The end of 2022 brought us excellent news: Dell Integrated System for Azure Stack HCI introduced full support for GPU factory install.

As a reminder, Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI is a fully integrated HCI system for hybrid cloud environments that delivers a modern, cloud-like operational experience on-premises. It is intelligently and deliberately configured with a wide range of hardware and software component options (AX nodes) to meet the requirements of nearly any use case, from the smallest remote or branch office to the most demanding business workloads.

With the introduction of GPU-capable AX nodes, now we can also support more complex and demanding AI/ML workloads.

New GPU hardware options

Not all AX nodes support GPUs. As you can see in the table below, AX-750, AX-650, and AX-7525 nodes running AS HCI 21H2 or later are the only AX node platforms to support GPU adapters.

Table 1: Intelligently designed AX node portfolio

Note: AX-640, AX-740xd, and AX-6515 platforms do not support GPUs.

The next obvious question is what GPU type and number of adapters are supported by each platform.

We have selected the following two NVIDIA adapters to start with:

• NVIDIA Ampere A2, PCIe, 60W, 16GB GDDR6, Passive, Single Wide
• NVIDIA Ampere A30, PCIe, 165W, 24GB HBM2, Passive, Double Wide

The following table details how many GPU adapter cards of each type are allowed in each AX node:

Table 2: AX node support for GPU adapter cards

Use cases

The NVIDIA A2 is the entry-level option for any server to get basic AI capabilities. It delivers versatile inferencing acceleration for deep learning, graphics, and video processing in a low-profile, low-consumption PCIe Gen 4 card.

The A2 is the perfect candidate for light AI capability demanding workloads in the data center. It especially shines in edge environments, due to the excellent balance among form factor, performance, and power consumption, which results in lower costs.

The NVIDIA A30 is a more powerful mainstream option for the data center, typically covering scenarios that require more demanding accelerated AI performance and a broad variety of workloads:

• AI inference at scale
• Deep learning training
• High-performance computing (HPC) applications
• High-performance data analytics

Options for GPU virtualization

There are two GPU virtualization technologies in Azure Stack HCI: Discrete Device Assignment (also known as GPU pass-through) and GPU partitioning.

Discrete Device Assignment (DDA)

DDA support for Dell Integrated System for Azure Stack HCI was introduced with Azure Stack HCI OS 21H2. When leveraging DDA, GPUs are basically dedicated (no sharing), and DDA passes an entire PCIe device into a VM to provide high-performance access to the device while being able to utilize the device native drivers. The following figure shows how DDA directly reassigns the whole GPU from the host to the VM:

Figure 1: Discrete Device Assignment in action

To learn more about how to use and configure GPUs with clustered VMs with Azure Stack HCI OS 21H2, you can check Microsoft Learn and the Dell Info Hub.

GPU partitioning (GPU-P)

GPU partitioning allows you to share a physical GPU device among several VMs. By leveraging single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV), GPU-P provides VMs with a dedicated and isolated fractional part of the physical GPU. The following figure explains this more visually:

Figure 2: GPU partitioning virtualizing 2 physical GPUs into 4 virtual vGPUs

The obvious advantage of GPU-P is that it enables enterprise-wide utilization of highly valuable and limited GPU resources.

Note these important considerations for using GPU-P:

• Azure Stack HCI OS 22H2 or later is required.
• Host and guest VM drivers for GPU are needed (requires a separate license from NVIDIA).
• Not all GPUs support GPU-P; currently Dell only supports A2 (A16 coming soon).
• We strongly recommend using Windows Admin Center for GPU-P to avoid mistakes.

 You’re probably wondering about Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Stack HCI (still in preview) and GPU-P. We have a Dell Validated Design today and will be refreshing it to include GPU-P during this calendar year.  

To learn more about how to use and configure GPU-P with clustered VMs with Azure Stack HCI OS 22H2, you can check Microsoft Learn and the Dell Info Hub (Dell documentation coming soon).

Timeline

As of today, Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI only provides support for Azure Stack HCI OS 21H2 and DDA.

Full support for Azure Stack HCI OS 22H2 and GPU-P is around the corner, by the end of the first quarter, 2023.

Conclusion

The wait is finally over, we can now leverage in our Azure Stack HCI environments the required GPU power for AI/ML highly demanding workloads.

Today, DDA provides fully dedicated GPU pass-through utilization, whereas with GPU-P we will very soon have the choice of providing a more granular GPU consumption model.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the ever-expanding list of validated GPUs that will unlock and enhance even more use cases and workloads!

Author: Ignacio Borrero, Senior Principal Engineer, Technical Marketing Dell CI & HCI

@virtualpeli

Dell Hybrid Management: Azure Policies for HCI Compliance and Remediation

Companies that take an “Azure hybrid first” strategy are making a wise and future-proof decision by consolidating the advantages of both worlds—public and private—into a single entity.

Sounds like the perfect plan, but a key consideration for these environments to work together seamlessly is true hybrid configuration consistency.

A major challenge in the past was having the same level of configuration rules concurrently in Azure and on-premises. This required different tools and a lot of costly manual interventions (subject to human error) that resulted, usually, in potential risks caused by configuration drift. 

But those days are over.

We are happy to introduce Dell HCI Configuration Profile (HCP) Policies for Azure, a revolutionary and crucial differentiator for Azure hybrid configuration compliance.

Figure 1: Dell Hybrid Management with Windows Admin Center (local) and Azure/Azure Arc (public)

So, what is it? How does it work? What value does it provide?

Dell HCP Policies for Azure is our latest development for Dell OpenManage Integration with Windows Admin Center (OMIMSWAC). With it, we can now integrate Dell HCP policy definitions into Azure Policy. Dell HCP is the specification that captures the best practices and recommended configurations for Azure Stack HCI and Windows-based HCI solutions from Dell to achieve better resiliency and performance with Dell HCI solutions.

The HCP Policies feature functions at the cluster level and is supported for clusters that are running Azure Stack HCI OS (21H2) and pre-enabled for Windows Server 2022 clusters.

IT admins can manage Azure Stack HCI environments through two different approaches:

• At-scale through the Azure portal using the Azure Arc portfolio of technologies
• Locally on-premises using Windows Admin Center

Figure 2: Dell HCP Policies for Azure - onboarding Dell HCI Configuration Profile

By using a single Dell HCP policy definition, both options provide a seamless and consistent management experience.

Running Check Compliance automatically compares the recommended rules packaged together in the Dell HCP policy definitions with the settings on the running integrated system. These rules include configurations that address the hardware, cluster symmetry, cluster operations, and security.

Figure 3: Dell HCP Policies for Azure - HCP policy compliance

Dell HCP Policy Summary provides the compliance status of four policy categories:

• Dell Infrastructure Lock Policy - Indicates enhanced security compliance to protect against unintentional changes to infrastructure
• Dell Hardware Configuration Policy - Indicates compliance with Dell recommended BIOS, iDRAC, firmware, and driver settings that improve cluster resiliency and performance
• Dell Hardware Symmetry Policy - Indicates compliance with integrated-system validated components on the support matrix and best practices recommended by Dell and Microsoft
• Dell OS Configuration Policy - Indicates compliance with Dell recommended operating system and cluster configurations

Figure 4: Dell HCP Policies for Azure - HCP Policy Summary

 

To re-align non-compliant policies with the best practices validated by Dell Engineering, our Dell HCP policy remediation integration with WAC (unique at the moment) helps to fix any non-compliant errors. Simply click “Fix Compliance.”

Figure 5: Dell HCP Policies for Azure - HCP policy remediation

Some fixes may require manual intervention; others can be corrected in a fully automated manner using the Cluster-Aware Updating framework.

Conclusion

The “Azure hybrid first” strategy is real today. You can use Dell HCP Policies for Azure, which provides a single-policy definition with Dell HCI Configuration Profile  and a consistent hybrid management experience, whether you use Dell OMIMSWAC for local management or Azure Portal for management at-scale.

With Dell HCP Policies for Azure, policy compliance and remediation are fully covered for Azure and Azure Stack HCI hybrid environments.

You can see Dell HCP Policies for Azure in action at the interactive Dell Demo Center.

Thanks for reading!

Author: Ignacio Borrero, Dell Senior Principal Engineer CI & HCI, Technical Marketing

Twitter: @virtualpeli