VAST Data NVMe/TCP Block Support: Eliminating Silos and Unifying Workloads for VMware vSphere

In modern enterprise IT, complexity is the enemy of agility. Organizations have long struggled with multiple storage silos: Fibre Channel SANs for block workloads, NFS for file, and object storage for analytics, backup, or cloud-native applications. Managing these separate systems increases cost, operational overhead, and risk, especially in VMware vSphere environments running critical workloads.

VAST Data’s Element Store architecture changes that paradigm by delivering a unified, disaggregated, all-flash platform capable of handling block, file, and object workloads simultaneously. With the addition of NVMe/TCP block support, VMware customers can now consolidate mission critical virtual machines, databases, analytics, and unstructured workloads onto a single platform, eliminating silos while maintaining high performance and predictable latency.

The Problem with Traditional Silos

Enterprises typically maintain multiple arrays because each workload has historically required a different storage protocol:

• Block storage for VMware VMFS datastores and transactional databases.
• File storage for shared directories, home folders, or application file systems.
• Object storage for analytics, backup, and cloud-native workloads.

This siloed approach creates challenges:

1. High management overhead – Separate monitoring, patching, replication, and capacity planning.
2. Fragmented data – Moving data between silos is slow and inefficient.
3. Inefficient hardware usage – Some arrays are underutilized, others are overprovisioned.
4. Limited flexibility – Adapting to new workloads often requires deploying another silo.

VAST Element Store: One Platform, All Protocols

VAST’s Element Store is fundamentally different. It provides:

• Unified architecture – Block, file, and object data coexist on the same underlying storage hardware, sharing the same pool of NVMe SSDs.
• Disaggregated design – Compute and storage scale independently, so adding capacity or performance does not require forklift upgrades.
• High-performance NVMe/TCP block support – Low latency for VMware vSphere workloads, with VMFS datastores.
• File (NFS) and object (S3) access – Fully supported alongside block volumes, all running on the same Element Store.

This architecture eliminates the need for separate SANs, NAS, or object systems, no more silos. Whether your organization runs transactional databases, virtual desktops, analytics pipelines, or backup workloads, VAST can handle them simultaneously on one platform.

NVMe/TCP: Bringing Block into the Unified Store

NVMe/TCP brings enterprise grade block storage to Ethernet networks, allowing VMware administrators to leverage standard infrastructure while achieving the performance traditionally associated with Fibre Channel:

• Low-latency, high-throughput block volumes – Ideal for virtual machines.
• Seamless integration with vSphere 8.x – Supports VMFS datastores.
• Concurrent protocol access – Block volumes do not interfere with NFS shares or S3 object storage on the same Element Store.

By supporting multiple protocols simultaneously, VAST ensures that all workloads are served efficiently without carving the system into silos, maximizing hardware utilization while simplifying operations.

Benefits of a Unified Platform

VAST’s single platform approach delivers several tangible benefits:

1. Silo elimination – Consolidate block, file, and object workloads without deploying separate arrays.
2. Operational simplicity – One management plane, one namespace, and consistent data services across protocols.
3. Performance consistency – NVMe/TCP for block workloads, low-latency NFS for file, and high-throughput S3 for object, all coexisting without interference.
4. Scalability – Disaggregated architecture allows linear scale of capacity and performance.
5. Enterprise features – Instant snapshots, clones, replication, and automated tiering across all protocols from the same Element Store.

Real-World Impact

Imagine a hospital IT environment running VMware vSphere workloads for Epic databases, departmental file shares, and long-term imaging archives. Traditionally, each workload would live on a different silo: a SAN for Epic block volumes, a NAS for shared files, and object storage for images. VAST eliminates that complexity:

• All workloads live on the same Element Store.
• NVMe/TCP block volumes power VMware VMs and databases.
• NFS handles file sharing and departmental apps.
• S3 object storage supports long-term retention and analytics.
• Snapshots, clones, and replication apply consistently across all protocols.

The result: one platform, one namespace, one management model, and maximum hardware efficiency.

Conclusion

VAST Data’s NVMe/TCP block support is not just about performance; it’s about breaking down storage silos and enabling a truly unified data architecture. VMware administrators can now deploy mission critical block workloads alongside file and object workloads on the same Element Store, simplifying operations, improving utilization, and accelerating innovation.

With VAST, enterprises can finally stop managing multiple arrays and start managing data as a single, universal resource, future-proofing their infrastructure while delivering the high performance and reliability modern workloads demand.

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below, you can see a demo how it all works:

The official documentation: https://support.vastdata.com/s/document-item?bundleId=vast-cluster-administrator-s-guide5.3&topicId=managing-access-protocols%2Fblock-storage-protocol%2Fconfiguring-an-nvme-tcp-client-on-vmware-vsphere-for-vast-cluster-block-storage.html&_LANG=enus