Latest Wave of Virtual SAN Ready Nodes

Do post office boxes remind you of nodes?

The latest wave of VMware Virtual SAN Ready Nodes have been announced today by VMware. You can look over the available models from vendors such as Dell, Fujitsu, HP and SuperMicro by grabbing the latest Virtual SAN Ready Nodes document.

Ready (Nodes) for What?

Announced earlier this year, Virtual SAN Ready Nodes are pre-configured systems engineered to accept a Virtual SAN workload out of the box. This way you don’t have to worry about checking HCLs and verifying HW performance when trying to build a compatible cluster node yourself. The definitions include tiers of performance for your Virtual SAN environment so that the engineered gear stands a better chance of meeting expectations. There’s also some consideration for the workload type, such as a general vSphere workload versus a VDI workload.

Time to Catch the Wave?

Based on the variety of definitions available and the fact that HP, a top server vendor worldwide, is now on the list suggests that if you haven’t paid attention before, now’s the time. If you’ve determined that Virtual SAN is a fit for your environment then you likely won’t go wrong with a Ready Node. Some of the vendors have reference IDs or SKUs available in the document so you can talk to the right sales team about a specific system. Other vendors have reference IDs listed as “coming soon”.

If you’re not at the point where you can consider purchasing a Ready Node, you can use the definitions as reference when determining what other hardware you need to augment your existing systems, assuming your current vendor’s in the list. There’s even a “roll your own” Virtual SAN option available within the VMware Compatibility Guide which will show you all the compatible components, even from vendors who haven’t yet released a full Virtual SAN Ready Node specification.

Featured image photo by spinster cardigan

Dee Abson

Dee Abson is a technical architect from Alberta, Canada. He's been working in the field of technology for over 20 years and specializes in server and virtualization infrastructure. Working with VMware products since ESX 2, he holds several VMware certifications. He is a 9x VMware vExpert. You can find him on Twitter and Mastodon.

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