VMware vCloud Providers™ are looking for ways to not only improve their storage infrastructure and services, but also increase capacity, simplify operations, and provide continuous up-time. As all technologists know, embracing changing technologies is integral to an organization’s success. Therefore, if you are running into performance and capacity problems with your current cloud storage offerings, it is time to look at VMware Virtual SAN™.

The software-defined storage platform offered by vSAN is critical to delivering hybrid cloud service offerings in which infrastructure is provided by a building block hyper-converged solution. There are many different workload profiles in the data center, but from the perspective of storage, workloads have traditionally been separated into two profile types: file-based and block-based. While these technologies have had a long track record of success in the enterprise space, their track record has been somewhat limited in the cloud space.

VMware Cloud Providers require that their storage infrastructure not only be reliable and scalable, but also cost effective. The consumers of this storage expect this cost efficiency to be passed on to them. More often than not, these solutions are designed leveraging commodity servers in conjunction with internal storage capabilities.

There are several approaches for architecting a VMware software-designed storage solution and the approach depends on the use case and the technology deployed. However, the end goal is always the same. This VMware vCloud Architecture Toolkit for Service Providers (vCAT-SP) document describes a VMware Cloud Provider Program solution for supporting a software-defined storage solution using vSAN.