Home > Storage > PowerFlex > White Papers > Dell APEX Block Storage for Azure: IBM Db2 Database Deployment Best Practices > Logical architecture
The logical architecture that is described in this section shows Dell APEX Block Storage deployment in a single availability zone in a West US 3 region using Azure Premium managed disks attached to APEX Block Storage SDS instance using Azure VM. The setup includes six APEX Block Storage (SDS) instances using Azure VMs and the placement of MDMs (and the PFMP cluster) is configured in a single availability zone.
The APEX Block Storage SDS component is installed on six Azure VMs of Standard_F48s_v2 series type VM with SUSE Linux OS. The Azure VMs that are deployed as APEX Block Storage SDS nodes in Azure are backed by Azure Premium managed disks. The twenty Azure premium managed disks per each APEX Block Storage SDS instance using Azure VM are configured into a single protection domain. A medium granularity storage pool is created, using all the storage devices available within the protection domain as shown in the following figure:
The APEX Block Storage SDS nodes and storage details can be viewed from the PowerFlex manager user interface as shown in the following figures:
The SDC component is installed on Azure VM of Standard_F16s_v2 series type VM with Red Hat Linux OS. The Azure VM SDC nodes consuming the APEX Block Storage exist in the same West US 3 region. The Azure VM SDC nodes that are run on the same subnet as the APEX Block Storage. The security groups are adjusted for both the Azure VM SDC nodes and the APEX Block Storage to ensure proper network connectivity. The IBM Db2 database server uses APEX Block Storage for its data files, log files, temp files, and archive logs.