Configure VSAN in Nested Virtualization

Everyone knows what is VSAN and how VSAN works. If you do not know about VSAN, follow this Youtube channel. To Deploy VSAN you need at-least one SATA Disk and an SSD Disk. This post will cover you the basic steps to enable VSAN in nested virtualization eliminating the need of physical storage devices.

Pre-requisites to Configure VSAN in Nested Virtualization

Edit Settings of your Nested ESXi Server.

Add some Hard Disks.

Power ON your ESXi Server and it will detect the newly added Disks.

You need to instruct the ESXi Server that the newly added Disk is an Flash Disk. To do so, select one of the Local Datastore and click on the icon on the top.

To confirm, click Yes.

That Disk will be marked as an Flash Disk.

VSAN Traffic has to be enabled at the network level. To do so, Edit your VMkernel Adapter.

Enable the VSAN Traffic.

Repeat the steps for the other hosts.

Enabling and Configuring VSAN

Move all the hosts into a cluster and make sure you TURN OFF HA.

In the Cluster Settings of VSAN, click Edit.

Enable the Checkbox Turn ON Virtual SAN

VSAN will automatically detect the eligible disks and add it to VSAN cluster.

VSAN Datastore will be available in all the Hosts.

You can view/add/remove the Disks in the Disk Management.