7.0

Virtual Volumes also lets you manage virtual machine storage and performance by using storage policy
profiles in vSphere. These storage policy profiles dictate storage services on a per-virtual-machine basis.
This type of granular provisioning increases capacity utilization. You can deploy a desktop pool on a cluster
that contains up to 32 ESXi hosts.
NOTE Virtual Volumes is compatible with the View storage accelerator feature but not with the space-
efficient disk format feature, which reclaims disk space by wiping and shrinking disks.
NOTE Instant clones do not support Virtual Volumes.
Using Virtual SAN for High-Performance Storage and Policy-Based
Management
VMware Virtual SAN is a software-defined storage tier, available with vSphere 5.5 Update 1 or a later
release, that virtualizes the local physical storage disks available on a cluster of vSphere hosts. You specify
only one datastore when creating an automated desktop pool or an automated farm, and the various
components, such as virtual machine files, replicas, user data, and operating system files, are placed on the
appropriate solid-state drive (SSD) disks or direct-attached hard disks (HDDs).
Virtual SAN implements a policy-based approach to storage management. When you use Virtual SAN,
View defines virtual machine storage requirements, such as capacity, performance, and availability, in the
form of default storage policy profiles, which you can modify. Storage is provisioned and automatically
configured according to the assigned policies. You can use Virtual SAN for linked-clone desktop pools,
instant-clone desktop pools, full-clone desktop pools, or an automated farm.
Each virtual machine maintains its policy regardless of its physical location in the cluster. If the policy
becomes noncompliant because of a host, disk, or network failure, or workload changes, Virtual SAN
reconfigures the data of the affected virtual machines and load-balances to meet the policies of each virtual
machine.
While supporting VMware features that require shared storage, such as HA, vMotion, and DRS, Virtual
SAN eliminates the need for an external shared storage infrastructure and simplifies storage configuration
and virtual machine provisioning activities.
IMPORTANT The Virtual SAN feature available with vSphere 6.0 and later releases contains many
performance improvements over the feature that was available with vSphere 5.5 Update 1. With vSphere 6.0
this feature also has broader HCL (hardware compatibility) support. Also, VMware Virtual SAN 6.0
supports an all-flash architecture that uses flash-based devices for both caching and persistent storage.
Virtual SAN Workflow in View
1 Use vCenter Server 5.5 Update 1 or a later release to enable Virtual SAN. For more information about
Virtual SAN in vSphere 5.5 Update 1, see the vSphere Storage document. For more information about
Virtual SAN in vSphere 6 or later, see the Administering VMware Virtual SAN document.
2 When creating an automated desktop pool or an automated farm in View Administrator, under Storage
Policy Management, select Use VMware Virtual SAN, and select the Virtual SAN datastore to use.
After you select Use VMware Virtual SAN, only Virtual SAN datastores are displayed.
Default storage policy profiles are created according to the options you choose. For example, if you
create a linked-clone, floating desktop pool, a replica disk profile and an operating system disk profile
are automatically created. If you create a linked-clone, persistent desktop pool, a replica disk profile
and a persistent disk profile are created. For an automated farm, a replica disk profile is created. For
both types of desktop pools and automated farms, a profile is created for virtual machine files.
Chapter 16 Reducing and Managing Storage Requirements
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