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Dell VxRail Network Planning Guide
Introduction Planning Your Data Center Network for VxRail VxRail Cluster Types VxRail Feature-Driven Decision Points VxRail Hardware and Switch Selection Decision Points Prepare Data Center for VxRail Implementation Planning the VxRail Cluster Implementation Planning vSAN Witness Networking Planning VxRail Satellite Nodes Networking Configure the Network for VxRail Preparing to Build the VxRail Cluster VxRail Network Considerations After Implementation Appendixes
Appendixes
Appendix A: VxRail Network Configuration Table
Appendix B: VxRail Passwords
Appendix C: VxRail Cluster Setup Checklist
Appendix D: VxRail Open Ports Requirements
Appendix E: Virtual Distributed Switch Port Group Default Settings
Appendix F: Physical Network Switch Examples

Appendix C: VxRail Cluster Setup Checklist

Appendix C: VxRail Cluster Setup Checklist

  • VxRail cluster: Decide if you want to plan for additional nodes beyond the initial three (or four)-node cluster. You can have up to 64 nodes in a VxRail cluster.

    VxRail ports: Decide how many ports to configure per VxRail node, what port type, and what network speed.

    Network switches: Ensure that your switches support VxRail requirements and provides the connectivity option that you chose for your VxRail nodes. Verify cable requirements.

    Data center: Verify that the required external applications for VxRail are accessible over the network and correctly configured.

    Topology: If you are deploying VxRail over more than one rack, be sure that network connectivity is set up between the racks. Determine the Layer 2/Layer 3 boundary in the planned network topology.

    Workstation/laptop: Any operating system with a browser to access the VxRail user interface. The latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer 10+ are all supported.

    Out-of-band Management (optional): One available port that supports 1 Gb for each VxRail node.

    Reserve VLANs
    • One external management VLAN
    • One internal management VLAN with multicast for auto-discovery and device management. The default is 3939.
    • One VLAN with unicast enabled for vSAN traffic
    • One VLAN for vSphere vMotion
    • One or more VLANs for your VM Guest Networks
    • One VLAN for vCenter Server Network (if applicable)
    • If you are enabling witness traffic separation, reserve one VLAN for the VxRail witness traffic separation network.

    System
    • Select the Time zone.
    • Select the Top-Level Domain.
    • Hostname or IP address of the NTP servers on your network (recommended)
    • IP address of the DNS servers on your network (if external DNS)
    • Forward and reverse DNS records for VxRail management components (if external DNS).

    Management
    • Decide on your VxRail host naming scheme. The naming scheme will be applied to all VxRail management components.
    • Reserve IP addresses for ESXi hosts.
    • Reserve one IP address for VxRail Manager.
    • Determine default gateway and subnet mask.
    • Select passwords for VxRail management components.

    vCenter
    • Determine whether you will use a vCenter Server that is customer-managed or a vCenter provided by VxRail.
    • VxRail vCenter Server: Reserve IP addresses for vCenter Server (if managed by VxRail).
    • Customer-managed vCenter Server: Determine hostname and IP address for vCenter, administration user, and name of vSphere data center. Create a VxRail management user in vCenter. Select a unique VxRail cluster name. (Optional) Create a VxRail non-admin user.

    Virtual Distributed Switch
    • Determine whether you will preconfigure a customer-managed virtual distributed switch or have VxRail deploy a virtual distributed switch in your vCenter instance.
    • Customer-managed Virtual Distributed Switch: Configure target port groups for required VxRail networks.

    vMotion

    • Decide whether you want to use the default TCP-IP stack for vMotion, or a separate IP addressing scheme for the dedicated vMotion TCP-IP stack.
    • Reserve IP addresses and a subnet mask for vSphere vMotion.
    • Select the gateway for either the default TCP-IP stack, or the dedicated vMotion TCP-IP stack.

    vSAN
    • Reserve IP addresses and a subnet mask for vSAN, if using vSAN for primary storage.

    Logging
    • To use vRealize Log Insight: Reserve one IP address.
    • To use an existing syslog server: Get the hostname or IP address of your third-party syslog server.

    Witness Site
    • If Witness is required, reserve one IP address for the management network and one IP address for the vSAN network.

    Workstation
    • Configure your workstation/laptop to reach the VxRail initial IP address.
    • Ensure you know how to configure the laptop to reach the VxRail Manager IP address after configuration.

    Set up Switches
    • Configure your selected external management VLAN (default is untagged/native).
    • Configure your internal management VLAN.
    • Confirm unicast is enabled for device discovery.
    • Configure your selected VLANs for vSAN, vSphere vMotion, vCenter Server Network and VM Guest Networks.
    • If applicable, configure your Witness traffic separation VLAN.
    • In dual-switch environments, configure the interswitch links to carry traffic between switches.
    • Configure uplinks or point-to-points links to carry networks requiring external connectivity upstream.
    • Configure one port as an access port for laptop/workstation to connect to VxRail Manager for initial configuration.
    • If applicable, configure link aggregation.
    • Confirm configuration and network access.

    Workstation/Laptop
    • Configure your workstation/laptop to reach the VxRail Manager initial IP address.
    • Configure the laptop to reach the VxRail Manager IP address after permanent IP address assignment.