Yesterday, a few minutes after the announcement of vSphere 6.5 another announcement came across the general session, the announcement of Virtual SAN 6.5. As a VMware vExpert 2016 for Virtual SAN we are in a close communication with Virtua SAN Product team and I was waiting a lot this announcement so I could speak about.

Product Summary

Virtual SAN 6.5 is the fifth generation of VMware’s industry-leading software powering Hyper-Converged Infrastructure solutions. Virtual SAN’s unique in-kernel architecture delivers flash-optimized performance and elastically scalable storage for any virtualized application, with TCO savings of up to 50%.

More than 5,000 customers of all industries and sizes trust Virtual SAN to both simplify their IT infrastructure and run their enterprise workloads, from business-critical applications to virtual desktops.

Product Enhancements

In summary (I will go to a more deep dive blog post later) Virtual SAN 6.5 delivers new capabilities that further help you respond faster to dynamic business needs across a broader set of workloads while lowering total cost of ownership of your IT infrastructure.

The most significant new capabilities and updates of Virtual SAN 6.5 include:

  • iSCSI Access: Expand to new, non-virtualized workloads with iSCSI support Virtual SAN iSCSI Access enables Virtual SAN to support physical workloads using iSCSI initiators. iSCSI Access also supports Microsoft Clustering Service (MSCS) technologies, including those that require shared disk. All core functionality is available and managed through vCenter, same as before.
  • 2-Node Direct Connect: Save up to 20% per ROBO site; eliminate switches between 2-node deployments Virtual SAN 6.5 minimizes the upfront cost of deploying storage in remote sites with the ability to directly connect two vSphere servers together using simple crossover cables. No need to purchase, install and maintain expensive routers and switches between the two nodes for Virtual SAN data traffic.
  • Full-Featured PowerCLI: Improve automation with full featured PowerCLI Virtual SAN 6.5 includes a complete set of PowerCLI cmdlets providing the scalability and ease of enterprise-class automation.
  • Next-Generation Hardware Virtual SAN 6.5 continues to support next-generation hardware including large capacity drives with 512e support.
  • All-Flash Everywhere All-flash hardware is now supported by all Virtual SAN editions providing you greater choice and flexibility to deploy all-flash solutions for any workload.