6.2<\/span><\/h1>\nhttps:\/\/cormachogan.com\/2016\/02\/10\/vsan-6-2-an-overview-of-the-new-virtual-san-6-2-features\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n- RAID 5\/6 over network (Erasure coding)<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n
- Space Efficiency (deduplication and compression)<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n
- QoS \u2013 IOPS limits<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n
- Software checksums<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n
- IPv6 support<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n
- Performance monitoring<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
6.5<\/span><\/h1>\n\n- iSCSI target service<\/span><\/b>. The Virtual SAN iSCSI target service enables physical workloads that are outside the Virtual SAN cluster to access the Virtual SAN datastore. An iSCSI initiator on a remote host can transport block-level data to an iSCSI target on a storage device in the Virtual SAN cluster.<\/span><\/li>\n
- 2 Node Direct Connect with witness traffic separation<\/span><\/b>. Virtual SAN 6.5 provides support for an alternate\u00a0VMkernel\u00a0interface to communicate with the witness host in a stretched cluster configuration. This support enables you to separate witness traffic from Virtual SAN data traffic, with no routing required from the Virtual SAN network to the witness host. You can simplify connectivity to the witness host in certain stretched cluster and 2 Node configurations. In 2 Node configurations, you can make one or more node-to-node, direct connections for Virtual SAN data traffic, without using a high speed switch. Using an alternate\u00a0VMkernel\u00a0interface for witness traffic is supported in stretched cluster configurations, but only when it is connected to the same physical switch as the interface used for Virtual SAN data traffic.<\/span><\/li>\n
- PowerCLI\u00a0support<\/span><\/b>. VMware vSphere\u00a0PowerCLI\u00a0adds command-line scripting support for Virtual SAN, to help you automate configuration and management tasks. vSphere\u00a0PowerCLI\u00a0provides a Windows PowerShell interface to the vSphere API.\u00a0PowerCLI\u00a0includes cmdlets for administering Virtual SAN components.<\/span><\/li>\n
- 512e drive support<\/span><\/b>. Virtual SAN 6.5 supports 512e magnetic hard disk drives (HDDs) in which the physical sector size is 4096 bytes, but the logical sector size emulates a sector size of 512 bytes.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
6.6<\/span><\/h1>\n\n- Unicast<\/span><\/b>. In\u00a0vSAN\u00a06.6 and later releases, multicast is not required on the physical switches that support the\u00a0vSAN\u00a0cluster. If some hosts in your\u00a0vSAN\u00a0cluster are running earlier versions of software, a multicast network is still required.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Encryption<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0vSAN\u00a0supports data-at-rest encryption of the\u00a0vSAN\u00a0datastore. When you enable encryption,\u00a0vSAN\u00a0performs a rolling reformat of every disk group in the cluster.\u00a0vSAN\u00a0encryption requires a trusted connection between vCenter Server and a key management server (KMS). The KMS must support the Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) 1.1 standard.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Enhanced stretched cluster availability with local fault protection<\/span><\/b>. You can provide local fault protection for virtual machine objects within a single site in a stretched cluster. You can define a\u00a0<\/span>Primary level of failures to tolerate<\/span><\/b>\u00a0for the cluster, and a\u00a0<\/span>Secondary level of failures to tolerate<\/span><\/b>\u00a0for objects within a single site. When one site is unavailable,\u00a0vSAN\u00a0maintains availability with local redundancy in the available site.<\/span>\n
\n- Enhanced stretched cluster availability with local fault protection. You can provide local fault protection for virtual machine objects within a single site in a stretched cluster. Define a\u00a0<\/span>Primary level of failures to tolerate<\/span><\/b>\u00a0for the cluster, and a\u00a0<\/span>Secondary level of failures to tolerate<\/span><\/b>\u00a0for objects within a single site. When one site is unavailable,\u00a0vSAN\u00a0maintains availability with local redundancy in the available site.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Change witness host. You can change the witness host for a stretched cluster. On the Fault Domains and Stretched Cluster page, click\u00a0<\/span>Change witness host<\/span><\/b>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Configuration Assist and Updates<\/span><\/b>. You can use the Configuration Assist and Updates pages to check the configuration of your\u00a0vSAN\u00a0cluster, and resolve any issues.<\/span>\n
\n- Configuration Assist helps you verify the configuration of cluster components, resolve issues, and troubleshoot problems. Configuration checks are divided into categories, similar to those in the\u00a0vSAN\u00a0health service. The configuration checks cover hardware compatibility, network, and\u00a0vSAN\u00a0configuration options.<\/span><\/li>\n
- You can use the Updates page to update storage controller firmware and drivers to meet\u00a0vSAN\u00a0requirements.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Resynchronization throttling.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0You can throttle the IOPS used for cluster resynchronization. Use this control if latencies are rising in the cluster due to resynchronization, or if resynchronization traffic is too high on a host.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Health service enhancements<\/span><\/b>. New and enhanced health checks for encryption, cluster membership, time drift, controller firmware, disk groups, physical disks, disk balance. Online health checks can monitor\u00a0vSAN\u00a0cluster health and send the data to the VMware analytics backend system for advanced analysis. You must participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program to use online health checks.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Updated\u00a0<\/span><\/b>Host-based\u00a0vSAN\u00a0monitoring<\/span><\/b>. You can monitor\u00a0vSAN\u00a0health and basic configuration through the\u00a0ESXi\u00a0host client. In the host client navigator, click\u00a0<\/span>Storage<\/span><\/b>. Select the\u00a0vSAN\u00a0datastore, and then click\u00a0<\/span>Monitor<\/span><\/b>. Click the tabs to view\u00a0vSAN\u00a0information for the host. On the\u00a0<\/span>vSAN<\/span><\/b>\u00a0tab, you can click\u00a0<\/span>Edit Settings<\/span><\/b>\u00a0to correct configuration issues at the host level.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Performance service enhancements<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0vSAN\u00a0performance service includes statistics for networking, resynchronization, and iSCSI. You can select saved time ranges in performance views.\u00a0vSAN\u00a0saves each selected time range when you run a performance query.<\/span><\/li>\n
- vSAN\u00a0integration with vCenter Server Appliance<\/span><\/b>. You can create a\u00a0vSAN\u00a0cluster as you deploy a vCenter Server Appliance, and host the appliance on that cluster. The vCenter Server Appliance Installer enables you to create a one-host\u00a0vSAN\u00a0cluster, with disks claimed from the host. vCenter Server Appliance is deployed on the\u00a0vSAN\u00a0cluster.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Maintenance mode enhancements<\/span><\/b>. The Confirm Maintenance Mode dialog box provides information to guide your maintenance activities. You can view the impact of each data evacuation option. For example, you can check whether enough free space is available to complete the selected option.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Rebalancing and repair enhancements<\/span><\/b>. Disk rebalancing operations are more efficient. Manual rebalancing operation provides better progress reporting.<\/span>\n
\n- Rebalancing protocol has been tuned to be more efficient and achieve better cluster balance. Manual rebalance provides more updates and better progress reporting.<\/span><\/li>\n
- More efficient repair operations require fewer cluster resynchronizations.\u00a0vSAN\u00a0can partially repair degraded or absent components to increase the\u00a0<\/span>Failures to tolerate<\/span><\/b>\u00a0even if\u00a0vSAN\u00a0cannot make the object compliant.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Disk failure handling<\/span><\/b>. If a disk experiences sustained high latencies or congestion,\u00a0vSAN\u00a0considers the device as a dying disk, and evacuates data from the disk.\u00a0vSAN\u00a0handles the dying disk by evacuating or rebuilding data. No user action is required, unless the cluster lacks resources or has inaccessible objects. When\u00a0vSAN\u00a0completes evacuation of data, the health status is listed as\u00a0<\/span>DyingDiskEmpty<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0vSAN\u00a0does not unmount the failed device.<\/span><\/li>\n
- New\u00a0esxcli\u00a0commands<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\n
\n- Display\u00a0vSAN\u00a0cluster health:\u00a0<\/span>esxcli\u00a0vsan\u00a0health<\/span><\/li>\n
- Display\u00a0vSAN\u00a0debug information:\u00a0<\/span>esxcli\u00a0vsan\u00a0debug<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
6.6.1<\/span><\/h1>\n\n- vSphere Update Manager build recommendations for\u00a0vSAN.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0Update Manager can scan the\u00a0vSAN\u00a0cluster and recommend host baselines that include updates, patches, and extensions. It manages recommended baselines, validates the support status from\u00a0vSAN\u00a0HCL, and downloads the correct\u00a0ESXi\u00a0ISO images from VMware.<\/span>
\nvSAN\u00a0requires Internet access to generate build recommendations. If your\u00a0vSAN\u00a0cluster uses a proxy to connect to the Internet,\u00a0vSAN\u00a0can generate recommendations for patch upgrades, but not for major upgrades.<\/span><\/li>\n- Performance diagnostics<\/span><\/b>. The performance diagnostics tool analyzes previously executed benchmark tests. It detects issues, suggests remediation steps, and provides supporting performance graphs for further insight. Performance diagnostics requires participation in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP).<\/span><\/li>\n
- Increased support for locator LEDs on\u00a0vSAN\u00a0disks<\/span><\/b>. Gen-9 HPE controllers in pass-through mode now support\u00a0vSAN\u00a0activation of locator LEDs. Blinking LEDs help to identify and isolate specific drives.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
6.7<\/span><\/h1>\n\n- 4Kn drive support<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0vSAN\u00a06.7 supports 4K Native disk drives.\u00a0 4Kn drives provide higher capacity densities compared to 512n. This support enables you to deploy storage heavy configurations using 4Kn drives with higher capacity points.<\/span><\/li>\n
- vSphere and\u00a0vSAN\u00a0FIPS 140-2 validation<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0vSAN\u00a06.7 encryption has been validated for the Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2. FIPS validated software modules have numerous advantages over special purpose hardware, because they can be executed on a general-purpose computing system, providing portability and flexibility. You can configure a\u00a0vSAN\u00a0host using any HCL-compatible set of drives in thousands of form factors, capacities and features, while maintaining data security using FIPS 140-2 validated modules.<\/span><\/li>\n
- HTML interface<\/span><\/b>. The HTML5-based vSphere Client ships with vCenter Server alongside the Flex-based vSphere Web Client. The vSphere Client uses many of the same interface terminologies, topologies, and workflows as the vSphere Web Client. You can use the new vSphere Client, or continue to use the vSphere Web Client.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
- vRealize\u00a0Operations within vCenter Server<\/span><\/b>. The vSphere Client includes an embedded\u00a0vRealize\u00a0Operations plugin that provides basic\u00a0vSAN\u00a0and vSphere operational dashboards. The plugin provides a method to easily deploy a new\u00a0vROps\u00a0instance or specify an existing instance in the environment, one of which is required to access the dashboards. The\u00a0vROps\u00a0plugin does not require any additional\u00a0vROps\u00a0licensing.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
- Windows Server Failover Clustering support<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0\u00a0vSAN\u00a06.7 supports Windows Server Failover Clustering by building WSFC targets on top of\u00a0vSAN\u00a0iSCSI targets.\u00a0vSAN\u00a0iSCSI target service supports SCSI-3 Persistent Reservations for shared disks and transparent failover for WSFC. WSFC can run on either physical servers or VMs.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
- Intelligent site continuity for stretched clusters<\/span><\/b>. In the case of a partition between the preferred and secondary data sites,\u00a0vSAN\u00a06.7 will intelligently determine which site leads to maximum data availability before automatically forming quorum with the witness. The secondary site can operate as the active site until the preferred site has the latest copy of the data. This prevents the VMs from migrating back to the preferred site and losing locality of data reads.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
- Witness traffic separation for stretched clusters<\/span><\/b>. You now have the option to configure a dedicated\u00a0VMkernel\u00a0NIC for witness traffic. The witness\u00a0VMkernel\u00a0NIC does not transmit any data traffic. This feature enhances data security by isolating the witness traffic from\u00a0vSAN\u00a0data traffic. It also is useful when the witness NIC has less bandwidth and latency compared to the data NICs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
- Efficient inter-site resync for stretched clusters<\/span><\/b>. Instead of resyncing all copies across the inter-site link for a rebuild or repair operation,\u00a0vSAN\u00a06.7 sends only one copy and performs the remaining resyncs from that local copy. This reduces the amount of data transmitted between sites in a stretched cluster.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Fast failovers when using redundant\u00a0vSAN\u00a0networks<\/span><\/b>