Virtual Storage Area Network Appliance

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What Does Virtual Storage Area Network Appliance Mean?

A virtual storage area network appliance (VSAN appliance) is a virtual SAN solution for virtualized computing environments. It is a storage solution that enables the use of unused or additional storage in one or more virtual servers accumulated and delivered as a SAN device.

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A VSAN appliance is also known as a a virtual storage network appliance or virtual storage optimization appliance.

Techopedia Explains Virtual Storage Area Network Appliance

Designed to provide a virtual SAN solution for one or more virtual machine (VM) based servers, a VSAN appliance identifies the unused storage capacity for each VM and binds them together as a SAN appliance. The VSAN appliance is further utilized by all connected virtual servers, which are logically visible as a single SAN appliance.

A VSAN appliance is a controlled, software enabled SAN solution that is accessed and managed through a logical graphical user interface (GUI)-based interface. It is also supported as a native firmware option by some hardware-based SAN solutions.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.