In this example, the “number of failures to tolerate” configuration is set to 1 in the virtual machine storage policy so that there is another replica of the VMDK created in the capacity layer of another fault domain, providing two copies of the data (R1 and R2 respectively as shown in the previous figure). If the number of failures to tolerate is set to 2, there is an additional replica of the VMDK maintained across the cluster for a total of three copies of the data. The virtual machine’s components are distributed through multiple hosts onto multiple racks. Should a rack failure event occur, the virtual machine that is not hosted on the hosts located where the server rack failed, continues to be available.

When architecting a hybrid cloud storage solution, it is also important to consider the characteristics of the application or service, such as IOPS, capacity, availability, and recovery. While the infrastructure, including storage, is important, applications are the key to success of any organization utilizing cloud services.