VMware vSAN 8.0 U2 What’s new Quick Summary

 

VMware announced vSAN 8.0U2 at VMware Explore 2023 Las Vegas which enables major benefits in the following key areas:

1.  vSAN Storage only Clusters: vSAN Max
2. Improved Performance and scalability for vSAN Express Storage Architecture
3. Operational Efficiency: Auto Policy Remediation, Improvements with security and troubleshooting capabilities

vSAN Max

vSAN Max is a new Storage only cluster solution. It based on standard rack servers and predefined vSAN ESA Ready Node profiles.

    Source: VMware

It is specifically designed for high-density storage solutions where HCI servers that are also used for compute cannot keep up. Application licensing reasons may also be a use case for disaggregating storage.

 

 Source: VMware 

Configuration and attachment to vSphere Nodes will be easily possible using the graphical user interface.

vSAN Max Licensing will be different from the current core-based licensing. VMware plans to do a per TiB based licensing approach for vSAN Max (source: VMware Explore US 2023 briefing)

 

Performance improvements

-           Higher Throughput & Lower Latency on Write Intensive Workloads

o   Adaptive Write Path Optimizations in vSAN ESA

o   Use of more in-memory I/O banks to process incoming writes more quickly

-           Delivers higher IOPS and throughput for single object

-           Reduces potential bottleneck conditions high in the storage stack

Source: VMware 

 

Operational efficiency

1.       Auto-Policy Management improvements in vSAN ESA. Changes in in the number of hosts positively influences Aut policy management. This affects host additions for example if RAID6 is possible after a host has been added. But also removals if a certain storage policy is not available anymore.

2.      Better Reporting of vSAN ESA object overhead.

3.      vSAN ESA Automatic Disk claiming scheme when disks or hosts will be added

4.      vSAN supports KMIP 1.2 encryption keys expirtation feature

5.       Intuitive Detection of VMs and Disks Consuming the most Resources

      Possibility to detect bottle necks caused by specific VM which influences other VMs resources

6.      I/O Trip Analyzer now supports 2-Node and Stretched Clusters (vSAN OSA and ESA)

7.       GUI configuration in vCenter UI for Witness Traffic Separation (vSAN OSA and ESA)