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
Introduction to planning
VxRail hardware and the physical network infrastructure
VxRail clusters and nodes
Network switch
Data center network
VxRail networking port options
VxRail Ethernet adapter options
VxRail Fibre Channel adapter options
VxRail RoCE adapter options
VxRail DPU options
VxRail node connectivity options
VxRail networking rules and restrictions
Topology and connections
VxRail DPU options
VxRail DPU options
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VxRail supports Data Processing Units (DPUs) to accelerate I-O and boost overall performance. The DPUs support the offloading of certain network and security services from the main CPUs on the VxRail nodes, thereby optimizing overall CPU resources.
A DPU would be installed in the factory on the VxRail node instead of a standard Ethernet adapter card. The DPU differs from a traditional Ethernet adapter card because ESXio is installed on the device, and the DPU is configured with its own CPU.
Figure 15. Integrated DPU with ESXio image and CPU
The following guidelines should be understood for VxRail clusters with DPUs:
- The VxRail cluster must be running a minimum version of 8.0.010
- The VxRail nodes are configured in the factory with qualified and supported Data Processing Units (DPUs)
- The data center network supporting the VxRail cluster can support the physical network speed requirement of the DPU.
Port speed
Vendor
25 GbE
NVIDIA
Pensando
100 GbE
Pensando