There are several options for a PowerFlex appliance deployment.
- Hyperconverged
- Two-layer
- Hybrid-hyperconverged
- Storage-only
The following figure is a high-level view of the physical PowerFlex appliance . This figure is not specific to a particular system but is a generic representation. The PowerFlex management environment depicted below can be deployed on an optional PowerFlex appliance management cluster, or a customer provided VMware ESXi host.
The following figure displays a PowerFlex appliance replication environment. The PowerFlex management environment depicted below can be deployed on an optional PowerFlex appliance management cluster, or a customer provided VMware ESXi host.
PowerFlex Metadata Managers (MDM) and Storage Data Replication (SDR) need to communicate to each other across the WAN.
| Components in a deployment | Description |
| PowerFlex appliance management environment | PowerFlex Manager requires a VMware ESXi server hosting applications. The PowerFlex management environment can be deployed on an optional 3-node PowerFlex management cluster, or a customer provided VMware ESX host. |
| Customer provided resources | Embedded operating system jump server and VMware vCenter server. It is anticipated that these resources will already be installed and accessible. |
| Access A and B switches | These switches are partially configured by PowerFlex Manager or they are fully customer configured and connect directly to the PowerFlex appliance nodes. |
| Hardware management switch | Provides separate network connectivity of iDRAC and access switch management interfaces. |
| PowerFlex appliance customer environment |
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| VLANs | VLANs that are required to be defined on the various switches, interfaces, and network interface cards (NICs). |