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Planning Guide—Dell EMC VxRail Network Planning
Introduction
Revision history Intended use and audience Introduction to VxRail

Introduction to VxRail

  • Dell EMC VxRail™ Appliances are a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solution that consolidates compute, storage, and network into a single, highly available, unified system. With careful planning, VxRail Appliances can be rapidly deployed into an existing data center environment, and the end-product is immediately available to deploy applications and services.

    VxRail is not a server. It is an appliance that is based on a collection of nodes and switches that are integrated as a cluster under a single point of management. All physical compute, network, and storage resources in the appliance are managed as a single shared pool. They are allocated to applications and services based on customer-defined business and operational requirements.

    The compute nodes are based on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers. The G Series consists of up to four nodes in a single chassis, whereas all other models are based on a single node. An Ethernet switch is required, at speeds of either 1/10/25 GbE, depending on the VxRail infrastructure deployed. A workstation or laptop for the VxRail user interface is also required.

    VxRail has a simple, scale-out architecture, leveraging VMware vSphere® and VMware vSAN™ to provide server virtualization and software-defined storage, with simplified deployment, upgrades, and maintenance through VxRail Manager. Fundamental to the VxRail clustered architecture is network connectivity. It is through the logical and physical networks that individual nodes act as a single system providing scalability, resiliency, and workload balance.

    The VxRail software bundle is preloaded onto the compute nodes, and consists of the following components (specific software versions not shown):

    • VxRail Manager
    • VMware vCenter Server™
    • VMware vSAN
    • VMware vSphere
    • Dell Secure Remote Support (SRS)/VE
    • VMware vRealize Log Insight™

    Licenses are required for VMware vSphere and VMware vSAN. The vSphere licenses can be purchased from Dell Technologies, VMware, or your preferred VMware reseller partner.

    The VxRail Appliances also include the following licenses for software that can be downloaded, installed, and configured:

    • Dell EMC RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines (RP4VM)
    • Five full VM licenses per single node (E, V, P, D, and S series)
    • Fifteen full VM licenses for the G Series chassis