Your Browser is Out of Date

Nytro.ai uses technology that works best in other browsers.
For a full experience use one of the browsers below
End-to-End Single-Node Deployment: Microsoft HCI Solutions from Dell Technologies
Single-node deployment
Single-node deployment
Operating system deployment
Manual operating system deployment Factory-installed operating system deployment Upgrade using sConfig (Standalone systems)
Install roles and features
Change the hostname
Registry settings
Registering a Partner Admin Link (PAL) for Azure related solutions
Add a PAL through the Azure portal by using Azure PowerShell Add a PAL through the Azure portal using the subscription user ID Dell Technologies Partner IDs for Partner Admin Link
Joining cluster nodes to an Active Directory domain
Single-node configuration
Updating a standalone node before adding it to the cluster
Updating a single-node cluster
Network connectivity for single node clusters
Creating the host cluster
Enabling Storage Spaces Direct
Updating the page file settings
Azure onboarding for Azure Stack HCI operating system
Best practices and recommendations
Disable SMB signing Update the hardware timeout for the Spaces port
Dell OpenManage Integration with Windows Admin Center
Overview Install Windows Admin Center Prerequisites for managing AX nodes Managing Microsoft HCI-based clusters Viewing update compliance and updating the cluster Validate and remediate Azure Stack HCI clusters View HCI compliance summary
Onboard Dell policies to Azure Arc from Windows Admin Center
Secure connect gateway

Single-node configuration

Home > Integrated Products > Microsoft HCI Solutions from Dell Technologies > Guides 22H2 and earlier > End-to-End Single-Node Deployment: Microsoft HCI Solutions from Dell Technologies > Single-node configuration

Single-node configuration

  • A single-node cluster has only one node in a cluster. Like a multi-node Azure Stack HCI operating system cluster, a single node cluster is delivered as an Azure service and has all the hybrid cloud features. Since the disk is the fault domain for a single-node cluster, it does not have to replicate any data over the network. Nevertheless, Dell Engineering still recommends having an RDMA NIC in the setup as it can help in future expansion (once it is supported by Microsoft) or be used in virtual machine traffic. The 25 GbE or 100 GbE adapters can also be used for application replication, Hyper-V Replica, or Shared Nothing Live Migration of VMs to other clusters.

    The following figures show network topology configurations that take advantage of the RDMA adapters in the system.

    Figure 5. Configuration 1
    Configuration 1 shows how to use the rNDC or RDMA PCIe adapter to create a SET team and use the SET team for Management, VM traffic, and Live Migration traffic (if required).
    Figure 6. Configuration 2

    Configuration 2 shows how traffic can be bifurcated between the rNDC and the RDMA PCIe adapter in the system. Lower bandwidth rNDCs can be used for Management traffic while higher bandwidth PCIe adapters can be used for VM Network, Hyper-V Replica, or Shared Nothing Live Migration to move VMs and the associated storage from one cluster to another.

    Deployment instructions for single-node cluster

    In this example, Integrated NIC 1 Port 1-1, Integrated NIC 1 Port 2-1 are being used for the management and compute intent and SLOT 6 Port 1 and SLOT 6 Port 2 are used for the storage intent.

    Verify that Integrated NIC 1 Port 1-1, Integrated NIC 1 Port 2-1, SLOT 6 Port 1 and SLOT 6 Port 2 are up across all the nodes.


    1. Modify NIC variables to match the deployment requirements. 
      $mgmt_compute_nics = @('Integrated NIC 1 Port 1-1','Integrated NIC 1 Port 2-1')
      $storage_nics = @('SLOT 6 Port 1','SLOT 6 Port 2')
      $storage_vlans =@(203,204)
      $Mgmt_Vlan=202
    2. Create an override object for the DCB Quality of Service (QoS) configuration. 
      $QoSOverride = New-NetIntentQoSPolicyOverrides
      $QoSOverride.BandwidthPercentage_Cluster = 2
      $QoSOverride.PriorityValue8021Action_Cluster = 5
    3. Create a jumbo packet override for SMB and Management NIC. 
      $MgmtAdapterPropertyOverrides = New-NetIntentAdapterPropertyOverrides
      $MgmtAdapterPropertyOverrides.NetworkDirect = 0
      $MgmtAdapterPropertyOverrides.JumboPacket = 1514
      $StorAdapterPropertyOverrides = New-NetIntentAdapterPropertyOverrides
      $StorAdapterPropertyOverrides.JumboPacket = 9014
    4. Choose the RDMA protocol to be used for deployment.
      Note: Modify the RDMA protocol based on the network cards. 

      Intel E810 support iWARP and RoCEV2 while Mellanox support only RoCEV2. 
      iWARP = 1 RoCEv2 = 4

      $StorAdapterPropertyOverrides.NetworkDirectTechnology = 4
    5. Set storage overrides if you do not want Network ATC to assign SMB IPs automatically. 
      $StorageOverride = New-NetIntentStorageOverrides
      $StorageOverride.EnableAutomaticIPGeneration = $false
    6. Create a management and compute intent. 
      Add-NetIntent -Name Management_Compute -Management -Compute -AdapterName $mgmt_compute_nics -ManagementVlan $Mgmt_Vlan -AdapterPropertyOverrides $MgmtAdapterPropertyOverrides
    7. Verify intent creation status. 
      Get-NetIntentStatus | select intentname,Host,ConfigurationStatus,ProvisioningStatus,retrycount,error,LastSuccess,LastUpdated,LastConfigApplied |ft
    8. Create a storage intent. 
      Add-NetIntent -Name Storage -Storage -AdapterName $storage_nics -StorageVLANs $storage_vlans -QosPolicyOverrides $QoSOverride -AdapterPropertyOverrides $StorAdapterPropertyOverrides -StorageOverrides $Storageoverride
    9. Verify intent creation status. 
      Get-NetIntentStatus -Name Storage | select intentname,Host,ConfigurationStatus,ProvisioningStatus,retrycount,error,LastSuccess,LastUpdated,LastConfigApplied |ft
    10. Add a global override. 
      $clusterOverride = New-NetIntentGlobalClusterOverrides
      $clusterOverride.EnableVirtualMachineMigrationPerformanceSelection  =  $false
      $clusterOverride.VirtualMachineMigrationPerformanceOption  =  "SMB"
      $clusterOverride.MaximumVirtualMachineMigrations = 2 Set-NetIntent -GlobalClusterOverrides $clusterOverride
    11. Assign IP addresses for the storage network. 
      $stor_prefix='24'
      $stor1_ip_address = '192.168.11.11'
      $stor2_ip_address = '192.168.12.11''
      New-NetIPAddress -InterfaceAlias " SLOT 3 Port 1 " -IPAddress $stor1_ip_address
      -PrefixLength $stor_prefix -AddressFamily IPv4 -Verbose
      New-NetIPAddress -InterfaceAlias " SLOT 3 Port 2" -IPAddress $stor2_ip_address
      -PrefixLength $stor_prefix -AddressFamily IPv4 -Verbose
      Note: Assigning IP address commands must run on all the cluster nodes by incrementing the IP addresses.

    12. Update network interface controller advanced properties for Mellanox cards.

      The following commands updates advanced properties for the Mellanox cards. 

      Get-NetAdapter -InterfaceDescription Mellanox* | Set-NetAdapterAdvancedProperty -DisplayName 'DcbxMode' -DisplayValue 'Host In Charge'
      Note: Run this command on all the nodes of the cluster.

    13. Run the Test-Cluster cmdlet. 
      Test-Cluster -Node node01,Node02,Node03,Node04 -Include 'Storage Spaces Direct', 'Inventory', 'network','System Configuration'
      The Test-Cluster cmdlet generates an HTML report of all performed validations and includes a summary of the validations. Review this report, resolve all warnings and errors before creating a cluster.