Monitoring and Managing Virtual SAN Storage

Virtual SAN is a distributed layer of software that runs natively as a part of the ESXi hypervisor. Virtual SAN aggregates local or direct-attached storage disks of a host cluster and creates a single storage pool shared across all hosts of the cluster.

While supporting VMware features that require shared storage, such as HA, vMotion, and DRS, Virtual SAN eliminates the need for an external shared storage and simplifies storage configuration and virtual machine provisioning activities.

You can use ESXCLI commands to retrieve virtual SAN information, manage Virtual SAN clusters, perform network management, add storage, set the policy, and perform other monitoring and management tasks. Type esxcli vsan --help for a complete list of commands.

To retrieve Virtual SAN information

1	Verify which VMkernel adapters are used for Virtual SAN communication.

esxcli vsan network list

2	List storage disks that were claimed by Virtual SAN.

esxcli vsan storage list

3	Get Virtual SAN cluster information.

esxcli vsan cluster get

You can activate Virtual SAN when you create host clusters or enable Virtual SAN on existing clusters. When enabled, Virtual SAN aggregates all local storage disks available on the hosts into a single datastore shared by all hosts. You can later expand the datastore by adding storage devices or hosts to the cluster.

You can run these commands in the ESXi Shell for a host, or the command affects the target host that you specify as part of the vCLI connection options.

To manage a Virtual SAN cluster

1	Join the target host to a given Virtual SAN cluster.

esxcli vsan cluster join --cluster-uuid <uuid>

The UUID of the cluster is required.

2	Verify that the target host is joined to a Virtual SAN cluster.

esxcli vsan cluster get

3	Remove the target host from the Virtual SAN cluster.

esxcli vsan cluster leave

To add and remove Virtual SAN storage

1	Add an hdd (or data disk) for use by Virtual SAN.

esxcli vsan storage add --disks <device_name>

The command expects an empty disk, which will be partitioned or formatted. Specify a device name, for example, mpx.vmhba2:C0:T1:L0.

2	Add an sdd disk for use by Virtual SAN.

esxcli vsan storage add --ssd <device_name>

The command expects an empty disk, which will be partitioned or formatted. Specify a device name, for example, mpx.vmhba2:C0:T1:L0.

3	List the Virtual SAN storage configuration. You can display the complete list, or filter to show only a single device.

esxcli vsan storage list --device <device>

4	Remove disks or disk groups.

You can remove disks or disk groups only when Virtual SAN is in manual mode. For the automatic disk claim mode, the remove action is not supported

■	Remove an individual Virtual SAN disk.

esxcli vsan storage remove --disk <device_name>

Instead of specifying the device name, you can specify the UUID if you include the --uuid option.

■	Remove a disk group’s SSD and each of its backing HDD drives from Virtual SAN usage.

esxcli vsan storage remove --ssd <device_name>

Instead of specifying the device name, you can specify the UUID if you include the --uuid option. Any SSD that you remove from Virtual SAN becomes available for such features as Flash Read Cache.