The service on the ESXi host that allows automatic discovery when adding a node into an existing VxRail Cluster is " loudmouth. " Loudmouth is a lightweight messaging daemon that enables the nodes in a VxRail cluster to discover each other automatically. This service facilitates the seamless addition of new nodes into an existing VxRail cluster by enabling them to communicate and integrate without manual configuration.

The maximum number of remote vSAN data stores a client cluster can mount using vSAN HCI Mesh is 6. VMware vSAN HCI Mesh allows for the mounting of remote vSAN datastores to provide flexible storage solutions and scalability. This feature enables multiple clusters to share storage resources efficiently.

References :

VMware vSAN HCI Mesh Documentation

Dell VxRail Technical Guide

The two failure states of vSAN components are " Degraded " and " Absent. "

Degraded: A vSAN component is considered degraded when it is still accessible but has experienced a loss of redundancy or other performance issues. This state indicates that the data is still available but may be at risk if further failures occur.

Absent: A vSAN component is in an absent state when it is temporarily unavailable, often due to transient issues like network disconnections or host reboots. The system expects the component to return shortly.

When the VxRail cluster is deployed, the vSAN storage policy settings applied to the VxRail Manager VM are as follows:

Failures to Tolerate : 1 failure - RAID 1 (Mirroring)

Object space reservation : Thin provisioning

These settings ensure that the VxRail Manager VM has redundancy to tolerate a single failure and uses thin provisioning to optimize storage usage.