Hyperconverged infrastructure: x86 servers supply both processing and storage, as with vSAN pooling each ESX host's local drives into one datastore, instead of relying on external arrays or vSAN storage clusters.
Also called hyperconverged infrastructure.
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Terms in this definition
- General-purpose v1
The older storage account kind (
Storage), which lacks access tiers, Archive and premium file shares and retires on 13 October 2026. Converting to ZRS requires first upgrading to GPv2, a one-way change. - vSAN
VMware's software-defined storage, which combines local devices across a cluster's ESX hosts into one shared datastore. Available as OSA or ESA, VCF can use it as principal storage.
- ESX
VMware's bare-metal hypervisor, installed on each host in a VCF fleet. Up to version 9.0 it was known as ESXi.
- LSDOU
The sequence in which Group Policy is processed: the local policy first, followed by site, domain and organisational unit policies. The nearest, last-processed setting takes effect unless Enforced or Block Inheritance alters that.
- Datastore
A named pointer in the workspace to Blob, Azure Files or ADLS Gen2 storage that keeps the connection details, so code never needs to carry storage keys itself.
- External
API Management virtual network mode in which the gateway stays public but can call private back ends inside the VNet.
Related terms
- vSAN datastore sharing
Lets one vSAN cluster use storage from another, whether a vSAN HCI or storage cluster, by mounting its datastore, even under a different vCenter; it was previously called HCI Mesh.