What is the transport protocol used for vSAN?

The transport protocol used for vSAN is actually a unique method that is specifically designed for hyper-converged infrastructure environments, and it utilizes a distributed storage architecture that doesn't rely on traditional protocols like iSCSI, Fibre Channel, or NFS. Instead, vSAN employs a mechanism that utilizes the network for data transport in a manner optimized for the distributed nature of virtualized environments.

When using vSAN, storage and compute resources are combined in a single cluster, and the communication happens over the existing network infrastructure through a protocol that is tightly integrated with VMware's virtual machine management capabilities. This approach allows the storage resources to be directly accessible to virtual machines without the complexities or overhead associated with traditional storage networking protocols.

Direct-attach infrastructure is indicative of how storage resources are tightly linked to compute resources in vSAN, facilitating high-speed access to virtualized workloads. This model optimizes the performance and efficiency of storage operations, which aligns with the design philosophy of vSAN's architecture.