Traditionally on-premises private cloud virtualization environments have existed in one of two architectures: Three tier, with PowerEdge servers, a storage fabric, and Dell EMC SAN, or NAS storage, or HCI like VxRail.
Within VxRail HCI System Software, SaaS multi-cluster management provides global visualization, simplified health monitoring, and multi-cluster management via a cloud-based web portal. These features build upon the LCM services to increase operational efficiency, especially for customers with a large footprint of VxRail clusters and managing at scale has been challenging. Some key VxRail with vSAN benefits are outlined here.
Another type of storage in their vSphere environment
Flexibility is key to efficient data center operations, including the ability to provide not just an additional storage offering to business applications and the application owners, but a storage offering with a rich data services set.
VxRail clusters with vSAN can be configured with hybrid, all-flash or all-NVMe storage options, offer mirroring, erasure coding, deduplication, compression, encryption, and replication. vSphere clusters are well-equipped with the combined storage offerings of VxRail with vSAN and PowerStore T.
By having the ability to match application and workload requirements more closely with storage offerings, business can run smoothly and more efficiently. Further, application and workload requirements can and do change over the life of the application. It’s important to have the ability to easily and non-disruptively migrate an application to different storage offerings as the application moves from test and development to staging and production to legacy as these migrations occur.
VxRail Lifecycle Management
The fast-paced digital world means organizations that want to stay competitive require ongoing infrastructure updates and patches to ensure they are getting the most from their technology investments. Staying current with the latest software updates, updates, and patches ensures the infrastructure is secure and optimized for performance while providing users with the latest features and functionality to better serve business needs.
VxRail LCM is built on Ecosystem Connectors to integrate vSAN cluster software and PowerEdge server hardware so that the ESXi host can be managed as a single system. This system integration enables automation and orchestration necessary to deliver non-disruptive, streamlined HCI stack updates. Where VxRail LCM delivers differentiated value is in the ability to deliver a pre-validated set of software and firmware that ensures compatibility and compliance of the HCI stack configuration while maintaining the performance and availability required of the virtualized workloads running on the clusters.
The ability to test, validate, and produce a VxRail software bundle to support every vSphere release, any-to-any version update path, and the millions of VxRail configurations is known as Continuously Validated States. These Continuously Validated States are recorded on the Electronic Compatibility Matrix. The VxRail team delivers a $60 million equipment investment with more than 100 team members dedicated to testing and quality to make this possible.
