This section describes the active/active solution design that we implemented by using a Cloud Foundation on a VxRail multisite stretched-cluster deployment configuration with PowerMax SRDF/Metro. This design provides enhanced levels of flexibility and availability that extend the core capabilities of the cloud platform. The VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail solution natively supports a stretched-cluster configuration for the management domain and a VI workload domain between two availability zones by using vSAN stretched clusters. A PowerMax SRDF/Metro with vMSC configuration is added to protect VI workload domain workloads by using supplementary storage for the workloads that are running on them.

Two types of vMSC configuration are verified with stretched Cloud Foundation on VxRail: uniform and nonuniform.

• Uniform host access configuration—vSphere hosts from both sites are all connected to a storage node in the storage cluster across all sites. Paths presented to vSphere hosts are stretched across a distance.
• Nonuniform host access configuration—vSphere hosts at each site are connected only to storage nodes at the same site. Paths presented to vSphere hosts from storage nodes are limited to the local site.

The following figure shows the topology of the Cloud Foundation on VxRail uniform stretched-cluster configuration with PowerMax SRDF/Metro.

Figure 3.              Cloud Foundation on VxRail uniform stretched-cluster configuration with PowerMax SRDF/Metro

The following figure shows the topology of the Cloud Foundation on VxRail nonuniform stretched-cluster configuration with PowerMax SRDF/Metro:

Figure 4.              Cloud Foundation on VxRail nonuniform stretched-cluster configuration with PowerMax SRDF/Metro