VxRail management has expanded beyond the VxRail Manager plug-in for vCenter to allow for different use cases. VxRail Manager is a plug-in for vCenter that provides a fully integrated experience to manage VxRail clusters on a familiar interface. REST APIs extend the VxRail LCM capabilities for cloud deployment solutions. They also extend LCM capabilities for organizations that want to deploy and manage VxRail clusters at scale, when running batch scripts, configuration management tools (such as Ansible, Puppet, and so on), or custom automation for cluster operations is more efficient. SaaS multi-cluster management is a cloud-based management option for global orchestration of all the customer’s clusters from a single web portal interface. While VxRail Manager provides the complete management capability set for VxRail clusters, using REST APIs and SaaS multi-cluster management has its benefits. Over time, the gaps in functionality will close to further enhance the value that each brings for their respective use cases.
VxRail Manager features user-friendly workflows for automating VxRail deployment and configuration and for monitoring the health of individual systems in the entire cluster. VxRail Manager also incorporates functionality for hardware serviceability and system platform life cycle management. For instance, it guides system administrators through the process of adding systems to an existing cluster, and it automatically detects new systems when they come online. VxRail Manager is also used to replace failed disk drives without disrupting availability to generate and download diagnostic log bundles and apply VMware updates or software patches non-disruptively across VxRail nodes.
With the VxRail Manager plug-in for vCenter Server, all VxRail Manager features are integrated with and accessible from the vCenter Server so that users can benefit from them on a familiar management interface. With the VxRail Manager plug-in, the vCenter Server can manage physical hardware of the VxRail cluster.
Figure 7. VxRail Manager plug-in for vCenter Server
In addition to obtaining support through Secure Connect Gateway, customers can get information and help from the VxRail Support page on vCenter Server. The Support page links to VxRail Community pages for Dell Knowledge Base articles, user forums for FAQ information, and VxRail best practices. The following figure is an example of the support view:
Figure 8. VxRail Manager Support tab
The VxRail Manager plug-in provides access to a digital market for finding and downloading qualified software packages. Packages include VMware Horizon Cloud, Dell Data Domain Virtual Edition, Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines, and other software options for VxRail systems.
VxRail Manager drastically simplifies operations of the virtualized IT environment. The VxRail API takes this step further. It exposes VxRail Manager functionality through standard, easy-to-consume public APIs, which can be integrated into a broad spectrum of existing automation solutions. This benefit applies not only to large enterprises and service providers using scripts for automating IT processes and tasks but also to midsize enterprises that have limited IT staff.
The VxRail API can be used for the following use cases:
The VxRail API is easy to explore and consume by accessing the latest API documentation through the web browser using the Swagger integration.
Figure 9. Connectivity of VxRail REST APIs
VxRail LCM is an example of VxRail technology that can reduce time spent managing infrastructure. To further enhance operational efficiency, AI-driven operations and multi-cluster management are areas where VxRail can introduce these benefits:
VxRail HCI System Software works with SaaS multi-cluster management, which is a centralized data collection and analytics platform. SaaS multi-cluster management streamlines the monitoring and management of a customer’s multiple VxRail clusters, improves serviceability, and helps the customer make better decisions to manage their HCI performance and capacity. It is a cloud-based analytics platform that uses advanced telemetry collected from the VxRail clusters for its infrastructure machine learning to provide reporting and actionable insight. Its infrastructure machine learning uses onboard knowledge of Dell best practices and more than 700 common issues. SaaS multi-cluster management provides aggregate health scores for the entire HCI stack to enable customers to quickly identify areas to troubleshoot and to address areas to efficiently scale based on the projected growth of IT resources.
SaaS multi-cluster management is available with no additional hardware or software required for the VxRail cluster. It relies on a data collector service in the VxRail HCI System Software to aggregate performance metrics, state, and inventory information about the VxRail cluster. The data collector service aggregates the data and frequently transfers it to Dell Technologies Cloud by using the same connectivity agent as is used for dial-home services. To send the data, the VxRail cluster needs to be Internet-connected, and the connectivity agent needs to be configured and enabled. The data repository is housed at Dell Technologies. Using Pivotal Cloud Foundry as its cloud-based service platform, SaaS multi-cluster management incorporates its infrastructure machine learning to produce reporting and insight to enable customers to improve serviceability and operational efficiencies. SaaS multi-cluster management functionality is entirely consumed through a Dell-hosted web portal, called CloudIQ, which provides a single global view of the customer’s VxRail environment.
Figure 10. SaaS multi-cluster management connectivity
Data collection frequency setting options are:
Data collection frequency is configured in the telemetry settings either using REST API commands or the VxRail Manager plug-in. The timeliness of the content shown in CloudIQ depends on the frequency of the data collection that is configured for the clusters. SaaS multi-cluster management uses infrastructure machine learning to model and train data to create accurate predictions. The more data it can analyze, the better the models are.
SaaS multi-cluster management is designed for continuous innovation and continuous delivery so that frequent, incremental updates can be made to introduce new capabilities. It provides the following capability sets:
The features in CloudIQ for VxRail address multiple areas of system management. These features include:
Figure 11. Cloud IQ Systems tab
Figure 12. CloudIQ Inventory tab
Figure 13. CloudIQ Virtualization view
Figure 14. CloudIQ System Updates page