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Improved vSAN capacity usage reporting APIs in vSphere 8.0 Update 3

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As with any new VMware software release, I always love geeking out and taking a look at the new APIs have been added and/or updated that can benefit our users. Having spent some time automating various aspects of vSAN, I came across a couple of new vSAN capacity usage reporting APIs (vSphere API & vSAN Management API) that were introduced in vSphere 8.0 Update 3 that I thought was worth mentioning.

While vSAN already had an existing capacity API by using the querySpaceUsage() method as part of the VsanSpaceReportSystem, it did not provide granular information about the raw storage capacity that was claimed by vSAN, whether that was for vSAN Original Storage Architecture (OSA) or vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA).

As part of the VsanVcClusterConfigSystem, there is now a new vSAN API called getClaimedCapacity() that will return the raw capacity in bytes for all claimed disks for vSAN OSA and/or ESA which is also useful for those looking to understand their tebibyte (TiB) usage, as that is also  unit of licensing for vSAN storage with the new VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) offers.

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Exploring the new vSAN Data Protection API in vSphere 8.0 Update 3

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I have been spending some time with the new vSAN Data Protection (DP) capability that was just introduced with the latest vSphere 8.0 Update 3 release and if you are interested in what you can do with this new functionality, Duncan Epping has recently published a blog post on this exact topic that you should check out!

While the new vSAN DP capability can easily be consumed using the new vSphere UI plugin, it can be even more powerful with automation and I was interested in learning more about the vSAN DP API and how administrators can consume it.

Today, the vSAN DP (REST) API endpoint is part of the vSAN DP Virtual Appliance, which must be deployed access both the vSAN DP vSphere UI plugin and vSAN DP API. Since the vSAN DP API is available as a separate API endpoint, to authenticate you will need to request a SAML token from the vCenter Single Sign-On (SSO) service. There are currently some issues with the vSAN DP API documentation and once that is available, which I will linked, you will find more information about requesting a token along with all the available methods.

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Automating deployment of vSAN Data Protection OVA with PowerCLI

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vSphere 8.0 Update 3 introduces a new vSAN Data Protection capability for the vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) and it is currently delivered as a standalone VMware OVA (see Duncan's post in case you are wondering where to download) which, once deployed and configures, enables a new vSphere UI plugin as shown in screenshot below.


After going through the manual (vSphere UI) deployment workflow, which also included some non-traditional input like requiring the raw vCenter Server TLS certificate, I was interested in automating the deployment using PowerCLI.

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