I’m a bit behind on this, but VMware released a deep dive technical paper on the VSA solution that has been released. It can be downloaded from here
Definately worth a read if you want to know more about the architecture, configuration overview and requirements.
A brief introduction:
In the release of VMware vSphere® 5.0, VMware also released a new software storage appliance called the VMware vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA). VMware VSA provides an alternative shared storage solution to our Small to Medium Business (SMB) customers who might not be in a position to purchase a Storage Area Network (SAN) or Network-Attached Storage (NAS) array for their virtual infrastructure. Without shared storage configured in a vSphere environment, customers have not been able to exploit the unique features available in vSphere 5.0, such as vSphere High Availability (HA), vSphere, vMotion™ and vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). The VSA is designed to provide “Shared Storage for Everyone”.
This paper will provide a deep dive into the VSA architecture.
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