Dell VxRail and Dell PowerStore: Better Together Through Dynamic AppsON
Dynamic AppsON overview
When two products come together with new and unique capabilities, customers benefit from the “better together” value that is created. That value is clearly visible with Dynamic AppsON, which is a configuration that provides an exclusive integration between compute-only Dell VxRail dynamic nodes and a Dell PowerStore storage system.
Dynamic AppsON enables independent scaling of compute and storage, providing flexibility of choice by increasing the extensibility of both platforms. It provides VxRail environments access to PowerStore enterprise efficiency, data protection, and resiliency features. Additionally, it helps PowerStore environments quickly expand compute for CPU-intensive workloads in a traditional three-tier architecture.
Another integration point that further enhances the Dynamic AppsON experience is the Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI). VSI brings storage provisioning, management, and monitoring capabilities directly into vCenter. It enables the ability to perform common storage tasks and provides additional visibility into the storage system without needing to launch PowerStore Manager.
With Dynamic AppsON, you have the flexibility to choose the type of datastore and connectivity that fits your environment. Dell Technologies recommends vVols and NVMe/TCP.
Leveraging the native vVol capabilities of PowerStore is the optimal way to provision VM datastores. This enables increased storage granularity at the VM level, offloading of data services to PowerStore, and storage policy-based management directly in vCenter. This further enables vCenter as the common operating environment for the administrator.
For connectivity, NVMe/TCP is recommended because it provides significant advantages. It enables performance that is comparable to direct-attach, while retaining the cost-effectiveness, scalability, and flexibility of traditional Ethernet.
Figure 1. Dynamic AppsON overview
For more information about Dynamic AppsON, see the Dell VxRail and Dell PowerStore: Better Together Through Dynamic AppsON white paper.
Dynamic AppsON lifecycle management
Dell VxRail and Dell PowerStore have taken this integration a step further by introducing lifecycle management for Dynamic AppsON deployments. This enables an administrator to view the PowerStore details and initiate a code upgrade directly from VxRail Manager in vCenter. By leveraging the VxRail Manager user interface and workflows, an administrator does not need to switch between multiple interfaces for the lifecycle management operations.
The lifecycle management functionality from VxRail Manager is exclusively enabled through VSI. Dynamic AppsON lifecycle management is available starting with VxRail 7.0.450, PowerStoreOS 3.0, and Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) 10.2.
Dynamic AppsON lifecycle management provides the following capabilities in VxRail Manager in vCenter:
- View the attached storage system type and software version
- Upload a code bundle from the local client directly to PowerStore
- Run a Pre-Upgrade Health Check on PowerStore and report any warnings and failures
- Initiate a code upgrade and track the progress until completion
The following figures show these Dynamic AppsON lifecycle management tasks in VxRail Manager.
Figure 2. PowerStore code reporting
Figure 3. PowerStore code upload
Figure 4. PowerStore Pre-Upgrade Health Check
Figure 5. PowerStore upgrade in progress
Figure 6. PowerStore upgrade completed successfully
Figure 7. Updated PowerStore code version
To see all these lifecycle management tasks in action from start to finish, refer to this video:
Conclusion
With the addition of lifecycle management for Dynamic AppsON, the number of storage management tasks for which a virtualization and storage administrator has to leave vCenter is reduced. This functionality provides a consistent, common, and efficient management experience for both VxRail and PowerStore. The integration between VxRail, PowerStore, and the VSI plug-in enables consistent workflows and visibility between storage and compute. Better together through Dynamic AppsON, brought to you by Dell VxRail and Dell PowerStore.
Resources
- Dynamic AppsON Lifecycle Management video
- Dynamic AppsON Summary video
- Dynamic AppsON infographic
- Dynamic AppsON: A Better Together Story blog
- Dell VxRail and Dell PowerStore: Better Together Through Dynamic AppsON white paper
- Dell PowerStore: Virtualization Integration white paper
Author: Wei Chen, Technical Staff, Engineering Technologist