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We can start as small as a single node Azure Stack HCI cluster, with a cost-effective and easy to maintain server. In which you can run the same workloads you would run in a multi-node Azure Stack HCI cluster.
This deployment model does not need to deploy additional networking elements, such as Top of the Rack (ToR) switches, and although at initial release, does not support scaling beyond one node, that cluster expansion will be enabled to be done manually, with the help of Dell Services and Support, soon after.
This approach is best suited for edge, or branch offices projects, generally very cost sensitive and that can tolerate the resiliency provided by a single server.
Deployment operations, as well as lifecycle managing these environments, is done via Dell APEX Cloud Foundation software.
Figure 23. Single-node Azure Stack HCI cluster
In this scenarios, four NIC ports are required, even though two of the four ports are not used. Two NIC ports are used for forward Management and Compute traffic and the two unused NIC ports are reserved for possible future cluster expansions and should not be connected until additional nodes are added.
Another deployment model that may be attractive for edge use cases is the switchless storage network topology. Switchless storage network topologies use direct connections between the PCI adapters dedicated for storage traffic between cluster nodes. This improves Total Cost of Ownership by not requiring high-speed switches (we recommend 25GbE minimum) for storage interconnects. The connectivity to the Top of Rack switches are only for management and VM traffic. Cluster expansion is not supported when using switchless storage topology. You would need to redeploy the cluster if redeployment became necessary.
Figure 24. Switchless storage network architecture
In this case we always recommend the use dual-link full mesh configurations, as seen the figure above, simplifying storage networking by using direct connections between cluster nodes. For two-node switchless deployments, two network intents are created. One for management and compute network traffic, the second for storage traffic.
Northbound, we recommend the use of two ToR switches.
There are some advantages associated to this topology: