VMware vSphere Storage Appliance
Software Delivering Shared Storage for Every SMB

Overview:

Business continuity is a top priority for Small and Midsized Businesses, but traditional solutions are complex and expensive. VMware® vSphere protects your business with built-in high availability for all your applications. The new VMware vSphere® Storage Appliance™ (VSA) extends business continuity to SMBs with no shared storage hardware. VMware VSA is software that transforms internal storage from server hosts into a single shared storage resource, enabling all SMBs to use the advanced capabilities of vSphere.

• Five-click simplicity
• High availability with no shared storage hardware required
• World-class datacenter capabilities for small environments

What is VMware vSphere Storage Appliance?

VMware vSphere Storage Appliance is software that delivers shared storage capabilities without the cost and complexity of shared storage hardware. It installs with just a few mouse clicks and is centrally managed in VMware vCenter Server. With shared storage capabilities, you'll be able to use vSphere's business continuity features, all without shared storage hardware.

What Does vSphere Storage Appliance Deliver?

For some SMBs, virtualizing servers has required them to deal with the complexities of shared storage for the first time. No longer. VMware vSphere Storage Appliance delivers shared storage capabilities so SMBs can use the high availability and automation features of vSphere. Get business continuity for all your applications, eliminate planned downtime due to server maintenance, and use policies to prioritize resources for your most important applications. VSA enables you to do all this, without shared storage hardware.

Five-Click Simplicity - You can install VMware VSA by making a few mouse clicks and entering the desired IP address. And because VSA is integrated with vCenter Server, you can manage your entire IT environment in one place.

High Availability Without Shared Storage Hardware - vSphere Storage Appliance runs on multiple servers simultaneously, making data available to all of your applications even when a server fails. The high-availability features of vSphere enable you to restart snapshots of virtual machines automatically when a server fails, or use fault-tolerant protection so applications run uninterrupted. You can perform maintenance with no impact on the end user by migrating applications live from one server to another using vSphere vMotion.

World-Class Datacenter Capabilities for Small Environments

vSphere Storage Appliance empowers smaller IT environments with the performance and efficiency of world-class datacenters. It enables you to get the most out of your hardware by pooling workloads for higher utilization. And using the unique set-andforget automation features of vSphere

How Does vSphere Storage Appliance Work?

vSphere Storage Appliance is a software virtual appliance that allows vSphere administers to utilize server storage space by presenting it as shared storage. Managed as a single instance from vCenter Server, VMware VSA is installed on a cluster of servers and resides on a virtual machine on each server. The cluster enables the virtual machines to access the shared storage without the need for dedicated external storage.

vSphere administrators can simply allocate and provision this storage via vCenter Server. Once storage is allocated, managing it is the same as managing any shared storage—even simpler, because the storage resource is managed through vCenter Server.

How is vSphere Storage Appliance Easy to Deploy?

vSphere Storage Appliance is easy to deploy because the installation handles many configuration tasks—such as network setup and vSphere High Availability deployment. Even first-time vSphere users don't find it difficult to deploy.

How Does vSphere Storage Appliance Protect Data?

vSphere Storage Appliance is resilient. If a vSphere server within the VMware VSA cluster goes down, VMware VSA automatically and seamlessly fails over to another vSphere server in the cluster

Key Features of vSphere Storage Appliance:

Affordable Shared Storage

• Turns internal server storage into fully virtualized, clustered, shared and highly available datastores at a dramatically lower cost than networked, external shared storage
• Supports up to three nodes

Simple Installation and Configuration

• Fully automated installation and configuration of vCenter Server, vSphere and VMware VSA
• Ensures correct configuration for high availability

Simple Administration

• Tight vCenter Server integration provides simplified administration via VSA plug-in

Storage Resilience and Availability

• Synchronous mirroring of data stores, with RAID 1 across nodes, and RAID 10 within each node
• Up to 99.9 percent availability (with use of High Availability to recover from server failures)

Flexibility for future advancement to hardware-based storage solutions

• Use Storage vMotion to transfer VMs from VSA to shared storage hardware with no service disruption

Hardware and Application Compatibility

• Full compatibility with fast growing hardware compatibility list – see www.vmware.com for details
• Support for all VMware applications

Best Practice On Using VMware VSA

• Run vCenter Server separately from your VSA cluster for best protection
• Identify additional server disk capacity you will need to enable RAID protection prior to setup, as disk capacity and VSA-node count cannot be changed setup –feature planned for future release

How To Buy:

VSA is revolutionary software that turns servers into shared storage. This means high availability, vMotion and automation all without shared storage hardware. vSphere Storage Appliance is compatible with vSphere 5 only, and requires one instance of vCenter Server. SnS is required for at least one year.

*NOTE – vSphere Storage Appliance is currently available at a promotion rate when purchased with vSphere Essentials Plus Kit.

VMware vSphere Storage Appliance Add-on for vCenter Server 5 Essentials - SNS is Required and sold separately. Associated vCenter license is required and sold separately. Support contract is valid for VSA deployed on any vCenter Edition.

VMware vSphere Storage Appliance Add-on for vCenter Server 5 Foundation - SNS is Required and sold separately. Associated vCenter license is required and sold separately. Support contract is valid for VSA deployed on any vCenter Edition.

VMware vSphere Storage Appliance Add-on for vCenter Server 5 Standard - SNS is Required and sold separately. Associated vCenter license is required and sold separately. Support contract is valid for VSA deployed on any vCenter Edition.

Support:

Per incident support available. Please contact us.

VMware Production Support & Subscription

Technical Support, 24 Hour Sev 1 Support -- 7 days a week.

Focused, 24-Hour Support For Production Environments

• Global, 24x7 support for Severity 1 issues
• Fast response times for critical issues
• Unlimited number of support requests
• Remote Support
• Online access to documentation and technical resources, knowledge base, discussion forums
• Product updates and upgrades

Overview

VMware Production Support is designed with your production environments in mind. Our global support centers are staffed around the clock to provide you access to our industry-leading expertise in virtualization and years of experience supporting virtual infrastructure products in real-world customer environments. We are committed to delivering enterprise-class, worldwide support with a single objective in mind: your success.

VMware Basic Support & Subscription Service

Technical Support, 12 Hours/Day, per published Business Hours, Mon. thru Fri.

Weekday Support for Test, Dev and Non-Critical Deployments

• Global, 12x5 access to support
• Unlimited number of support requests
• Remote Support
• Online access to documentation and technical resources, knowledge base, discussion forums
• Product updates and upgrades

Overview

VMware Basic Support is designed for non-critical applications and platforms that require support during normal business hours. Our global support centers have been strategically placed to provide you with fast and efficient access to the support center in your region. Each center is staffed with engineers that can provide industry-leading expertise in virtualization and years of experience supporting virtual infrastructure products in real-world customer environments. We are committed to delivering enterprise-class, worldwide support with a single objective in mind: your success.

Feature	Production Support	Basic Support
Hours of Operation	24 Hrs/Day 7 Days/Wk 365 Days/Yr 1	12 Hrs/Day Mon–Fri 1
Length of Service	1 or 3 Years	1 or 3 Years
Product Updates	Yes	Yes
Product Upgrades	Yes	Yes
Products Supported	All Products (excluding VMware Fusion and Player)	All Products (excluding VMware Fusion and Player)
Method of Access	Telephone/ Web	Telephone/ Web
Response Method	Telephone/ Email	Telephone/ Email
Remote Support	Yes	Yes
Access to VMware Web site	Yes	Yes
Access to VMware Discussion Forums and Knowledge Base	Yes	Yes
Max Number of Support Admins per Contract	6	4
Number of Support Requests	Unlimited	Unlimited
Target Response Times Critical (Severity 1 Major (Severity 2) Minor (Severity 3) Cosmetic (Severity 4)	30 minutes or less: 24x7 4 business hours 8 business hours 12 business hours	4 business hours 8 business hours 12 business hours 12 business hours
Business Hours North America and Latin America Alaska, Hawaii South America (NASA) Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA Asia, Pacific Rim, Japan (APJ) Australia/New Zealand	Monday - Friday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (local time zone) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (PST/PDT) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (EST/EDT) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (GMT/GMT+1) 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. (Singapore Time) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Sydney AET)	Monday - Friday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (local time zone) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (PST/PDT) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (EST/EDT) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (GMT/GMT+1) 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. (Singapore Time) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Sydney AET)

1Hours of operation for Gemstone are Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (PST/PDT) globally.
1Hours of operation for VMware Go Pro and vCenter Protect products are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (CST/CDT), except holidays.
1Hours of operation for VMware IT Business Management and IT Financial Management are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (EST/EDT/GMT) except holidays.
1Hours of operation for Socialcast are 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (PST/PDT).

Documentation:

Download the VMware vSphere Storage Appliance Datasheet (PDF).