VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail delivers an experience customers will not find on any other infrastructure running VMware Cloud Foundation. VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail builds upon native VxRail and Cloud Foundation capabilities with additional unique Dell Technologies and VMware jointly engineered integration features to help simplify, streamline, and automate the operations of their entire SDDC from before and on Day 0 all the way through Day 2 operations. 

As part of the Dell Technologies Cloud Platform, VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail delivers a simple and direct path to the hybrid cloud and Kubernetes at cloud scale with one, complete, automated platform. This means customers get both the HCI infrastructure and cloud platform software stack in one, complete, automated lifecycle, turnkey experience. The platform delivers a set of software defined services for compute (with vSphere and vCenter), storage (with vSAN), networking (with NSX), security, cloud management (with vRealize Suite), End User Computing Services (with VMware Horizon and App Volumes), and container-based cloud native platform services (with VMware vSphere 7 with Kubernetes and Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG)) in both private or public environments making it the operational hub for their hybrid cloud. To accelerate their move to containers and a hybrid cloud operating model, Dell Technologies offers unique integration between VMware Cloud Foundation and VxRail that supports simultaneous VM and container-based workloads on industry-leading Dell EMC PowerEdge server and Dell EMC Storage across multiple cloud environments.

VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail makes operating the data center fundamentally simpler by bringing the ease and automation of the public cloud in-house by deploying a standardized and validated network flexible architecture with integrated full stack lifecycle automation for the entire cloud infrastructure stack including hardware. This level of deep integration with VCF is what gives customers a truly unique turnkey hybrid cloud experience not available on any other infrastructure.

An important aspect of the offering is the introduction of a standardized architecture for how these SDDC components are deployed together with the introduction of Cloud Foundation, an integrated cloud software platform that is based on VMware Validated Design. Having a standardized design incorporated as part of the platform provides them with a guarantee that these components have been certified with each other and are backed by Dell Technologies. Customers can then be assured that there is an automated and validated path forward to get from one Continuously Validated State to the next across the end-to-end stack.

Figure 26.          Architecture of VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail

More information about VCF can be found in: 

• VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail Planning and Preparation Guide:

https://www.dellemc.com/resources/en-us/asset/technical-guides-support-information/products/converged-infrastructure/vmware_cloud_foundation_on_vxrail_planning_and_preparation_guide.pdf

• VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail Architecture Guide:

https://www.dellemc.com/resources/en-us/asset/technical-guides-support-information/products/converged-infrastructure/vmware_cloud_foundation_on_vxrail_architecture_guide.pdf

VMware Validated Design with VxRail

The VMware Validated Designs (VVD) provide comprehensive and extensively tested blueprints to build and operate a Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC). With the VVD, VMware delivers holistic data center-level designs to deploy and configure the complete VMware SDDC in a wide range of scenarios with detailed guidance on how to operate efficiently.

The VMware VVD provides a framework for complete NSX and vRealize capabilities on top of VxRail. It required end-to-end validation of hardware and software with interoperability and scalability testing. Further, it provides Day 2 guidance on how to monitor, backup, restore, and failover management components. As such it creates a trusted implementation design that de-risks deployments, simplifies operations, and further drives IT agility for customers to create a private cloud and accelerate their transformation to a multi-cloud VMware environment. 

More information about VVD can be found on:

• The VMware VVD site: https://www.vmware.com/solutions/software-defined-datacenter/validated-designs.html
• White paper on Dell EMC VxRail – Accelerating the Journey to VMware Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC): https://www.dellemc.com/resources/en-us/asset/white-papers/products/converged-infrastructure/h17552-dell-emc-vxrail-accelerating-the-journey-to-vmware-software-defined-data-center-sddc-wp.pdf.external