key Provider Trusted Connection
Some Key Management Server (KMS) vendors require that you upload the vCenter Server
certificate to the KMS. After the upload, the KMS accepts traffic that comes from a system with
that certificate.

vCenter Server generates a certificate to protect connections with the KMS. The certificate is
stored in a separate key store in the VMware Endpoint Certificate Store (VECS) on the vCenter
Server system.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vCenter Server.

2 Click Configure and select Key Management Servers.

3 Select the KMS instance with which you want to establish a trusted connection.

4 From the Establish Trust drop-down menu, select Make KMS trust vCenter.

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5 Select vCenter Certificate and click Next.

The Download Certificate dialog box is populated with the root certificate that vCenter Server
uses for encryption. This certificate is stored in VECS.

Note Do not generate a new certificate unless you want to replace existing certificates.

6 Copy the certificate to the clipboard or download it as a file.

7 Follow the instructions from your KMS vendor to upload the certificate to the KMS.

What to do next

Finalize the trust relationship. See Finish the Trust Setup for a Standard Key Provider.
Use the New Certificate Signing Request Option to Establish a Standard Key Provider Trusted
Connection
Some Key Management Server (KMS) vendors require that vCenter Server generate a Certificate
Signing Request (CSR) and send that CSR to the KMS. The KMS signs the CSR and returns the
signed certificate. You can upload the signed certificate to vCenter Server.

Using the New Certificate Signing Request option is a two-step process. First you generate the
CSR and send it to the KMS vendor. Then you upload the signed certificate that you receive from
the KMS vendor to vCenter Server.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vCenter Server.

2 Click Configure and select Key Management Servers.

3 Select the KMS instance with which you want to establish a trusted connection.

4 From the Establish Trust drop-down menu, select Make KMS trust vCenter.

5 Select New Certificate Signing Request (CSR) and click Next.

6 In the dialog box, copy the full certificate in the text box to the clipboard or download it as a
file.

Use the Generate new CSR button in the dialog box only if you explicitly want to generate a
CSR.

7 Follow the instructions from your KMS vendor to submit the CSR.

8 When you receive the signed certificate from the KMS vendor, click Key Providers again,
select the key provider, and from the Establish Trust drop-down menu, select Upload Signed
CSR Certificate.

9 Paste the signed certificate into the bottom text box or click Upload File and upload the file,
and click Upload.

What to do next

Finalize the trust relationship. See Finish the Trust Setup for a Standard Key Provider.

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Use the Upload Certificate and Private Key Option to Establish a Standard Key Provider Trusted
Connection
Some Key Management Server (KMS) vendors require that you upload the KMS server certificate
and private key to the vCenter Server system.

Some KMS vendors generate a certificate and private key for the connection and make them
available to you. After you upload the files, the KMS trusts your vCenter Server instance.

Prerequisites

n Request a certificate and private key from the KMS vendor. The files are X509 files in PEM
format.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vCenter Server.

2 Click Configure and select Key Management Servers.

3 Select the KMS instance with which you want to establish a trusted connection.

4 From the Establish Trust drop-down menu, select Make KMS trust vCenter.

5 Select KMS certificate and private key and click Next.

6 Paste the certificate that you received from the KMS vendor into the top text box or click
Upload a File to upload the certificate file.

7 Paste the key file into the bottom text box or click Upload a File to upload the key file.

8 Click Establish Trust.

What to do next

Finalize the trust relationship. See Finish the Trust Setup for a Standard Key Provider.

Set the Default Key Provider

You must set the default key provider if you do not make the first key provider the default, or if
your environment uses multiple key providers and you remove the default one.

Prerequisites

As a best practice, verify that the Connection Status in the Key Providers tab shows Connected
and a green check mark.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vCenter Server.

2 Click Configure and select Key Management Servers.

3 Select the key provider.

4 Click Make Default.

A confirmation dialog box appears.

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5 Click Make Default.

The key provider displays as the current default.

Finish the Trust Setup for a Standard Key Provider

Unless the Add Standard Key Provider dialog box prompted you to trust the KMS, you must
explicitly establish trust after certificate exchange is complete.

You can complete the trust setup, that is, make vCenter Server trust the KMS, either by trusting
the KMS or by uploading a KMS certificate. You have two options:

n Trust the certificate explicitly by using the Upload KMS certificate option.

n Upload a KMS leaf certificate or the KMS CA certificate to vCenter Server by using the Make
vCenter Trust KMS option.

Note If you upload the root CA certificate or the intermediate CA certificate, vCenter Server
trusts all certificates that are signed by that CA. For strong security, upload a leaf certificate or an
intermediate CA certificate that the KMS vendor controls.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vCenter Server.

2 Click Configure and select Key Management Servers.

3 Select the KMS instance with which you want to establish a trusted connection.

4 Select the KMS.

5 Select one of the following options from the Establish Trust drop-down menu.

Option Action

Make vCenter Trust KMS In the dialog box that appears, click Trust.

Upload KMS certificate a In the dialog box that appears, either paste in the certificate, or click
Upload a file and browse to the certificate file.
b Click Upload.

Enable Data-At-Rest Encryption on a New vSAN Cluster

You can enable data-at-rest encryption when you configure a new vSAN cluster.

Prerequisites

n Required privileges:

n Host.Inventory.EditCluster

n Cryptographer.ManageEncryptionPolicy

n Cryptographer.ManageKMS

n Cryptographer.ManageKeys

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n You must have configured a standard key provider and established a trusted connection
between vCenter Server and the KMS.

Procedure

1 Navigate to an existing cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, select Services and click the Encryption Edit button.

4 On the vSAN Services dialog, enable Encryption, and select a KMS cluster or key provider.

Note Use the Wipe residual data check box to erase residual data from devices before
you enable vSAN encryption. Make sure that you deselect this check box, unless you want
to wipe existing data from the storage devices when encrypting a cluster that contains VM
data. That way it ensures that the unencrypted data no longer resides on the devices after
enabling vSAN encryption. This setting is not necessary for new installations that do not have
any VM data on the storage devices.

5 Complete your cluster configuration.

Results

Encryption of data at rest is enabled on the vSAN cluster. vSAN encrypts all data added to the
vSAN datastore.

Generate New Data-At-Rest Encryption Keys

You can generate new encryption keys for data at rest, in case a key expires or becomes
compromised.

The following options are available when you generate new encryption keys for your vSAN
cluster.

n If you generate a new KEK, all hosts in the vSAN cluster receive the new KEK from the KMS.
Each host's DEK is re-encrypted with the new KEK.

n If you choose to re-encrypt all data using new keys, a new KEK and new DEKs are generated.
A rolling disk reformat is required to re-encrypt data.

Prerequisites

n Required privileges:

n Host.Inventory.EditCluster

n Cryptographer.ManageKeys

n You must have set up a key provider and established a trusted connection between vCenter
Server and the KMS.

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Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN host cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, select Services.

4 Click Generate New Encryption Keys.

5 To generate a new KEK, click Apply. The DEKs are re-encrypted with the new KEK.

n To generate a new KEK and new DEKs, and re-encrypt all data in the vSAN cluster, select
the following check box: Also re-encrypt all data on the storage using new keys.

n If your vSAN cluster has limited resources, select the Allow Reduced Redundancy check
box. If you allow reduced redundancy, your data might be at risk during the disk reformat
operation.

Enable Data-At-Rest Encryption on Existing vSAN Cluster

You can enable data-at-rest encryption by editing the configuration parameters of an existing
vSAN cluster.

Prerequisites

n Required privileges:

n Host.Inventory.EditCluster

n Cryptographer.ManageEncryptionPolicy

n Cryptographer.ManageKMS

n Cryptographer.ManageKeys

n You must have configured a standard key provider and established a trusted connection
between vCenter Server and the KMS.

n The cluster's disk-claiming mode must be set to manual.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN host cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, select Services.

4 Click the Encryption Edit button.

5 On the vSAN Services dialog, enable Encryption, and select a KMS cluster or key provider.

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6 (Optional) If the storage devices in your cluster contain sensitive data, select Wipe residual
data.

This setting directs vSAN to erase existing data from the storage devices as they are
encrypted. This option can increase the time to process each disk, so do not choose it unless
you have unwanted data on the disks.

7 Click Apply.

Results

A rolling reformat of all disk groups takes places as vSAN encrypts all data in the vSAN
datastore.

vSAN Encryption and Core Dumps

If your vSAN cluster uses data-at-rest encryption, and if an error occurs on the ESXi host, the
resulting core dump is encrypted to protect customer data. Core dumps that are included in the
vm-support package are also encrypted.

Note Core dumps can contain sensitive information. Follow your organization's data security
and privacy policy when handling core dumps.

Core Dumps on ESXi Hosts

When an ESXi host crashes, an encrypted core dump is generated and the host reboots. The
core dump is encrypted with the host key that is in the ESXi key cache. What you can do next
depends on several factors.

n In most cases, vCenter Server retrieves the key for the host from the KMS and attempts to
push the key to the ESXi host after reboot. If the operation is successful, you can generate
the vm-support package and you can decrypt or re-encrypt the core dump.

n If vCenter Server cannot connect to the ESXi host, you might be able to retrieve the key from
the KMS.

n If the host used a custom key, and that key differs from the key that vCenter Server pushes
to the host, you cannot manipulate the core dump. Avoid using custom keys.

Core Dumps and vm-support Packages

When you contact VMware Technical Support because of a serious error, your support
representative usually asks you to generate a vm-support package. The package includes log
files and other information, including core dumps. If support representatives cannot resolve the
issues by looking at log files and other information, you can decrypt the core dumps to make
relevant information available. Follow your organization's security and privacy policy to protect
sensitive information, such as host keys.

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Core Dumps on vCenter Server Systems

A core dump on a vCenter Server system is not encrypted. vCenter Server already contains
potentially sensitive information. At the minimum, ensure that the vCenter Server is protected.
You also might consider turning off core dumps for the vCenter Server system. Other information
in log files can help determine the problem.

Collect a vm-support Package for an ESXi Host in an Encrypted vSAN Datastore

If data-at-rest encryption is enabled on a vSAN cluster, any core dumps in the vm-support
package are encrypted. You can collect the package, and you can specify a password if you
expect to decrypt the core dump later.

The vm-support package includes log files, core dump files, and more.

Prerequisites

Inform your support representative that data-at-rest encryption is enabled for the vSAN
datastore. Your support representative might ask you to decrypt core dumps to extract relevant
information.

Note Core dumps can contain sensitive information. Follow your organization's security and
privacy policy to protect sensitive information such as host keys.

Procedure

1 Log in to vCenter Server using the vSphere Client.

2 Click Hosts and Clusters, and right-click the ESXi host.

3 Select Export System Logs.

4 In the dialog box, select Password for encrypted core dumps, and specify and confirm a
password.

5 Leave the defaults for other options or make changes if requested by VMware Technical
Support, and click Finish.

6 Specify a location for the file.

7 If your support representative asked you to decrypt the core dump in the vm-support
package, log in to any ESXi host and follow these steps.

a Log in to the ESXi and connect to the directory where the vm-support package is
located.

The filename follows the pattern esx.date_and_time.tgz.

b Make sure that the directory has enough space for the package, the uncompressed
package, and the recompressed package, or move the package.

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c Extract the package to the local directory.

vm-support -x *.tgz .

The resulting file hierarchy might contain core dump files for the ESXi host, usually
in /var/core, and might contain multiple core dump files for virtual machines.

d Decrypt each encrypted core dump file separately.

crypto-util envelope extract --offset 4096 --keyfile vm-support-incident-key-file

--password encryptedZdump decryptedZdump

vm-support-incident-key-file is the incident key file that you find at the top level in the
directory.

encryptedZdump is the name of the encrypted core dump file.

decryptedZdump is the name for the file that the command generates. Make the name
similar to the encryptedZdump name.

e Provide the password that you specified when you created the vm-support package.

f Remove the encrypted core dumps, and compress the package again.

vm-support --reconstruct

8 Remove any files that contain confidential information.

Decrypt or Re-Encrypt an Encrypted Core Dump

You can decrypt or re-encrypt an encrypted core dump on your ESXi host by using the crypto-
util CLI.

You can decrypt and examine the core dumps in the vm-support package yourself. Core dumps
might contain sensitive information. Follow your organization's security and privacy policy to
protect sensitive information, such as host keys.

For details about re-encrypting a core dump and other features of crypto-util, see the
command-line help.

Note crypto-util is for advanced users.

Prerequisites

The ESXi host key that was used to encrypt the core dump must be available on the ESXi host
that generated the core dump.

Procedure

1 Log directly in to the ESXi host on which the core dump occurred.

If the ESXi host is in lockdown mode, or if SSH access is disabled, you might have to enable
access first.

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2 Determine whether the core dump is encrypted.

Option Description

Monitor core dump crypto-util envelope describe vmmcores.ve

zdump file crypto-util envelope describe --offset 4096 zdumpFile

3 Decrypt the core dump, depending on its type.

Option Description

Monitor core dump crypto-util envelope extract vmmcores.ve vmmcores

zdump file crypto-util envelope extract --offset 4096 zdumpEncrypted

zdumpUnencrypted

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8
Upgrading vSAN is a multistage process, in which you must perform the upgrade procedures in
the order described here.

Before you attempt to upgrade, make sure you understand the complete upgrade process
clearly to ensure a smooth and uninterrupted upgrade. If you are not familiar with the general
vSphere upgrade procedure, you should first review the vSphere Upgrade documentation.

Note Failure to follow the sequence of upgrade tasks described here will lead to data loss and
cluster failure.

The vSAN cluster upgrade proceeds in the following sequence of tasks.

1 Upgrade the vCenter Server. See the vSphere Upgrade documentation.

2 Upgrade the ESXi hosts. See Upgrade the ESXi Hosts. For information about migrating and
preparing your ESXi hosts for upgrade, see the vSphere Upgrade documentation.

3 Upgrade the vSAN disk format. Upgrading the disk format is optional, but for best results,
upgrade the objects to use the latest version. The on-disk format exposes your environment
to the complete feature set of vSAN. See Upgrade vSAN Disk Format Using RVC.

This chapter includes the following topics:

n Before You Upgrade vSAN

n Upgrade the vCenter Server

n Upgrade the ESXi Hosts

n About the vSAN Disk Format

n About vSAN Object Format

n Verify the vSAN Cluster Upgrade

n Using the RVC Upgrade Command Options

n vSAN Build Recommendations for vSphere Lifecycle Manager

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Before You Upgrade vSAN

Plan and design your upgrade to be fail-safe. Before you attempt to upgrade vSAN, verify that
your environment meets the vSphere hardware and software requirements.

Upgrade Prerequisite
Consider the aspects that might delay the overall upgrade process. For guidelines and best
practices, see the vSphere Upgrade documentation.

Review the key requirements before you upgrade your cluster to vSAN 6.7.

Table 8-1. Upgrade Prerequisite

Upgrade Prerequisites Description

Software, hardware, drivers, firmware, and Verify that the new version of vSAN supports the software and
storage I/O controllers hardware components, drivers, firmware, and storage I/O controllers
that you plan on using. Supported items are listed on the VMware
Compatibility Guide website at http://www.vmware.com/resources/
compatibility/search.php.

vSAN version Verify that you are using the latest version of vSAN. You cannot
upgrade from a beta version to the new vSAN. When you upgrade from
a beta version, you must perform a fresh deployment of vSAN.

Disk space Verify that you have enough space available to complete the software
version upgrade. The amount of disk storage needed for the vCenter
Server installation depends on your vCenter Server configuration. For
guidelines about the disk space required for upgrading vSphere, see
the vSphere Upgrade documentation.

vSAN disk format Verify that you have enough capacity available to upgrade the disk
format. If free space equal to the consumed capacity of the largest disk
group is not available, with the space available on disk groups other
than the disk groups that are being converted, you must choose Allow
reduced redundancy as the data migration option.
For example, the largest disk group in a cluster has 10 TB of physical
capacity, but only 5 TB is being consumed. An extra 5 TB of spare
capacity is needed elsewhere in the cluster, excluding the disk groups
that are being migrated. When upgrading the vSAN disk format, verify
that the hosts are not in maintenance mode. When any member host
of a vSAN cluster enters maintenance mode, the cluster capacity is
automatically reduced. The member host no longer contributes storage
to the cluster and the capacity on the host is unavailable for data.
For information about various evacuation modes, see the Administering
VMware vSAN documentation.

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Table 8-1. Upgrade Prerequisite (continued)

Upgrade Prerequisites Description

vSAN hosts Verify that you have placed the vSAN hosts in maintenance mode and
selected the Ensure data accessibility or Evacuate all data option.
You can use the vSphere Lifecycle Manager for automating and
testing the upgrade process. However, when you use vSphere Lifecycle
Manager to upgrade vSAN, the default evacuation mode is Ensure data
accessibility. When you use the Ensure data accessibility mode, your
data is not protected, and if you encounter a failure while upgrading
vSAN, you might experience unexpected data loss. However, the
Ensure data accessibility mode is faster than the Evacuate all data
mode, because you do not need to move all data to another host in
the cluster. For information about various evacuation modes, see the
Administering VMware vSAN documentation.

Virtual Machines Verify that you have backed up your virtual machines.

Recommendations
Consider the following recommendations when deploying ESXi hosts for use with vSAN:

n If ESXi hosts are configured with memory capacity of 512 GB or less, use SATADOM, SD, USB,
or hard disk devices as the installation media.

n If ESXi hosts are configured with memory capacity greater than 512 GB, use a separate
magnetic disk or flash device as the installation device. If you are using a separate device,
verify that vSAN is not claiming the device.

n When you boot a vSAN host from a SATADOM device, you must use a single-level cell (SLC)
device and the size of the boot device must be at least 16 GB.

n To ensure your hardware meets the requirements for vSAN, refer to vSAN Planning and
Deployment.

vSAN 6.5 and later enables you to adjust the boot size requirements for an ESXi host in
a vSAN cluster. For more information, see the VMware knowledge base article at http://
kb.vmware.com/kb/2147881.

Upgrading the Witness Host in a Two Host or Stretched Cluster

The witness host for a two host cluster or stretched cluster is located outside of the vSAN
cluster, but it is managed by the same vCenter Server. You can use the same process to upgrade
the witness host as you use for a vSAN data host.

Do not upgrade the witness host until all data hosts have been upgraded and have exited
maintenance mode.

Using vSphere Lifecycle Manager to upgrade hosts in parallel can result in the witness host being
upgraded in parallel with one of the data hosts. To avoid upgrade problems, configure vSphere
Lifecycle Manager so it does not upgrade the witness host in parallel with the data hosts.

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Upgrade the vCenter Server

This first task to perform during the vSAN upgrade is a general vSphere upgrade, which includes
upgrading vCenter Server and ESXi hosts.

VMware supports in-place upgrades on 64-bit systems from vCenter Server 4.x, vCenter Server
5.0.x, vCenter Server 5.1.x, and vCenter Server 5.5 to vCenter Server 6.0 and later. The vCenter
Server upgrade includes a database schema upgrade and an upgrade of the vCenter Server.

The details and level of support for an upgrade to ESXi 7.0 depend on the host to be
upgraded and the upgrade method that you use. Verify that the upgrade path from your
current version of ESXi to the version to which you are upgrading, is supported. For more
information, see the VMware Product Interoperability Matrices at http://www.vmware.com/
resources/compatibility/sim/interop_matrix.php.

Instead of performing an in-place upgrade to vCenter Server, you can use a different machine
for the upgrade. For detailed instructions and upgrade options, see the vCenter Server Upgrade
documentation.

Upgrade the ESXi Hosts

After you upgrade the vCenter Server, the next task for the vSAN cluster upgrade is upgrading
the ESXi hosts to use the current version.

You can upgrade the ESXi hosts in the vSAN cluster using:

n vSphere Lifecycle Manager - By using images or baselines, vSphere Lifecycle Manager

enables you to upgrade ESXi hosts in the vSAN cluster. The default evacuation mode is
Ensure data accessibility. If you use this mode, and while upgrading vSAN you encounter a
failure, data can become inaccessible until one of the hosts is back online. For information
about working with evacuation and maintenance modes, see Working with Maintenance
Mode. For more information about upgrades and updates, see the Managing Host and
Cluster Lifecycle documentation.

n Esxcli command - You can use components, base images, and add-ons as new software
deliverables to update or patch ESXi 7.0 hosts using the manual upgrade.

When you upgrade a vSAN cluster with configured fault domains, vSphere Lifecycle Manager
upgrades a host within a single fault domain and then proceeds to the next host. This ensures
that the cluster has the same vSphere versions running on all the hosts. When you upgrade
a stretched cluster, vSphere Lifecycle Manager upgrades all the hosts from the preferred site
and then proceeds to the host in the secondary site. This ensures that the cluster has the same
vSphere versions running on all the hosts. For more information on the upgrading a stretched
cluster, see the Managing Host and Cluster Lifecycle documentation.

Before you attempt to upgrade the ESXi hosts, review the best practices discussed in the
vSphere Upgrade documentation. VMware provides several ESXi upgrade options. Choose the
upgrade option that works best with the type of host that you are upgrading. For detailed
instructions and upgrade options, see the VMware ESXi Upgrade documentation.

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What to do next

1 (Optional) Upgrade the vSAN disk format. See Upgrade vSAN Disk Format Using RVC.

2 Verify the host license. In most cases, you must reapply your host license. For more
information about applying host licenses, see the vCenter Server and Host Management
documentation.

3 (Optional) Upgrade the virtual machines on the hosts by using the vSphere Client or vSphere
Lifecycle Manager.

About the vSAN Disk Format

The disk format upgrade is optional. Your vSAN cluster continues to run smoothly if you use a
previous disk format version.

For best results, upgrade the objects to use the latest on-disk format. The latest on-disk format
provides the complete feature set of vSAN.

Depending on the size of disk groups, the disk format upgrade can be time-consuming because
the disk groups are upgraded one at a time. For each disk group upgrade, all data from each
device is evacuated and the disk group is removed from the vSAN cluster. The disk group is then
added back to vSAN with the new on-disk format.

Note Once you upgrade the on-disk format, you cannot roll back software on the hosts or add
certain older hosts to the cluster.

When you initiate an upgrade of the on-disk format, vSAN performs several operations that you
can monitor from the Resyncing Components page. The table summarizes each process that
takes place during the disk format upgrade.

Table 8-2. Upgrade Progress

Percentage of Completion Description

0%-5% Cluster check. Cluster components are checked and

prepared for the upgrade. This process takes a few
minutes. vSAN verifies that no outstanding issues exist
that can prevent the upgrade from completing.
n All hosts are connected.
n All hosts have the correct software version.
n All disks are healthy.
n All objects are accessible.

5%-10% Disk group upgrade. vSAN performs the initial disk

upgrade with no data migration. This process takes a few
minutes.

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Table 8-2. Upgrade Progress (continued)

Percentage of Completion Description

10%-15% Object realignment. vSAN modifies the layout of all

objects to ensure that they are properly aligned. This
process can take a few minutes for a small system with
few snapshots. It can take many hours or even days for
large a system with many snapshots, many fragmented
writes, and many unaligned objects.

15%-95% Disk group removal and reformat. Each disk group is

removed from the cluster, reformatted, and added back
to the cluster. The time required for this process varies,
depending on the megabytes allocated and the system
load. A system at or near its I/O capacity transfers slowly.

95%-100% Final object version upgrade. Object conversion to the

new on-disk format and resynchronization is completed.
The time required for this process varies, depending
on the amount of space used and whether the Allow
reduced redundancy option is selected.

During the upgrade, you can monitor the upgrade process from the Resyncing
Components page. See vSAN Monitoring and Troubleshooting. You also can use the RVC
vsan.upgrade_status <cluster> command to monitor the upgrade. Use the optional -r
<seconds> flag to refresh the upgrade status periodically until you press Ctrl+C. The minimum
number of seconds allowed between each refresh is 60.

You can monitor other upgrade tasks, such as device removal and upgrade in the Recent Tasks
pane of the status bar.

The following considerations apply when upgrading the disk format:

n If you upgrade a cluster with three hosts, and you want to perform a full evacuation, the
evacuation fails for objects with a Failures to tolerate greater than 0 (zero). A three-host
cluster cannot reprotect a disk group that is being fully evacuated using the resources of
only two hosts. For example, when the Failures to tolerate is set to 1, vSAN requires three
protection components (two mirrors and a witness), where each protection component is
placed on a separate host.

For a three-host cluster, you must choose the Ensure data accessibility evacuation mode.
When in this mode, any hardware failure might result in data loss.

You also must ensure that enough free space is available. The space must be equal to the
logical consumed capacity of the largest disk group. This capacity must be available on a disk
group separate from the one that is being migrated.

n When upgrading a three-host cluster or when upgrading a cluster with limited resources,
allow the virtual machines to operate in a reduced redundancy mode. Run the RVC command
with the option, vsan.ondisk_upgrade --allow-reduced-redundancy.

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n Using the --allow-reduced-redundancy command option means that certain virtual

machines might be unable to tolerate failures during the migration. This lowered tolerance
for failure also can cause data loss. vSAN restores full compliance and redundancy after the
upgrade is completed. During the upgrade, the compliance status of virtual machines and
their redundancies is temporarily noncompliant. After you complete the upgrade and finish all
rebuild tasks, the virtual machines will become compliant.

n While the upgrade is in progress, do not remove or disconnect any host, and do not place a
host in maintenance mode. These actions might cause the upgrade to fail.

For information about the RVC commands and command options, see the RVC Command
Reference Guide.

Upgrading vSAN Disk Format Using vSphere Client

After you have finished upgrading the vSAN hosts, you can perform the disk format upgrade.

Note If you enable encryption or deduplication and compression on an existing vSAN cluster,
the on-disk format is automatically upgraded to the latest version. This procedure is not required.
You can avoid reformatting the disk groups twice. See Edit vSAN Settings.

Prerequisites

n Verify that you are using the updated version of vCenter Server.

n Verify that you are using the latest version of ESXi hosts.

n Verify that the disks are in a healthy state. Navigate to the Disk Management page to verify
the object status.

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n Verify that the hardware and software that you plan on using are certified and listed in the
VMware Compatibility Guide website at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/
search.php.

n Verify that you have enough free space to perform the disk format upgrade. Run the RVC
command, vsan.whatif_host_failures, to determine whether you have enough capacity
to complete the upgrade or perform a component rebuild, in case you encounter any failure
during the upgrade.

n Verify that your hosts are not in maintenance mode. When upgrading the disk format, do
not place the hosts in maintenance mode. When any member host of a vSAN cluster enters
maintenance mode, the member host no longer contributes capacity to the cluster. The
cluster capacity is reduced and the cluster upgrade might fail.

n Verify that there are no component rebuilding tasks currently in progress in the vSAN cluster.
For information about vSAN resynchronization, see vSphere Monitoring and Performance.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, select Disk Management.

4 (Optional) Click Pre-check Upgrade.

The upgrade pre-check analyzes the cluster to uncover any issues that might prevent a
successful upgrade. Some of the items checked are host status, disk status, network status,
and object status. Upgrade issues are displayed in the Disk pre-check status text box.

5 Click Upgrade.

6 Click Yes on the Upgrade dialog box to perform the upgrade of the on-disk format.

Results

vSAN recreates each disk group in the cluster. The On-disk Format Version column displays the
disk format version of storage devices in the cluster.

If a failure occurs during the upgrade, you can check the Resyncing Objects page. Wait for all
resynchronizations to complete, and run the upgrade again. You also can check the cluster health
using the health service. After you have resolved any issues raised by the health checks, you can
run the upgrade again.

Upgrade vSAN Disk Format Using RVC

After you have finished upgrading the vSAN hosts, you can use the Ruby vSphere Console (RVC)
to continue with the disk format upgrade.

Prerequisites

n Verify that you are using the updated version of vCenter Server.

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n Verify that the version of the ESXi hosts running in the vSAN cluster is 6.5 or later.

n Verify that the disks are in a healthy state from the Disk Management page. You can also run
the vsan.disk_stats RVC command to verify disk status.

n Verify that the hardware and software that you plan on using are certified and listed in the
VMware Compatibility Guide website at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/
search.php.

n Verify that you have enough free space to perform the disk format upgrade. Run the RVC
vsan.whatif_host_failures command to determine that you have enough capacity to
complete the upgrade or perform a component rebuild in case you encounter failure during
the upgrade.

n Verify that you have PuTTY or similar SSH client installed for accessing RVC.

For detailed information about downloading the RVC tool and using the RVC commands, see
the RVC Command Reference Guide.

n Verify that your hosts are not in maintenance mode. When upgrading the on-disk format,
do not place your hosts in maintenance mode. When any member host of a vSAN cluster
enters maintenance mode, the available resource capacity in the cluster is reduced because
the member host no longer contributes capacity to the cluster. The cluster upgrade might fail.

n Verify that there are no component rebuilding tasks currently in progress in the vSAN cluster
by running the RVC vsan.resync_dashboard command.

Procedure

1 Log in to your vCenter Server using RVC.

2 Run the following RVC command to view the disk status: vsan.disks_stats /< vCenter
IP address or hostname>/<data center name>/computers/<cluster name>

For example: vsan.disks_stats /192.168.0.1/BetaDC/computers/VSANCluster

The command lists the names of all devices and hosts in the vSAN cluster. The command also
displays the current disk format and its health status. You can also check the current health of
the devices in the Health Status column from the Disk Management page. For example, the
device status appears as Unhealthy in the Health Status column for the hosts or disk groups
that have failed devices.

3 Run the following RVC command: vsan.ondisk_upgrade <path to vsan cluster>

For example: vsan.ondisk_upgrade /192.168.0.1/BetaDC/computers/VSANCluster

4 Monitor the progress in RVC.

RVC upgrades one disk group at a time.

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After the disk format upgrade has completed successfully, the following message appears.

Done with disk format upgrade phase

There are n v1 objects that require upgrade Object upgrade progress: n upgraded, 0 left

Object upgrade completed: n upgraded

Done VSAN upgrade

5 Run the following RVC command to verify that the object versions are upgraded to the new
on-disk format: vsan.obj_status_report

Verify the vSAN Disk Format Upgrade

After you finish upgrading the disk format, you must verify whether the vSAN cluster is using the
new on-disk format.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab.

3 Under vSAN, click Disk Management.

The current disk format version appears in the Disk Format Version column.

About vSAN Object Format

The operations space needed by vSAN to perform policy change or other such operations on
an object created by vSAN 7.0 or earlier is the space used by a largest object in the cluster.
This is typically difficult to plan for and hence the guidance was to keep 30 percent of free
space in the cluster assuming that it is unlikely that the largest object in the cluster consumes
more than 25 percent of the space and 5 percent of the space is reserved to make sure cluster
does not become full due to policy changes. In vSAN 7.0U1 and later, all objects are created in a
new format which allows the operations space needed by vSAN to perform policy change on an
object if there is 255 GB per host for objects less than 8 TB and 765 GB per host for objects 8 TB
or larger.

After a cluster is upgraded to vSAN 7.0 U1 or later from vSAN 7.0 or earlier release, the objects
greater than 255 GB created with the older release must be rewritten in the new format before
vSAN can provide the benefit of being able to perform operations on an object with the new free
space requirements. A new object format health alert is displayed after an upgrade, if there are
objects that must be fixed to the new object format and allows the health state to be remediated
by starting a relayout task to fix these objects. The health alert provides information on the

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number of objects that must be fixed and the amount of data that will be rewritten. The cluster
might experience a drop of about 20 percent in the performance while the relayout task is in
progress. The resync dashboard provides more accurate information about the amount of time
this operation takes to complete.

Verify the vSAN Cluster Upgrade

The vSAN cluster upgrade is not complete until you have verified that you are using the latest
version of vSphere and vSAN is available for use.

Procedure

1 Navigate to the vSAN cluster.

2 Click the Configure tab, and verify that vSAN is listed.

u You also can navigate to your ESXi host and select Summary > Configuration, and verify
that you are using the latest version of the ESXi host.

Using the RVC Upgrade Command Options

The vsan.ondisk_upgrade command provides various command options that you can use to
control and manage the vSAN cluster upgrade. For example, you can allow reduced redundancy
to perform the upgrade when you have little free space available.

Run the vsan.ondisk_upgrade --help command to display the list of RVC command options.

Use these command options with the vsan.ondisk_upgrade command.

Table 8-3. Upgrade Command Options

Options Description

--hosts_and_clusters Use to specify paths to all host systems in the cluster or cluster's compute
resources.

--ignore-objects, -i Use to skip vSAN object upgrade. You can also use this command option to
eliminate the object version upgrade. When you use this command option,
objects continue to use the current on-disk format version.

--allow-reduced-redundancy, -a Use to remove the requirement of having a free space equal to one disk
group during disk upgrade. With this option, virtual machines operate in
a reduced redundancy mode during upgrade, which means certain virtual
machines might be unable to tolerate failures temporarily and that inability
might cause data loss. vSAN restores full compliance and redundancy after
the upgrade is completed.

--force, -f Use to enable force-proceed and automatically answer all confirmation

questions.

--help, -h Use to display the help options.

For information about using the RVC commands, see the RVC Command Reference Guide.

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vSAN Build Recommendations for vSphere Lifecycle

Manager
vSAN generates system baselines and baseline groups that you can use with vSphere Lifecycle
Manager. vSphere Lifecycle Manager in vSphere 7.0 includes the system baselines that
Update Manager provided in earlier vSphere releases. It also includes new image management
functionality for hosts running ESXi 7.0 and later.

vSAN 6.6.1 and later generates automated build recommendations for vSAN clusters. vSAN
combines information in the VMware Compatibility Guide and vSAN Release Catalog with
information about the installed ESXi releases. These recommended updates provide the best
available release to keep your hardware in a supported state.

System baselines for vSAN 6.7.1 to vSAN 7.0 also can include device driver and firmware
updates. These updates support the ESXi software recommended for your cluster.

For vSAN 6.7.3 and later, you can choose to provide build recommendations for the current ESXi
release only, or for the latest supported ESXi release. A build recommendation for the current
release includes all patches and driver updates for the release.

In vSAN 7.0 and later, vSAN build recommendations include patch updates and applicable driver
updates. To update firmware on vSAN 7.0 clusters, you must use an image through vSphere
Lifecycle Manager.

vSAN System Baselines

vSAN build recommendations are provided through vSAN system baselines for vSphere Lifecycle
Manager. These system baselines are managed by vSAN. They are read-only and cannot be
customized.

vSAN generates one baseline group for each vSAN cluster. vSAN system baselines are listed in
the Baselines pane of the Baselines and Groups tab. You can continue to create and remediate
your own baselines.

vSAN system baselines can include custom ISO images provided by certified vendors. If hosts in
your vSAN cluster have OEM-specific custom ISOs, then vSAN recommended system baselines
can include custom ISOs from the same vendor. vSphere Lifecycle Manager cannot generate
a recommendation for custom ISOs not supported by vSAN. If you are running a customized
software image that overrides the vendor name in the host's image profile, vSphere Lifecycle
Manager cannot recommend a system baseline.

vSphere Lifecycle Manager automatically scans each vSAN cluster to check compliance against
the baseline group. To upgrade your cluster, you must manually remediate the system baseline
through vSphere Lifecycle Manager. You can remediate vSAN system baseline on a single host or
on the entire cluster.

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vSAN Release Catalog

The vSAN release catalog maintains information about available releases, preference order for
releases, and critical patches needed for each release. The vSAN release catalog is hosted on the
VMware Cloud.

vSAN requires Internet connectivity to access the release catalog. You do not need to be
enrolled in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) for vSAN to access the
release catalog.

If you do not have an Internet connection, you can upload the vSAN release catalog directly to
the vCenter Server. In the vSphere Client, click Configure > vSAN > Update, and click Upload
from file in the Release Catalog section. You can download the latest vSAN release catalog.

vSphere Lifecycle Manager enables you to import storage controller drivers recommended for
your vSAN cluster. Some storage controller vendors provide a software management tool that
vSAN can use to update controller drivers. If the management tool is not present on ESXi hosts,
you can download the tool.

Working with vSAN Build Recommendations

vSphere Lifecycle Manager checks the installed ESXi releases against information in the
Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) in the VMware Compatibility Guide. It determines the correct
upgrade path for each vSAN cluster, based on the current vSAN Release Catalog. vSAN also
includes the necessary drivers and patch updates for the recommended release in its system
baseline.

vSAN build recommendations ensure that each vSAN cluster remains at the current hardware
compatibility status or better. If hardware in the vSAN cluster is not included on the HCL, vSAN
can recommend an upgrade to the latest release, since it is no worse than the current state.

Note vSphere Lifecycle Manager uses the vSAN health service when performing remediation
precheck for hosts in a vSAN cluster. vSAN health service is not available on hosts running ESXi
6. 0 Update 1 or earlier. When vSphere Lifecycle Manager upgrades hosts running ESXi 6.0
Update 1 or earlier, the upgrade of the last host in the vSAN cluster might fail. If remediation
failed because of vSAN health issues, you can still complete the upgrade. Use the vSAN health
service to resolve health issues on the host, then take that host out of maintenance mode to
complete the upgrade workflow.

The following examples describe the logic behind vSAN build recommendations.

Example 1

A vSAN cluster is running 6.0 Update 2, and its hardware is included on the 6.0 Update 2
HCL. The HCL lists the hardware as supported up to release 6.0 Update 3, but not supported
for 6.5 and later. vSAN recommends an upgrade to 6.0 Update 3, including the necessary
critical patches for the release.

Example 2

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A vSAN cluster is running 6.0 Update 2, and its hardware is included on the 6.0 Update 2
HCL. The hardware is also supported on the HCL for release 6.7 Update 3. vSAN recommends
an upgrade to release 6.7 Update 3.

Example 3

A vSAN cluster is running 6.0 Update 2 and its hardware is not on the HCL for that release.
vSAN recommends an upgrade to 6.7 Update 3, even though the hardware is not on the HCL
for 6.7 Update 3. vSAN recommends the upgrade because the new state is no worse than
the current state.

Example 4

A vSAN cluster is running 6.0 Update 2, and its hardware is included on the 6.0 Update
2 HCL. The hardware is also supported on the HCL for release 6.7 Update 3 and selected
baseline preference is patch-only. vSAN recommends an upgrade to 6.0 Update 3, including
the necessary critical patches for the release.

The recommendation engine runs periodically (once each day), or when the following events
occur.

n Cluster membership changes. For example, when you add or remove a host.

n The vSAN management service restarts.

n A user logs in to VMware Customer Connect using a web browser or RVC.

n An update is made to the VMware Compatibility Guide or the vSAN Release Catalog.

The vSAN Build Recommendation health check displays the current build that is recommended
for the vSAN cluster. It also can warn you about any issues with the feature.

System Requirements
vSphere Lifecycle Manager is an extension service in vCenter Server 7.0 and later.

vSAN requires Internet access to update release metadata, to check the VMware Compatibility
Guide, and to download ISO images from VMware Customer Connect.

vSAN requires valid credentials to download ISO images for upgrades from VMware Customer
Connect. For hosts running 6.0 Update 1 and earlier, you must use RVC to enter the VMware
Customer Connect credentials. For hosts running later software, you can log in from the ESX
Build Recommendation health check.

To enter VMware Customer Connect credentials from RVC, run the following command:
vsan.login_iso_depot -u <username> -p <password>

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