The software-defined storage module expands the power of virtualization by adding VMware vSAN, fully integrated, hypervisor-converged, storage software, to an environment. Virtual SAN creates a cluster of server hard disks and solid-state drives that present a flash-optimized, highly resilient, shared-storage datastore to the environment. This allows for on-demand policies to be specified for virtual machines, which enable the administrator to control the capacity, performance, and availability attributes.

Software-defined storage is a key technology in the software-defined data center (SDDC) methodology. This module helps customers on their SDDC journey, so that they realize the benefits of compute-style policies for their storage infrastructure.