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
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