VMware vSAN
VMware vSAN™ is a distributed layer of software that 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.
vSAN runs natively as a part of the VMware
ESXi™ hypervisor. It provides an object-oriented, distributed storage area network
platform that can use either SSD or spinning disks in an ESXi host as physical media.
vSAN uses dedicated VMkernel network interfaces for node-to-node communication.
vSAN supports features that require shared
storage, such as HA, vMotion, and DRS, but vSAN eliminates the need for external shared
storage and simplifies storage configuration and virtual machine provisioning
activities.
VMware vSAN uses a software-defined approach
that creates shared storage for virtual machines. It virtualizes the local physical
storage resources of ESXi hosts and turns them into pools of storage that can be divided
and assigned to virtual machines and applications according to their quality-of-service
requirements.
The API can be used for solution integration.
You can use the vSAN API to configure and monitor vSAN disk clusters and related
services on ESXi hosts and vCenter Server instances. The vSAN API also handles virtual
disk functions such as mounting, partitioning, secure erasing, and snapshots.
Functional features of vSAN include:
- Cluster configuration and query methods.
- Stretched cluster configuration and query methods.
- Performance, health, and diagnostics.
- Virtual disk formatting and space usage queries.
- Software upgrade handling.
- Data Protection Service (DPS) is an optional data backup and recovery feature for VMware vCloud Air that enables self-service, policy-based protection of business-critical data by backing up vApps and their associated virtual machines within dedicated or VMware vCloud® Air™ Virtual Private Cloud service types.
- Cloud Native Storage (CNS) is a VMware vSphere with VMware Tanzu™ feature that makes Kubernetes aware of how to provision storage on vSphere on-demand, in a fully automated, scalable fashion. CNS also provides visibility for the administrator into container volumes through the CNS UI within vCenter.
The vSAN API uses a SOAP-XML RPC protocol,
patterned after the vSphere Web Services (VIM) API. It is bundled in the vSphere
Management SDK.
The vSAN service endpoint
is
https://{domain}/vsan
For more information about using the vSAN
API, see the following publications:
- vSAN Management SDK for Java
- vSAN Management SDK for Python
- vSAN Management SDK for .NET
- vSAN Management SDK for Perl
- vSAN Management SDK for Ruby