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  • 1.  VSAN: compute-only and storage-only node

    Posted Mar 14, 2017 04:14 PM

    Dear Community,

    I have a question:

    - If i have six nodes ESXi (2CPU for node) and i would like to use only 3 nodes for storage-only and 3 nodes compute-only, i need buy the VSAN license for 3 nodes only?

    Thank you

    Fabio



  • 2.  RE: VSAN: compute-only and storage-only node

    Posted Mar 14, 2017 09:47 PM

    Similar to ESXi, vSAN licenses are required on a per-CPU basis so this will apply regardless of whether the hosts are contributing storage capacity to the vsandatastore or not.

    "Virtual SAN Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise editions are licensed per-CPU (socket). These

    are standalone licenses (i.e. not included with any other VMware license such as VMware

    vSphere®, vSphere with Operations Management™, VMware vCloud Suite®, and so on)."

    https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vsan/vmware-vsan-62-licensing-guide.pdf

    As an aside, there is no way to configure vSAN nodes as "storage-only" (can be "compute-only" though of course).



  • 3.  RE: VSAN: compute-only and storage-only node

    Posted Mar 15, 2017 01:58 PM

    You always need to certify all hosts in the cluster. So if you have 6 hosts with 2 sockets you have to have 12 licenses.



  • 4.  RE: VSAN: compute-only and storage-only node

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Mar 21, 2017 05:04 PM

    I wouldn't recommend doing this. Ideally you want all the nodes in the cluster to be as similar as possible. Also, only having 3 nodes for storage, limits your availability in case of maintenance/failures.  Having all nodes contributing to storage may increase your performance and will increase your failure domains, allowing  you to use something like FTT=2 if you wanted.