VxRail HCI System Software, the VxRail management software, is a strategic advantage for VxRail and further reduces operational complexity. It is the software running atop the vSAN stack and encapsulates much of the key VxRail differentiation over other vSAN Ready Nodes and other HCI solutions in the market. VxRail HCI System Software provides out-of-the-box automation and orchestration for deployment to day-to-day system-based operational tasks, which reduces the overall IT OpEx required to manage the stack. No build-it-yourself HCI solution provides this level of lifecycle management, automation, and operational simplicity.

Figure 1.              VxRail stack

With VxRail HCI System Software, updates are simple and automated with a single-click. Customers can sit back and relax knowing they are going from one known good state to the next, inclusive of all the managed software and hardware component firmware. No longer do they need to verify hardware compatibility lists, run test and development scenarios, sequence and trial updates, and so on. The heavy lifting of sustaining and lifecycle management is already done for them. In short, VxRail creates IT certainty.

VxRail cluster management is integrated into the vCenter Service interface using the VxRail Manager plug-in to provide a fully integrated experience that is familiar to VMware users. The benefits of LCM services are extensible using RESTful APIs to position the VxRail as the platform of choice for SDDC deployments, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) cloud deployments, or for customers that prefer to manage clusters at scale through scripts or custom automation solutions.

Within VxRail HCI System Software, SaaS multi-cluster management provides global visualization, simplified health monitoring, and multi-cluster management using a cloud-based web portal. These features build upon the LCM services to increase operational efficiency, especially for customers with a large footprint of VxRail clusters and managing at scale has been challenging.

VxRail security and compliance

Dell EMC VxRail system is a resilient, secure, and modern hyperconverged infrastructure system that directly addresses the challenges of security and compliance in modern day environments.

VxRail system is engineered, built, configured, and maintained following the Dell EMC Secure Development Lifecycle, which follows a rigorous approach to secure product development, including executive-level risk management before products are shipped to market. Additionally, VMware vSphere—a significant part of VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure—has also been developed using a similar Security Development Lifecycle.

Everything that comprises VxRail is secure and can be seen in the figure below. Each component has integrated security, with corporate security processes, unique security features, and supply chain control, so customers can feel confident that VxRail can fit into their secure IT infrastructure design. The hardware is comprised of Dell EMC PowerEdge servers and Intel processors. The virtualization and software layers are comprised of vSphere and vSAN which is integrated into the kernel of vSphere. The integrated software and management included with VxRail is comprised of VxRail HCI System Software, VMware software including vRealize Log Insight and vCenter Server, and software from Dell EMC, including RP4VM and SRS. All of this is jointly engineered with Dell EMC and VMware and delivered by and supported exclusively by Dell EMC as a single product—VxRail.

Figure 2.              VxRail software bundle

VxRail is designed to a number of standards, has attained the Common Criteria EAL2+certificate, USGv6 certification making it IPv6 Ready, and provides a VxRail Product Security Configuration Guide to further harden VxRail deployments. Additionally, customers can leverage the VxRail STIG Compliance Guide and automated scripts to further harden their environments.

To learn more about VxRail’s Comprehensive Security by Design, download the whitepaper: https://www.dellemc.com/resources/en-us/asset/white-papers/products/converged-infrastructure/vxrail-comprehensive-security-design.pdf.