There are different types of storage, with different protocols, architectures, scaling capabilities, and purposes. In a virtual environment, you will need a resilient and reliable storage solution that meets your required performance and that can scale for the future. This is only possible using enterprise storage products, with some exceptions for the ROBO and SMB scenarios, as discussed in Chapter 2, Designing and Planning a Virtualization Infrastructure.
Enterprise-class storage can be classified in different ways:
- Direct-Attached Storage (DAS)
- Network Attached Storage (NAS)
- Storage Area Network (SAN)
- Object-based storage/cloud storage
For VMware vSphere, the first three storage classes are the most relevant as they are the only solutions that can be used for running VMs. Object-based storage, however, could be used by other solutions (such as backup products...