As I get back from a lovely week to relax and reset by the beach in Mauritius, I have had time to realize that sometimes the important thing to do is to find time to relax and rejuvenate. I have come back with a burst of energy ready to get back to doing what I love most – spending time helping customers build simple Infrastructure solutions.

As a core member of the Dell Technologies infrastructure solutions sales team, I have come to realize that our core job is to solve problems. All businesses today are out there solving customer problems and challenges, either by producing goods or delivering services. Most businesses today have a lot of behind-the-scenes challenges to overcome to be able to help their customers.  

Technology plays a big part in everything we do today, and IT teams must be on top of their game all the time to ensure businesses can continue to focus on what’s important – Customers!

I have had the opportunity to work with a non-profit organization that is literally making the world a better place for everyone globally. The work they do is non-stop and it is not easy. Their work requires an immaculate IT setup that needs to be always online, secure, and able to scale for their bespoke applications. Their current setup has gone through some major changes in terms of their applications and tracking methodologies. They had been experiencing multiple information and data silos, complexity in infrastructure management, and data security issues. In helping them find a way to simplify their IT, we too played a part in making the world a better place.

We had a few conversations and agreed that we needed to build the entire infrastructure on one platform. In this case, VMware was the unanimous choice. The two biggest challenges were to eliminate silos and to simplify management. HCI was the best way to achieve both, and we chose VxRail HCI systems. This solution went on to deliver a consistent platform across the edge, core, and cloud. It has proven to be a solution that can that manage all of the compute, storage, and networking resources through a single pane of glass with vCenter -- all under a single support umbrella for all of the hardware and software deployed.

Lifecycle management with BIOS, firmware, and software updates and upgrades can be a painful and time-consuming process. But what if I told you we can automate these tasks with one-click upgrades, one node at a time without any downtime – how does that sound? When I asked, the CTO was happy, and the IT manager was happier. All those investments in our R&D labs with over 100 people working on resolving some of the most common challenges -- like upgrades for IT teams around the world -- now made sense.  

What made the solution choice easier was the ability to remotely monitor it from anywhere in the world with Cloud IQ, and its ability to scale and grow, not just on premises but in the cloud, any cloud at any time.

Did we manage to resolve their IT challenges - Yes, with a simplified solution like VxRail that provides performance, management simplicity, automation of tasks, and the flexibility to grow and scale. The customer was delighted - knowing full well that they now have an infrastructure setup that helps them do all the work they do consistently, and to be able to expand their work to different Geo Regions as well.

At the end of it all did I enjoy my time off after helping build an infrastructure solution for an organization doing something so meaningful. While I was away, I did get a postcard from the IT manager who was able take his wonderful family out for a nice little vacation, knowing that he could easily manage anything he needed to from anywhere in the world.

On to helping our next customer get the same peace of mind so they can leave their mark on the world too.

Author: Manish Bajaj

Winter will soon be coming to an end, and Spring will be right behind. More outdoor life will resume as the season of refreshment and renewal approaches. In that spirit, I want to reseed the VxRail field of knowledge. One of the most critical areas of improvement that VxRail offers is in lifecycle management; just like how an attentive gardener can improve a plant’s life and fruit output, so too can VxRail improve and enhance the lifecycle management of clusters. We’ll take a look at how VxRail accomplishes this objective within this blog and the linked videos.

VxRail Manager is an on-cluster virtual machine that makes cluster management more accessible than ever through VMware vCenter. Much like how the tractor transformed harvesting wheat, VxRail Manager transforms how we manage clusters. Both cases enable people to accomplish much more. This virtual machine enables VxRail functionality in customer environments, providing automation solutions built by our VxRail team and support for customer-built scripts through an API. We’ll discuss some of these automation features later in this blog. These features are update prechecks, cluster update cycles, compliance checks, and cluster expansion. These functions, as well as many, many others, are also available by API call, which enables customers to craft their own automation solutions in addition to what VxRail already provides. The automation features that VxRail comes included with, such as a cluster shutdown, are readily consumed within vCenter, eliminating the need for administrators to familiarize themselves with yet another interface. 

Enhanced update prechecks

The first significant part of the VxRail HCI System Software we’ll cover in this blog is update prechecks. The VxRail update precheck massively assists administrators by helping to confirm that a cluster is healthy enough to upgrade. This precheck script performs hundreds of tasks, but, as an example, let’s focus on just a couple of them.

Updates can halt for a variety of reasons. For example, if a cluster has insufficient storage, the whole cluster will fail to update. If a node was left in maintenance mode, it would not update. By running the optional VxRail update precheck, these headaches can be avoided. To get a look at the precheck, check out the video to the right. Just like how a tractor will till a field to prepare it for more successful seeding, the precheck also helps prepare clusters for more successful upgrades. VxRail Manager identifies issues like storage availability with this check, but it doesn’t stop there. VxRail Manager then provides administrators with a solution recommendation through a link to a Dell Knowledge Base article. Running the precheck takes a fraction of the time an update requires and has the potential to save massive amounts of labor and time by avoiding problems both large and small. So, while the precheck is optional, I’d recommend running it before every update cycle. The ability to prevent most issues from taking root is one everyone can appreciate.

Prechecks aren’t the only improvement, however. Now that VxRail Manager has confirmed that our clusters are healthy, we would want to apply an update. This is where we discuss some of the most critical enhancements a VxRail solution provides. 

Easier updates

Updating a traditional non VxRail cluster is a process with a significant number of steps. Administrators need to create baseline images for each cluster and add any drivers, firmware, or other vendor add-ons each time. The difference in VxRail comes with implementing what we’ve come to call “Continuously Validated States.” Continuously Validated States make the LCM experience so much better. This is done in several ways, the first of which is that it removes the need to create baselines and cluster profiles. A video overview of the update process is here to the left, but Continuously Validated States handles this process. The VxRail team assembles the majority of the components needed in an update cycle, requiring only devices like GPUs, Fibre Channel controllers, and additional VMware software components, like NSX-T, to be added to the update packages. This helps administrators save time and effort, but it also provides massive long-term stability benefits. VxRail doesn’t just throw a bunch of component updates into a zip file and call it a day. These update packages undergo extensive testing in a multimillion-dollar VxRail testing facility for over 100,000 hours to help clusters reach as high as 99.9999 percent uptime in some cases. Administrators can then use the update packages created by the VxRail team to move their clusters from one Continuously Validated State to the next, keeping their VxRail environment in a known-good, happy state as it moves through the cluster lifecycle. 

The update packages created by VxRail can be used in two different ways. Clusters with Internet access can pull these files through the network using the Internet Update button in the UI. Air-gapped clusters can move between Continuously Validated States through the Offline Update option, which uses local bundle files downloaded from the Dell support site. Returning to our gardening and cultivation analogies, you can certainly till a plot with a garden hoe, but you can do much more much easier with a rotary tiller. Similarly, administrators can manage a DIY HCI environment manually, but it will be significantly more difficult. 

If you’d like to know about the new VxRail 8.0.000 release, you can read an article on it on the Info Hub Blog page.

Confirming the cluster state

Update automation ensures that VxRail clusters remain in a Continuously Validated State during update cycles, but clusters spend most of their lives completing business operations. VxRail Manager includes a compliance checker tool that helps ensure that clusters continue to adhere to their Continuously Validated State and identify any installed versions that drift away from it. This check is available on demand within the update interface of the UI. The compliance checker tool examines each node in a cluster, collects the current version set, and then displays the output in a way that calls out problem items specifically. When you consider that a significant part of the value that VxRail brings to the table is based on using and adhering to Continuously Validated States, it’s easy to see how helpful an automated inspection tool can be. 

Easier and faster growth

Moving along, VxRail also enhances cluster growth. VxRail provides heterogeneous hardware support, which means customers can add different nodes as needed to best address their resource demands. As an example, this could be like adding different node models or even different hardware generations to a cluster. There are software improvements as well. When an administrator goes to add their new node or nodes, VxRail Manager scans the hosts available on the network for their software and firmware versions and confirm compatibility with the rest of the cluster. You can view the check in the video to the right, but it’s powered by the same concept behind VxRail updates, that being Continuously Validated States and the certainty their use provides. Clusters aren’t static environments—updates happen, and different versions in the environment could make compatibility checks a new hurdle! VxRail alleviates this pinch point with the use of the node image management tool. This tool, also known as NIM, is much like an enhanced Rapid Appliance Self-Recovery, or RASR, operation. Where a RASR will reimage a particular node with several steps, NIM allows for multiple node reimaging operations in parallel. The tool and instructions for its use can be found with SolVe online procedures.

Managing an HCI environment takes a lot of work with many tasks to accomplish. VxRail automates many of these tasks, particularly when it comes to lifecycle management. The automation enhancements don’t stop with what has been engineered into the software. VxRail also features an API that exposes the same calls and features used in the UI for script automation. Our API features over 100 calls, providing the toolkit necessary to create all kinds of special-purpose automation solutions. If VxRail is our tractor, the API toolkit helps customers create their own cultivators, levellers, hay bailers, and more! The precheck, updates, and compliance check enhancements we talked about earlier in this blog are all examples of actions that the API can take. As environments grow larger, management options need to grow with them. The VxRail API offers an expansive toolkit for developers to build the tools that businesses need.

Conclusion

Enhancing cluster lifecycle management and enabling administrators to manage more infrastructure are core parts of the VxRail offering. We covered how VxRail improves lifecycle management and empowers administrators with the update precheck that ensures clusters are ready to upgrade safely. We also covered the improved cluster update process with reduced labor time, compliance checks that ensure that cluster nodes adhere to their Continuously Validated States between upgrade cycles, and the cluster expansion tool with image control. The VxRail API can interface with these processes, enabling custom automation solutions within customer data centers. Just like how the humble tractor provided productivity that was previously unimaginable, VxRail provides the automation to maintain data centers more efficiently than ever. For more information about VxRail, visit the VxRail Info Hub.

 Author: Dylan Jackson, Engineering Technologist