• Minimum number of nodes for production workload is seven for a PowerFlex two-layer configuration in a VMware environment. 
• Homogenous node types are recommended for predictable performance. With homogeneous compute nodes and homogeneous storage nodes, compute, and storage do not must be the same.
• Change the passwords for all default accounts. 
• Ensure PowerFlex rack is compliant to an RCM. For more details, see PowerFlex specification sheet.
• Enable secure network protocol options only (for example, HTTPS and Secure Shell (SSH).
• Number of SDS threads set to 12 for all the SO nodes
• Separate management and data traffic from production application traffic. You can provide this separation by using VLANs.
• Separate VMware vSphere vmotion traffic from application traffic according to PowerFlex standards
• Change the following Linux grub settings for Skylake processor to comply with performance best practices and rebuild the grub boot image:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="crashkernel=auto rd.lvm.lv=rhel/root

rd.lvm.lv=rhel/swap rhgb intel_idle.max_cstate= 1 intel_pstate=disable     quiet"

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg  

• When PowerFlex SSD drives are used, it is recommended to use noop for Linux I/O scheduler on SDC hosts. To make the changes persistent through boot add elevator=noop to GRUB_CMD_LINUX line and rebuild the grub boot image. For example:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="crashkernel=auto rd.lvm.lv=rhel/root

rd.lvm.lv=rhel/swap rhgb quiet elevator=noop"