VMware vSAN for ROBO Two Node 10 GbE direct-connect support

vSAN ROBO 2-node 10GbE direct/cross connect is now officially supported in vSAN 6.5 release as well as vSphere 6.0 patch#04.

It solves various problems for ROBO solutions –

• High speed switching is not needed

• Reduced complexity

• Reduced Opex & Capex

• Granularly scalable capacity, compute or performance in same model

• Single upgrade/maintenance procedure

How?

• Uses any 2 vSAN ready nodes

• Connect 10G interface of 2 nodes directly using crossover cables for vSAN traffic & vMotion

• Connect 1G interface on ESXi hosts to TOR switch

• Metadata traffic meant for vSAN Witness appliance sent via management vmk0 interface

Advantages –

• Extension of VSAN Stretched Cluster solution

• Each of the nodes will be in a Fault Domain (FD)

• One witness node per cluster/ROBO site

• Witness node is an ESXi VM

• Zero data loss

• Automatic Failover

• ALL sites managed centrally by one vCenter

• Patching and software upgrades performed centrally through vCenter