In this chapter, we closely evaluated the key differences between VSAN 6.0 and its predecessor. While some of the enhancements discussed here are open to administrators, there are several enhancements behind the scenes. The all-flash supportability kicks up a few notches with higher IOPS capability and, more importantly, more uniform and reduced latency for the workloads. The filesystem cutover to the newer VSAN filesystem (v2) opens the door for several enhancements on the cloning and snapshot capabilities and also mitigates the conventional limitations that exists even today on regular VMFS volumes.

The first generation of VSAN went GA on March 11, 2014 through vSphere 5.5 update 1 and, within a year, VMware marched ahead with the second generation—VSAN 6.0. The numerous enhancements and architectural changes reflect how disruptively the product is emerging in the field.

The signs look clear, the future of software-defined storage is being defined and redefined with VSAN leading...