Latest enhancements to VxRail ACE
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 11:26:20 -0000
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VxRail ACE
February 4, 2020
One of the key areas of focus for VxRail ACE (Analytical Consulting Engine) is active multi-cluster management. With ACE, users have a central point to manage multiple VxRail clusters more conveniently. System updates for multiple VxRail clusters is one activity where ACE greatly benefits users. It is a time-consuming operation that requires careful planning and coordination. In the initial release of ACE, users were able to facilitate transfer of update bundles to all their clusters with ACE acting as the single control point versus logging onto every vCenter console to do the same activity. That can save quite a bit of time.
On-demand pre-upgrade cluster health checks
In the latest ACE update, users can now run on-demand health checks prior to upgrading to find out if their cluster is ready for a system update. By identifying which clusters are ready and which ones are not, users can more effectively schedule their maintenance windows in advance. It allows them to see which clusters require troubleshooting and which ones can start the update process. In ACE, on-demand cluster health checks are referred to as a Pre-Check.
For more information about this feature, you can check out this video: https://vxrail.is/aceupdates
Deployment types
Another feature that came out with this update is the identification of the cluster deployment type. This means ACE will now display whether the cluster is a standard VxRail cluster in a VMware Validated Design deployment, in a VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail deployment used in Dell Technologies Datacenter-as-a-Service, a 2-node vSAN cluster, or in a stretched cluster configuration.
Daniel Chiu, VxRail Technical Marketing
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Analytical Consulting Engine (ACE)
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 15:27:16 -0000
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VxRail plays its ACE, now generally available
November 2019
VxRail ACE (Analytical Consulting Engine), the new Artificial Intelligence infused component of the VxRail HCI System Software, was announced just a few months ago at Dell Technologies World and has been in global early access. Over 500 customers leveraged the early access program for ACE, allowing developers to collect feedback and implement enhancements prior to General Availability of the product. It is with great excitement that VxRail ACE is now generally available to all VxRail customers. By incorporating continuous innovation/continuous development (CIDC) utilizing the Pivotal Platform (also known as Pivotal Cloud Foundry) container-based framework, Dell EMC developers behind ACE have made rapid iterations to improve the offering; and customer demand has driven new features added to the roadmap. ACE is holding true to its design principles and commitment to deliver adaptive, frequent releases.
Figure 1 ACE Design Principles and Goals
VxRail ACE is a centralized data collection and analytics platform that uses machine learning capabilities to perform capacity forecasting and self-optimization helping you keep your HCI stack operating at peak performance and ready for future workloads. In addition to some of the initial features available during early access, ACE now provides new functionality for intelligent upgrades of multiple clusters (see image below). You can now see the current software version of each cluster along with all available upgrade versions. ACE will allow you to select the desired version per each VxRail cluster. You can now manage at scale to standardize across all sites and clusters with the ability to customize by cluster. This becomes advantageous when some sites or clusters might need to remain at a specific version of VxRail software.
If you haven’t seen ACE in action yet, check out the additional links and videos below that showcase the features described in this post. For our 6,000+ VxRail customers, please visit our support site and Admin Guide to learn how to access ACE.
Christine Spartichino, Twitter - @cspartichino Linked In - linkedin.com/in/spartichino
For more information on VxRail, check out these great resources:
Introducing VxRail 7.0.000 with vSphere 7.0 support
Tue, 28 Apr 2020 13:23:14 -0000
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The VxRail team may all be sheltering at our own homes nowadays, but that doesn’t mean we’re just binging on Netflix and Disney Plus content. We have been hard at work to deliver on our continuing commitment to provide our customers a supporting VxRail software bundle within 30 days of any vSphere release. And this time it’s for the highly touted vSphere 7.0! You can find more information about vSphere and vSAN 7.0 in the vSphere and vSAN product areas in VMware Virtual Blocks blogs.
Here’s what you need to know about VxRail 7.0.000:
- VxRail 7.x train – You may have noticed we’ve jumped from a 4.7 release train to a 7.0 release train. What did you miss?? Well... there is no secret 5.x or 6.x release trains. We have made the decision to align with the vSAN versions, starting with VxRail 7.x. This will make it easier for you to map VxRail versions to vSAN versions.
- Accelerate innovation – The primary focus of this VxRail release is our synchronous release commitment to the vSphere 7.0 release. This release provides our users the opportunity to run vSphere 7.0 on their clusters. The most likely use cases would be for users who are planning to transition production infrastructure to vSphere 7.0 but first want to evaluate it in a test environment, or for users who are keen on running the latest VMware software.
- Operational freedom – You may have heard that vSphere 7.0 introduces an enhanced version of vSphere Update Manager that they call vSphere LCM, or vLCM for short. While vLCM definitely improves upon the automation and orchestration of updating an HCI stack, VxRail’s LCM still has the advantage over vLCM (check out my blog to learn more). For example, VMware is currently not recommending that vSAN Ready Nodes users upgrade to vSphere 7.0 because of drivers forward compatibility issues (you can read more about in this KB article). That doesn’t stop VxRail from allowing you to upgrade your clusters to vSphere 7.0. The extensive research, testing, and validation work that goes into delivering Continuously Validated States for VxRail mitigates that issue.
- Networking flexibility – Aside from synchronous release, the most notable new feature/capability is that VxRail consolidates the switch configuration for VxRail system traffic and NSX-T traffic. You can now run your VM traffic managed by NSX-T Manager on the same two ports used for VxRail system traffic (such as VxRail Management, vSAN, and vMotion) on the Network Daughter Card (NDC). Instead of requiring a 4-port NDC, users can use a 2-port NDC.
Consolidated switch configuration for VxRail system traffic managed by VxRail Manager/vCenter and VM traffic by NSX-T Manager
All said, VxRail 7.0.000 is a critical release that further exemplifies our alignment with VMware’s strategy and why VxRail is the platform of choice for vSAN technology and VMware’s Software-Defined Data Center solutions.
Our commitment to synchronous release for any vSphere release is important for users who want to benefit from the latest VMware innovations or for users who prioritizes a secure platform over everything else. A case in point is the vCenter express patch that rolled out a couple weeks ago to address a critical security vulnerability (you can find out more here). Within eight days of the express patch release, the VxRail team was able to run through all its testing and validation against all supported configurations to deliver a supported software bundle. Our $60M testing lab investment and 100+ team members dedicated to testing and quality assurance make that possible.
If you’re interested in upgrading your clusters to VxRail 7.0.000, please be sure to read the Release Notes.
Daniel Chiu, VxRail Technical Marketing