VMware updates Virtual SAN, converged infrastructure stack

VMware launched a new release of its Virtual SAN platform as it rounds out its software-defined stack for private and public cloud infrastructure.

The VMware Virtual SAN is the company's software defined storage play and is primarily aimed at Nutanix. The company said that it has more than 3,000 hyper-converged infrastructure customers since VMware Virtual SAN launched 21 months ago. VMware Virtual SAN 6.2 will be available in the first quarter with a starting price of $2,495 per CPU.

Software defined storage is shifting the landscape for vendors. More storage is being consumed, but the traditional system vendors in the market are seeing slowing growth. The cloud is partly to blame, but there's also the hardware end of the equation. Software defined storage means that arrays can be built with commodity x86 servers. As a result, those sales that were once recognized by storage vendors shows up as a server sale. VMware is using the trend to work both the storage and networking markets.

"Our vision is that everything can run off of a x86 node with one building block that cascades out at scale," said Gaetan Castelein, product marketing and management chief for VMware's software-defined data center unit.

VMware's so-called hyperconverged stack, which collapses storage and networking and compute into one box, features vSphere, vCenter Server and Virtual SAN. The stack is available through server vendors and soon as an appliance via EMC's VCE unit.

Here's a look at the stack and distribution model. VMware has 11 server manufacturing partners for precertified systems.

As for Virtual SAN 6.2, VMware added more storage efficiency, features like data deduplication and compression and other options. Today Virtual SAN is being used in more hybrid storage deployments, but like all-flash arrays are expected to grow.

Separately, VMware updated its vRealize Suite 7 with new features designed for hybrid data centers, dev-ops and automated management.