Dell VxRail System Design and Best Practices E-Book

Victor Wu

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 285

Beschreibung

Virtualized systems are well established now, and their disparate components can be found bundled together in hyper-converged infrastructures, such as VxRail from Dell EMC. Dell VxRail System Design and Best Practices will take you, as a system architect or administrator, through the process of designing and protecting VxRail systems.
While this book assumes a certain level of knowledge of VMware, vSphere 7.x, and vCenter Server, you’ll get a thorough overview of VxRail's components, features, and architecture, as well as a breakdown of the benefits of this hyper-converged system. This guide will give you an in-depth understanding of VxRail, as well as plenty of practical examples and self-assessment questions along the way to help you plan and design every core component of a VxRail system – from vSAN storage policies to cluster expansion. It's no good having a great system if you lose everything when it breaks, so you'll spend some time examining advanced recovery options, such as VMware Site Recovery Manager and Veeam Backup and Replication.
By the end of this book, you will have got to grips with Dell’s hyper-converged VxRail offering, taking your virtualization proficiency to the next level.

Leseprobe

Dell VxRail System Design and Best Practices

A complete guide to VxRail appliance design and best practices

Victor Wu

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Dell VxRail System Design and Best Practices

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Contributors

About the author

Victor Wu has over 15 years of system infrastructure experience. Currently, he works as a senior solutions architect at BoardWare Information System Limited in Macau.

He is the only qualified person in Macau with a certificate in VMware VCIX-DCV, and was awarded the vExpert certification from 2014 to 2022, Cisco Champion from 2017 to 2022, Veeam Vanguard from 2019 to 2022, and Nutanix Technology Champion in 2021.

His professional qualifications include VCIX-DCV 2022, VMware Certified Master Specialist – HCI 2022, Implementation Engineer – VxRail Appliance, Systems Administrator – VxRail Appliance, Nutanix Certified Professional 5, NetApp HCI Implementation Engineer, and Knowledge Sharing Author from 2018 to 2021.

He is the author of Implementing VxRail HCI Solutions, published by Packt Publishing in June 2021.

About the reviewers

Venkata Krishna Mallemarapu is a senior systems integrations advisor with over 13 years of experience in IT. He holds certifications in the fields of hyper-converged infrastructure, virtualization, storage, and networking. Krishna completed his education in the fields of computer science, information technology, electronics, and biomedical engineering.

Krishna is a people-friendly person who loves to entertain. He loves exploring new places, playing ping-pong, volleyball, and tennis, and gardening.

I would like to dedicate this to my parents, Siva Kumari and Rathaiah. Thank you for the support, the unconditional love, and for always being there for me.

To my wife, Sruthi. Thank you for your love, support, and encouragement. I am so blessed to spend the rest of my life with you.

To my friends. Thank you for the birthdays, inside jokes, food, laughs, and all the board and card game nights we’ve shared.

Pradeep Adapa has worked in IT for more than 11 years, with more than 9 years specifically dedicated to virtualization. He is a blogger with a blog dedicated to hyper-converged systems, especially VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VxRail. He has a master’s in information systems from Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY. He is currently employed at Solera Inc, full-time, where he works primarily on VMware Cloud Foundation 3.11.x and vRealize products (VRA, vRealize Log Insight, vRealize Operations, VRNI, and VRSLCM). He has also been a vExpert for two consecutive years (2021–2022).

I’d like to thank my wife, Hari, for putting up with me during this journey of reviewing the book and contributing to reviewing the chapters in this book.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Getting Started with the VxRail Appliance 7.x System

1

Overview of VxRail Appliance 7.x System

What is VxRail Appliance?

What is inside VxRail Appliance?

VxRail licensing

Dell VxRail architecture

Dell VxRail features

Dell VxRail management

Dell VxRail documentation and resources

Summary

Questions

2

Benefits of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

What’s new in VxRail 15th generation?

VxRail nodes with vSAN

VxRail standard cluster with external storage

VxRail standard cluster with vSAN HCI Mesh

VxRail dynamic nodes

VxRail dynamic node cluster with vSAN HCI Mesh

VxRail satellite nodes

Scenario

Summary

Questions

Part 2: Design of the VxRail Appliance 7.x System

3

Design of vCenter Server

Internal vCenter Server with an external DNS

Overview

Scenario

Internal vCenter Server with an internal DNS

Overview

Scenario

External vCenter Server with an external DNS

Overview

Scenario

External vCenter Server with customer-supplied VDS

Overview

Scenario

Summary

Questions

4

Design of vSAN Storage Policies

An overview of VMware vSAN on VxRail

An overview of vSAN objects and components

Failures to tolerate with RAID-1 mirroring

Failures to tolerate with RAID-5 erasure coding

Failures to tolerate with RAID-6 erasure coding

VMware vSAN storage policies

vSAN storage policy scenario

VMware vSAN HCI Mesh

Summary

Questions

5

Design of Cluster Expansion

Overview of VxRail scale-out rules

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Design of disk groups on VxRail E-Series

An unsupported scenario of scale-up on VxRail E-Series

A supported scenario of scale-up on VxRail E-Series

Design of disk groups on VxRail P-Series

An unsupported scenario of scale-up on VxRail P-Series

A supported scenario of scale-up on VxRail P-Series

Design of disk groups on VxRail V-Series

An unsupported scenario of scale-up on VxRail V-Series

A supported scenario of scale-up on VxRail V-Series

Design of disk groups on VxRail S-Series

An unsupported scenario of scale-up on VxRail S-Series

A supported scenario of scale-up on VxRail S-Series

Design of disk groups on VxRail D-Series

An unsupported scenario of scale-up on VxRail D-Series

A supported scenario of scale-up on VxRail D-Series

Design of disk groups on VxRail G-Series

An unsupported scenario of scale-up on VxRail G-Series

A supported scenario of scale-up on VxRail G-Series

Summary

Questions

6

Design of vSAN 2-Node Cluster on VxRail

Overview of VxRail vSAN two-node clusters

The architecture of a VxRail vSAN two-node cluster

Central management and localized witness

Localized management and witness

Central management and witness

Designing a VxRail vSAN two-node cluster

Direct-connect configuration

Switch configuration

A scenario using a VxRail vSAN two-node cluster

vSphere Distributed Switch

External vCenter Server

Failure scenarios of a VxRail vSAN two-node cluster

Scenario one

Scenario two

Scenario three

Scenario four

Summary

Questions

Part 3: Design of Data Protection for the VxRail System

7

Design of Stretched Clusteron VxRail

Overview of VxRail Stretched Cluster

The architecture of VxRail Stretched Cluster

Site disaster tolerance

Failures to tolerate

Site mirroring with RAID-1

Site mirroring with RAID-5

Keeping the data in the preferred site

Design of VxRail Stretched Cluster

VxRail Stretched Cluster without WTS

VxRail Stretched Cluster with WTS

VMware vCenter Server options

A scenario using VxRail Stretched Cluster

Network settings

Storage settings

Software licenses

Failure scenarios of VxRail Stretched Cluster

Failure scenario one

Failure scenario two

Failure scenario three

Failure scenario four

Failure scenario five

Summary

Questions

8

Design of VxRail with SRM

Overview of VMware SRM

VM replication

Storage-based replication

SRM licensing

Overview of VxRail with VMware SRM

Uni-directional protection

Bi-directional protection

The design of VxRail with VMware SRM

The benefits of VxRail with VMware SRM

Failover scenarios of VxRail with VMware SRM

Failure scenario 1

Failure scenario 2

Failure scenario 3

Failure scenario 4

Failure scenario 5

Failure scenario 6

Summary

Questions

9

Design of RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines on VxRail

Overview of RP4VM

vRPA adapters

vRPA performance profiles

CGs

Journal volumes

Overview of RP4VM on VxRail

Local replication

Remote replication

Licensing

Simple support matrix

The benefits of RP4VM

The design of RP4VM on VxRail

Network settings

Storage settings

Software licenses

Failover scenarios of RP4VM on VxRail

Failure scenario 1

Failure scenario 2

Failure scenario 3

Failure scenario 4

Failure scenario 5

Summary

Questions

10

Design of VxRailwith Veeam Backup

Overview of VBR

Which platforms can be protected?

The 3-2-1-1-0 backup rule

Licensing

Overview of backup job modes

Veeam Agent backup

Overview of VxRail with VBR

Benefits of VxRail with VBR

CDP

Hardened Linux repository

Archive tier

Instant recovery for SQL, Oracle, and NAS

Veeam-powered BaaS and DRaaS

Design of VxRail with VBR

VxRail with VBR in a site

VxRail with VBR across two sites

Recovery scenarios of VxRail with VBR

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Scenario 3

Scenario 4

Scenario 5

Summary

Questions

Assessments

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

Traditional IT teams are faced with a massive amount of complexity when building, configuring, maintaining, and scaling applications. Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) can simplify infrastructure deployment and management. VxRail appliances are developed by Dell EMC and VMware and are the only fully preconfigured and tested HCI appliances powered by VMware vSAN technology. This book contains three sections, getting started with the VxRail appliance 7.x system, the design of the VxRail appliance 7.x system, and the design of the data protection for the VxRail system. You will be given an overview of VxRail’s architecture and the benefits of the VxRail 7.x system, and design every core component of a VxRail system, the vSAN storage policies, and its cluster expansion. In the last section, you will learn about the design of the advanced solutions for VxRail, including a stretched cluster on VxRail, VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM), Dell EMC RecoverPoint for VMs, and Veeam Backup & Replication.

By the end of this book, you will have got to grips with Dell’s hyper-converged VxRail offering, taking your virtualization proficiency to the next level.

Who this book is for

This book is for system architects, system administrators, or consultants involved in planning and designing VxRail HCI. The reader is expected to have equivalent knowledge and administration experience with VMware vSphere 7. x and vCenter Server 7.x.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Overview of VxRail Appliance 7.x System, provides an overview of the VxRail appliance 7.x system. The architecture of Dell HCI is different from a traditional server and storage.

Chapter 2, Benefits of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure, outlines the benefits of the VxRail appliance 7.x system and Dell EMC VxRail on the 15th-generation PowerEdge portfolio.

Chapter 3, Design of vCenter Server, describes the design of VxRail deployment options – for example, an internal vCenter Server with an external DNS, an internal vCenter Server with an internal DNS, an external vCenter Server with an external DNS, and so on.

Chapter 4, Design of vSAN Storage Policies, explains the design of vSAN storage policies on the VxRail appliance system.

Chapter 5, Design of Cluster Expansion, details the VxRail scale-up and scale-out rules, and how to design cluster expansion.

Chapter 6, Design of vSAN 2-Node Cluster on VxRail, clarifies the best practices for a vSAN 2-Node cluster on VxRail.

Chapter 7, Design of Stretched Cluster on VxRail, gives an overview of a stretched cluster on VxRail and how to design this advanced solution.

Chapter 8, Design of VxRail with SRM, explores the disaster recovery solutions for VxRail. It includes the active-passive solution with VMware SRM.

Chapter 9, Design of RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines on VxRail, describes the Continuous Data Protection (CDP) solution for VxRail and teaches the reader how to plan and design this advanced solution.

Chapter 10, Design of VxRail with Veeam Backup, demonstrates how the Dell VxRail system is also supported by a third-party backup solution. You will learn how to design VxRail with Veeam Backup & Replication.

To get the most out of this book

Make sure your workstation (laptop) is running on the Windows platform and a web browser is installed onto your laptop. The latest versions of Firefox, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 or above are all supported. You need to run the VxRail software at version 7.0.320 or above.

Software/Hardware covered in the book

OS Requirements

Microsoft Windows platform

Windows 8 or 10

VxRail software

VxRail 7.0.320 or above

VMware SRM and VR

Version 8.3 or above

Dell EMC RecoverPoint for VMs

Version 5.3 or above

Veeam Backup & Replication

Version 12 or above

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/8W828.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “The preferred site advertises the 192.169.0.0/24 network to the third site, and the secondary site advertises the 192.170.0.0/24 network to the third site.”

A block of code is set as follows:

Install-WindowsFeature Web-Application-Proxy -IncludeManagementTools

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: “You can select the following options from the Failures to tolerate menu.”

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

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Part 1: Getting Started with the VxRail Appliance 7.x System

In this part, the reader will get an overview of the VxRail appliance 7.x system; this includes the architecture, features, and documentation resources and what the benefits of the VxRail Appliance 7.x System are.

This part of the book comprises the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Overview of VxRail Appliance 7.x SystemChapter 2, Benefits of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

1

Overview of VxRail Appliance 7.x System

In the digital economy, most applications need to provide a 24*7 Service-Level Agreement (SLA) for every customer. The IT service department provider often faces the problems of how to make applications available at any time, how to handle Life Cycle Management (LCM), how the system infrastructure can automatically scale up and out, and so on. Most traditional infrastructure architecture has some hardware and software limitations; it cannot fulfill these requirements. You may need to integrate third-party hardware and software to fulfill these requirements. However, this will increase the cost of the total solution. When new software packages or patches are released, they need to upgrade or apply the patch to the existing traditional infrastructure architecture. At this moment, some compatibility problems between the hardware and software may exist, which is why traditional infrastructure architecture is not a good solution.

With the Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) platforms available on the market, most technical limitations of traditional infrastructure architecture can be resolved. The HCI platform can simplify most day-one deployment and day-two management activities. Dell VxRail Appliance is an HCI platform developed by Dell EMC and VMware. VxRail Appliance can provide different features, for example, hardware scaling, software package upgrade, centralized management, and LCM. In this chapter, we will discuss the VxRail system; you will get an overview of the VxRail Appliance 7.x platform.

This chapter includes the following main topics:

What is VxRail Appliance?Dell VxRail architectureDell VxRail featuresDell VxRail managementDell VxRail documentation and resources

What is VxRail Appliance?

VxRail Appliance (as seen in Figure 1.1) is developed and powered by Dell EMC and VMware. It is an HCI appliance that is exclusively integrated and preconfigured with VMware vSphere and Virtual SAN (vSAN). VxRail platforms are fully integrated with VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) and use a VxRail Manager plugin for vCenter. The VxRail platform provides user-friendly and centralized management; system administrators can perform day-to-day activities using the VxRail Manager plugin for vCenter in a Hypertext Markup Language revision 5 (HTML5) interface:

Figure 1.1 – VxRail system on the Dell 15th-generation PowerEdge server

The VxRail platform is powered by Dell EMC PowerEdge servers with Intel Scalable or AMD EPYC processors. VxRail Appliance can be configured with different hardware options, for example, CPU processors with different cores, different sizes of memory, the network connectivity interface, a Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter (HBA), a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), Hybrid mode, and All-Flash mode of disks. VxRail Appliance is fully integrated with VMware solutions including VMware Tanzu, VMware NSX, VMware vRealize Suite, and VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM), and private clouds such as VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). You can check out the VMware website (https://www.vmware.com) if you want to learn about these VMware products in more detail.

VxRail Appliance models are available in different form factors, and they come as one unit per node, two units per node, and four nodes in a two-unit chassis. The VxRail Appliance architecture is designed so the customer can buy and scale out based on their infrastructure requirements. Dell solution architects use VxRail Sizing Tool (https://vxrailsizing.emc.com) for VxRail design. VxRail Sizing Tool is an online platform that analyzes workloads and hardware requirements, then provides a VxRail hardware configuration that meets customer requirements. The Dell EMC VxRail family offers six types of platforms, that is, E (entry-level) Series, P (performance-optimized) Series, V (VDI-optimized) Series, D (durable-platform) Series, S (storage-dense) Series, and G (general-purpose) Series.

Now, we will introduce each model of Dell EMC VxRail Appliance.

VxRail E Series has three options, Hybrid, All-Flash, and NVMe. You can choose the All-Flash or NVMe model if you want high performance. For general purposes, you can choose the Hybrid model. Each node is a one-unit form factor system that is used for most scenarios. It is based on Dell EMC PowerEdge R650/R6515 server technology. VxRail E Series includes two models, VxRail E660 and E665. VxRail 660 runs on the Dell EMC PowerEdge R650 server, which supports 10 GB, 25 GB, and 100 GB network interfaces, and VxRail 665 runs on the Dell EMC PowerEdge R6515 server, which supports only 10 GB and 25 GB network interfaces.

Figure 1.2 – VxRail E Series on the Dell 15th-generation PowerEdge server

VxRail P Series only has two options, All-Flash or NVMe. Each node is a two-unit form factor system that is used for high-performance and data-intensive application scenarios. It is based on Dell EMC PowerEdge R750/R7515/R840 server technology; VxRail P Series includes three models, VxRail P670, P675, and P580N. It also supports 10 GB, 25 GB, and 100 GB network interfaces. VxRail P670 (All-Flash mode only) runs on the Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 server, which supports 10 GB, 25 GB, and 100 GB network interfaces. VxRail P675 (All-Flash and NVMe mode) runs on the Dell EMC PowerEdge R7515 server, which supports 10 GB, 25 GB, and 100 GB network interfaces. VxRail P840N (NVMe mode only) runs on the Dell EMC PowerEdge R580N server, which supports 10 GB, 25 GB, and 100 GB network interfaces.

Figure 1.3 – VxRail P Series on the Dell 15th-generation PowerEdge server

VxRail V Series only has All-Flash mode. Each node is a two-unit form factor system that is used for VDI optimized for specialized scenarios. It is based on Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 server technology; VxRail V Series includes only one model, VxRail V670. VxRail V670 (All-Flash mode only) supports 10 GB, 25 GB, and 100 GB network interfaces. Only V Series can support GPU cards.

Figure 1.4 – VxRail V Series on the Dell 15th-generation PowerEdge server

VxRail D Series only has two options, Hybrid or All-Flash. Each node is a one-unit form factor system that is designed to withstand extreme conditions, for example, intense heat, cold, or humidity. It is based on Dell EMC PowerEdge XR2 server technology; VxRail D Series includes only one model, VxRail D560. VxRail D560 only supports 10 GB and 25 GB network interfaces. VxRail D560 is available in MIL-STD and DNV-GL Maritime-certified configurations.

Figure 1.5 – VxRail D Series on the Dell 15th-generation PowerEdge server

VxRail S Series only has a Hybrid option. Each node is a two-unit form factor system that is used for demanding applications, for example, big data, Microsoft Exchange, and archive data. It is based on Dell EMC PowerEdge R750 server technology; VxRail S Series includes only one model, VxRail S670. VxRail S670 supports 10 GB, 25 GB, and 100 GB network interfaces.

Figure 1.6 – VxRail S Series on the Dell 15th-generation PowerEdge server

VxRail G Series has two options, Hybrid or All-Flash. Each node is a two-unit form factor system that is used for general-purpose virtualized workloads. It is based on Dell EMC PowerEdge C6420 server technology; VxRail G Series includes only one model, VxRail G560. VxRail G560 supports 10 GB, 25 GB, and 100 GB network interfaces. The VxRail G Series chassis can install four nodes.

Figure 1.7 – VxRail G Series on the Dell 15th-generation PowerEdge server

Important Note

In the initial deployment, the first three VxRail nodes in a cluster must be identical models. VxRail Hybrid and All-Flash nodes cannot mix in a VxRail cluster.

The following table shows a summary of hardware configurations on each VxRail Series:

Table 1.1 – A summary of hardware configurations on each VxRail Series

The VxRail Appliance 7.x platform supports three types of VxRail nodes, including a VxRail node with vSAN, a VxRail dynamic node, and a VxRail satellite node. We will discuss the details in Chapter 2, Benefits of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure.

What is inside VxRail Appliance?

VxRail Appliance is a black-box solution developed by Dell EMC and VMware. VMware vSphere is preinstalled and configured on each VxRail Appliance before shipping to customers. In VxRail Appliance, there are three key elements:

VMware SDDC technologiesVxRail HCI system softwareData protection options

This table shows a summary of the software inside VxRail Appliance:

Table 1.2 – A summary of the software inside VxRail Appliance

With the preceding table, we know what components make up each key element. Now we will discuss each piece of software.

VMware SDDC technologies

The following is a list of SDDC technologies:

VMware vSAN is Software-Defined Storage (SDS) that is embedded in the kernel with VMware vSphere. You can choose the edition of VMware vSAN based on your requirements when you buy VxRail Appliance, including Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus. Each VxRail Appliance is enabled by the vSAN feature when you power it on for the first time.

Important Note

In VxRail 4.7 or above, the VMware vSAN license is not embedded in each VxRail node. The vSAN license is enabled in the evaluation mode on each node when the customer powers it on for the first time. They need to add the vSAN license manually to each node.

VMware vCenter Server is a central management dashboard that is used to configure and manage virtual machines. The VCSA instance license is preinstalled on VxRail Appliance. VCSA is a virtual appliance that is fully integrated with VxRail Appliance using the VxRail Manager plugin; we can manage VxRail appliances via VMware vCenter Server with the VxRail Manager plugin.

Important Note

The embedded vCenter instance license is bundled on VxRail Appliance. If you deployed the external vCenter Server for VxRail management, the optional vCenter Server instance license is required.

VMware vRealize Suite is a cloud-based management software package that integrates VMware vRealize Cloud Management products, including vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations, vRealize Log Insight, and LCM on-premises. You can enable VMware vRealize products on the VxRail Appliance system at any time.VMware ESXi is a hypervisor that virtualizes the physical resources (for example, CPU processors, memory, storage, and networking) on the different virtual machines.

Important Note

VMware vSphere licenses are not included in VxRail Appliance. The customer can reuse existing vSphere licenses or order new licenses for each VxRail node.

VMware Tanzu is used for modernizing your applications, which helps customers execute and manage different Kubernetes (K8s) clusters across the multicloud platform.VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is used to build up the Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC). This platform can deliver a variety of features, including VMware vSAN, VMware NSX, and VMware vRealize features.

Important Note

VMware Tanzu and VCF are optional features on VxRail; both features are not included in VxRail Appliance.

VxRail HCI system software

The following is a list of VxRail HCI system software:

VxRail Manager is predeployed on VxRail Appliance, and it is fully integrated into VCSA with the VxRail Manager plugin. You can execute daily operations via the VxRail Manager plugin; these tasks include system scale-up and scale-out, automatic deployments, LCM, and maintenance tasks.SaaS multicluster management is a Dell EMC cloud platform. SaaS multicluster management collects telemetry data from each node in the VxRail cluster via the Secure Remote Services (SRS) gateway and can deliver the proactive system monitoring of VxRail Appliance systems.RESTful APIs are a bundled feature on VxRail Appliance that can execute management functions.Automation and orchestration services include VxRail Manager delivering the automated deployment and orchestration workflow in the VxRail Appliance system, for example, system scale-up and scale-out, LCM, and an active-active solution.Ecosystem connectors are used to integrate the software and hardware for LCM in the VxRail cluster, including automation and orchestrating services.

Data protection options

Dell EMC RecoverPoint for VMs (RP4VM) is a Continuous Data Protection (CDP) solution from Dell EMC. It can provide protection of the virtual machine with its point-in-time synchronization or asynchronization in a local VxRail cluster or across VxRail clusters between two different locations. You can manage RP4VM directly via VCSA.

Important Note

The RP4VM license includes 5 virtual machine licenses per node (E, P, V, D, and S Series) and 15 virtual machine licenses per chassis for the G Series.

VMware vSphere Replication (VR) is a disaster recovery solution at the hypervisor level; it can deliver data protection of the virtual machine with a 5-minute Recovery Point Objective (RPO) in a local VxRail cluster or across VxRail clusters between two different locations. You can manage VR directly via VCSA, and it also can work with SRM to deliver the automated failover and failback recovery plan.

Important Note

VMware SRM is the optional license for enabling disaster recovery on VxRail Appliance.You need an SRM license with at least 25 virtual machines per site.

Now that we understand which software components are bundled with VxRail Appliance, let’s look at the licensing options.

VxRail licensing

VxRail Appliance is a turnkey solution that is bundled with some software licenses on each VxRail node. It includes the following bundled VMware and Dell EMC software licenses:

VMware vCenter Server VMware vSphere VMware vSAN VMware vRealize Log InsightVMware VR

Dell EMC software includes the following:

Dell EMC RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines

VxRail Appliance also follows a Bring-Your-Own (BYO) vSphere license model. You can purchase VxRail Appliance with a new vSphere license or reuse any existing qualified vSphere licenses. The VxRail system supports several VMware vSphere license editions; it includes Enterprise Plus, Standard, and ROBO (Remote Office Branch Office) editions.

This table shows the difference between the preceding-supported vSphere licenses:

Table 1.3 – The difference between the preceding supported vSphere licenses

Important Note

VMware vSphere Essentials and Essentials Plus are not supported with VxRail.

VxRail software 4.7 or above also supports a flexible vSAN license model. You can purchase VxRail Appliance with different editions of the vSAN license. This table shows an edition comparison:

Table 1.4 – VMware vSAN editions feature comparison

This table shows an edition comparison for vRealize Operations Advanced:

Table 1.5 – VMware vRealize Operations Advanced edition feature comparison

A VMware vCenter Server Standard instance license is bundled with the VxRail cluster. VxRail Manager applies this license to the embedded VCSA during VxRail initialization.

Important Note

Transferring an embedded VCSA license to any vCenter Server is not supported. You need to prepare a new vCenter Server license for the external VCSA if you choose external VCSA during VxRail initialization.

The preceding tables help you choose the different types of VMware vSphere and vSAN licenses for VxRail Appliance based on your required functions and features.

Now that we understand VxRail Appliance and the different components and technologies used in it, let’s move on and learn about its architecture next.

Dell VxRail architecture

The VxRail system is a turnkey solution that has been tested and validated by Dell EMC. Each VxRail node is built on a Dell PowerEdge server, and it includes the following hardware components:

Intel Xeon Scalable processors (single, dual, or quad), up to 40 cores per processor, or an AMD EPYC processor with up to 64 cores.Up to 48 DDR4 Dual In-Line Memory Modules (DIMMs), it supports memory capacity ranging from 64 GB to 8,192 GB.A mirrored pair of BOSS SATA M.2 cards that are used to store the ESXi system on the node.A 10/25 GbE Network Daughter Card (NDC) used for VxRail’s predefined network connections.If you purchase a VxRail Hybrid node, it includes a single Solid State Drive (SSD) for the cache tier and multiple Hard Disk Drive (HDD) disks for the capacity tier.If you purchase a VxRail All-Flash node, it includes a single SSD or NVMe for the cache tier and SAS SSD, SATA SSD, vSAS SSD, or NVMe for the capacity tier.

Important Note

Each VxRail Series can support different maximum software and hardware configuration, for example, the number of vSAN disk groups, the number of additional network adapters, or the total number of memory and CPU cores.

Now, we will look at a diagram for the VxRail 7.0.xxx platform:

Figure 1.8 – A diagram of the VxRail 7.0.xxx platform

Figure 1.8 shows the following hardware components in this environment:

There are four VxRail P670 Hybrid appliances (a minimum of four nodes is the recommended configuration). Each node installs an NDC with four 10 GB SFP+ ports. Two 10 GB ports are used for vSAN and vMotion networks; the other 10 GB ports are used for management and virtual machine networks. Two 10 GB network switches are used for VxRail’s network connectivity.One 1 GB network switch is used for Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC) connection on each VxRail Appliance.

Important Note

The minimum initial configuration of a VxRail cluster is three nodes; these three nodes must be the same model.

Now, we will discuss the logical diagram for the VxRail 7.0.xxx platform. Figure 1.9 shows the following software and hardware components in this environment:

One VxRail 7.x cluster with four VxRail nodes, and there is a vSAN datastore across these four nodesOne VxRail Manager virtual applianceOne VCSA

Figure 1.9 – The logical diagram for the VxRail 7.0.xxx platform

Important Note

In VxRail 7.0 or later, there is no VMware vCenter Platform Service Controller (PSC), and vRealize Log Insight deploys automatically into the VxRail cluster during initialization.

In Figure 1.9, there are four nodes with the same model (VxRail P670) connecting to the VxRail network during VxRail initialization; then it can automatically build the VxRail cluster, and vSAN features are enabled on the VxRail cluster. By default, there are two VxRail system virtual machines that will be deployed into the VxRail cluster; they are VxRail Manage and VCSA. You can easily build the VxRail cluster in Dell EMC VxRail Deployment Wizard when every requirement is ready. You can refer to Figure 1.10 for the VxRail initialization:

Figure 1.10 – Welcome page of VxRail 7.0

Important Note

Please note that you can choose the VxRail software edition when you purchase VxRail Appliance: VxRail 4.7 or 7.0. VxRail 4.7 is shipped with VMware vSAN 6.7. VxRail 7.0 is shipped with VMware vSAN 7.0.

In this section, we understood the architecture of the VxRail system and the VxRail system’s virtual machines. Next, let’s look at its features.

Dell VxRail features

The VxRail system can deliver different features; it includes automatic deployment, flexible scale-up and scale-out, Storage Policy-Based Management (SPBM), LCM, a single management dashboard, CDP, and a single-vendor, end-to-end ongoing support service. In day-one deployment, you can select the cluster type and then deploy the VxRail cluster and configure the SDS automatically. Compared to the traditional server storage architecture, it can minimize the deployment and configuration time. In Figure 1.11, you can see how you can select the type of the VxRail cluster in Dell EMC VxRail Deployment Wizard.

Figure 1.11 – Specifying the type of the VxRail cluster in Dell EMC VxRail Deployment Wizard

You can perform all operation tasks via VMware vCenter Server with the VxRail Manager plugin after the VxRail deployment is completed. In the VxRail Manager plugin, you can see all functions, such as Updates, Certificate, Market, and Add VxRail Hosts.

Figure 1.12 – VxRail System information

Storage Policy Based Management (SPBM) is a core feature in the VxRail cluster; the system