VMware Software-Defined Storage. Martin Hosken

      Executive Editor: Jody Lefevere

      Development Editor: David Clark

      Technical Editor: Ray Heffer

      Production Editor: Barath Kumar Rajasekaran

      Copy Editor: Sharon Wilkey

      Editorial Manager: Mary Beth Wakefi eld

      Production Manager: Kathleen Wisor

      Proofreader: Nancy Bell

      Indexer: Nancy Guenther

      Project Coordinator, Cover: Brent Savage

      Cover Designer: Wiley

      Cover Image: ©Mikhail hoboton Popov/Shutterstock

      Copyright © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

      Published simultaneously in Canada

      ISBN: 978-1-119-29277-7

      ISBN: 978-1-119-29279-1 (ebk.)

      ISBN: 978-1-119-29278-4 (ebk.)

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

      Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifi cally disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fi tness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

      For general information on our other products and services or to obtain technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at (877) 762-2974, outside the U.S. at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

      Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2016944021

      TRADEMARKS: Wiley, the Wiley logo, and the Sybex logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affi liates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

      About the Author

      Martin Hosken is employed as a global cloud architect within the VMware Global Cloud Practice, which is part of its Cloud Provider Software Business Unit.

      He has extensive experience architecting and consulting with international customers and designing the transition of organizations' legacy infrastructure onto VMware cloud-based platforms. His broad and deep knowledge of physical and virtualized services, platforms, and cloud infrastructure solutions is based on involvement and leadership in the global architecture, design, development, and implementation of large-scale, complex, multitechnology projects for enterprises and cloud service providers. He is a specialist in designing, implementing, and integrating best-of-breed, fully redundant Cisco, EMC, IBM, HP, Dell, and VMware systems into enterprise environments and cloud service providers' infrastructure.

      In addition, Martin is a double VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX #117) in Data Center Virtualization and Cloud Management and Automation. (See the Official VCDX directory available at http://vcdx.vmware.com.) Martin also holds a range of industry certifications from other vendors such as EMC, Cisco, and Microsoft, including MCITP and MCSE in Windows Server and Messaging.

      He has been awarded the annual VMware vExpert title for a number of years for his significant contribution to the community of VMware users. (See the VMware Community vExpert Directory available at https://communities.vmware.com/vexpert.jspa.) This title is awarded to individuals for their commitment to the sharing of knowledge and their passion for VMware technology beyond their job requirements. Martin is also a part of the CTO Ambassador Program, and as such is responsible for connecting the R&D team at VMware with customers, partners, and field employees.

      Follow Martin on Twitter: @hoskenm.

      About the Technical Reviewer

      Ray Heffer is employed as a global cloud architect for VMware's Cloud Provider Software Business Unit. He is also a double VCDX #122 (Desktop and Datacenter). In his previous roles with End User Computing (EUC), Technical Marketing, and Professional Services at VMware, he has led many large-scale platform designs for service providers, manufacturing, and government organizations.

      Since 1997 Ray has specialized in administering, designing, and implementing solutions ranging from Microsoft Exchange, Linux, Citrix, and VMware. He deployed his first VMware environment in 2004 while working at a hosting company in the United Kingdom.

      Ray is also a regular presenter at VMworld and VMUG events, covering topics such as Linux desktops and VMware Horizon design best practices.

      Foreword by Duncan Epping

      I had just completed the final chapter of the Virtual SAN book I was working on when Martin reached out and asked if I wanted to write a foreword for his book. You can imagine I was surprised to find out that there was another person writing a book on software-defined storage, and pleasantly surprised to find out that VSAN is one of the major topics in this book. Not just surprised, but also very pleased. The world is changing rapidly, and administrators and architects need guidance along this journey, the journey toward a software-defined data center.

      When talking to customers and partners on the subject of the software-defined data center, a couple of concerns typically arise. Two parts of the data center have always been historically challenging and/or problematic – namely, networking and storage. Networking problems and concerns (and those related to security, for that matter) have been largely addressed with VMware NSX, which allows virtualization and networking administrators to work closely together on providing a flexible yet very secure foundation for the workloads they manage. This is done by adding an abstraction layer on top of the physical environment and moving specific services closer to the workloads (for instance, firewalling