VSA allows features like vMotion, DRS, Storage vMotion, and HA to be possible using only local storage. This enables advanced vSphere capabilities now to be possible for environments as small as just two servers. vSphere provides the VSA environment with tools to monitor and manage performance and understanding the key factors of VSA performance helps drive a successful deployment.
The performance of VSA is directly related to the hardware configuration of the systems used for its cluster. Big differences in capacity, performance, and price exist depending on the exact configuration used. The data replication performed by VSA across its cluster nodes provides high availability, but also has an effect on performance. Testing was done with a mixed workload to examine application performance and infrastructure operations. A set of tests with an I/O generation tool were also run to examine what happens across the hosts in a VSA cluster and to illustrate how to monitor and manage performance.
Performance of VSA in VMware Sphere 5
