Introduction

VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) is a component of VMware vSphere which enables the use of local storage devices on ESXi servers to create a high-performing, replicated, software-defined storage platform that can be used to store Horizon desktop virtual machines. VSAN is included with Horizon Advanced and Enterprise licenses, but may also be purchased as part of vSphere for organizations who wish to use it with non-Horizon ESXi servers.

VSAN is tightly integrated with the vSphere ESXi hypervisor, vCenter Server, and many other VMware products, while requiring minimal ESXi servers overhead. Additionally, VSAN features as a simplified management interface that is integrated with the vSphere Web Client, and offers detailed storage policies that can be applied at the individual Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) level.

In this chapter, we will review how to size our Horizon ESXi servers for use with VMware VSAN, understand what resources are available for building VSAN-compatible hosts, walk through...