One of the most interesting features of the VMware vSphere 5 announcement yesterday (see my previous blog for details) was the introduction of the vSphere Storage Appliance, or VSA. The VSA allows users to take local storage installed on the VMware vSphere host servers and group it into a virtual storage array (vSAN) giving you the ability to have key vSphere features like vMotion, High Availability (HA) and automated resource management that require shared storage.
This is a great move on VMware’s part, because it helps lower the threshold for IT environments to get virtualization introduced into their environment. Up until now, one of the biggest obstacles for virtualization in a small or medium business is the cost for an external shared array. With the introduction of the VSA by VMware, customers without the budget for an external storage array can move into virtualization without suffering the loss of the high availabilty features like vMotion and HA. The best part of this strategy is that it allows for customers to get comfortable with the management of storage arrays, although virtual, so that when additional storage is needed and budget is freed up, the customers can migrate off of the virtual SANs to a physical external storage array with little or no impact.
How It Works
Each ESXi host deploys a VSA as a virtual machine. The VSAs use the available space on the local disk(s) of the ESXi servers & present one replicated NFS volume per ESXi server making the VSA very resilient to failures. The volumes are clustered creating a shared storage pool that all ESXi servers can access.
Pricing
The VMware vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) will be available two ways:
- Bundled in the VMware Essentials Plus Kit – U.S. List price of $7,995 (includes the VSA, a vCenter Foundation Server and licensing for 3 vSphere hosts). Support and Subscription is extra.
- As a standalone purchase – U.S. List price of $5,995 not including Support and Subscription cost.
DEMO
The marketing team at VMware created an amazing offline demo for partners to use. I’ve taken the liberty of recording the demo as a video to allow you to see the simplicity of setting up the VMware vSphere Storage Appliance.
