This chapter was dedicated to the storage part of a virtual infrastructure, starting from local block-based storage and extending into shared block storage with FC, FCoE, and iSCSI protocols and NFS-based NAS storage.

For each of them, we considered the different optimization techniques, integration, and storage features provided by vSphere. Other types of storage architectures were also considered, especially HCI solutions. To learn more, a great source of information for storage aspects is the VMware StorageHub at https://storagehub.vmware.com/.

In this chapter, we introduced the main storage concepts and features, described how to manage local, block, and NAS storage and how to configure vSphere to use them. Also, we explained how to integrate vSphere with storage using VAAI, VASA, vVols, storage profiles, vCenter plugins, and so on.

In the final part, there was a short introduction to HCI and vSAN, and caching options in vSphere.