Note: This section is relevant only in situations where Fibre Channel storage instances are positioned as the primary storage resource for a VxRail dynamic cluster.

Your plans may include using storage resources on a Fibre Channel array to serve as the primary storage resource for a dynamic cluster. If so, a VMFS datastore must be preconfigured on each VxRail node before the initial cluster build begins.

Figure 33.    Enabling Fibre Channel connectivity for dynamic clusters

Follow these guidelines to prepare your environment before initial cluster build:

• See the Dell E-Lab Navigator on the Dell support site to verify if the Fibre Channel array with which you plan to support dynamic clusters is compatible.
• Include Fibre Channel adapter cards with the VxRail order. Each node that is a member of a dynamic cluster requires Fibre Channel connectivity. At least one dual-port Fibre Channel adapter card should be installed for each VxRail node.
• Dell recommends that a pair of Fibre Channel switches should be deployed for redundancy purposes to support the network topology.
• The minimum LUN size that is supported for VxRail dynamic clusters is 800 GB. Verify that you have sufficient capacity on your storage array for this purpose.
• If multiple VMFS datastores are detected, the datastore with the most free capacity on the primary host is selected.
• LUN masking to all dynamic nodes must be performed before the initial cluster build.
• LUNs must be formatted as a VMFS datastore in order to be supported for VxRail dynamic clusters.