Test driving Dell EMC VxRail with the CTO Advisor
Fri, 11 Jun 2021 07:57:49 -0000
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You wouldn’t buy a new car without researching and test driving it first, would you? The same holds true for your data center – test driving, researching, checking peer reviews, and carefully weighing your IT infrastructure options are key to making an informed decision for your business.
Keith Townsend, a technical analyst also known as the CTO Advisor, and his team recently did just that with Dell EMC VxRail. Through a study commissioned by Dell Technologies, the CTO Advisor team stepped into the driver’s seat to investigate the differentiated value of VxRail as part of a broader strategy to modernize their CTO Advisor Hybrid Infrastructure.
The CTO Advisor team completed two weeks of rigorous testing with two main objectives in mind. First, they examined whether VxRail HCI System Software, a suite of integrated software elements that sits between VxRail infrastructure components such as vSAN and VMware Cloud Foundation, adds unique, differentiated value for businesses like the CTO Advisor. Second, they looked specifically at integration between VxRail, VMware Cloud Foundation, and Intel – does it offer unique differentiation versus competitors?
Spoiler alert: the answers to both of their questions were yes and yes! But you don’t have to take my word for it -- you can join Keith and the CTO Advisor team for the ride. Available now, their seven-part video series documents their VxRail journey from start-to-finish and includes technical conversations with our technologists. Their videos showed how VxRail:
- Simplifies day two operations with VxRail Manager
- Delivers multi-cluster management for a single-pane-of-glass view of your entire infrastructure
- Enables custom automation with RESTful APIs
- Enables automation across the entire stack with ecosystem connectors
- Reduces risk with the electronic compatibility matrix
- Delivers deep integration with VMware Cloud Foundation for a turnkey hybrid cloud experience
Watch at the links below, and be sure to view the report and project page!
Presales InterviewKeith Townsend takes on the "Executive" persona in this video. Jeremy Merrill, a Dell Technologies VxSeal, briefs Keith on the strengths and benefits of VxRail. This video sets the stage for much of the validation testing that the CTO Advisor team performed. | |
VxRail Technical OverviewKeith Townsend sets the stage for the project. He discusses the problem he would like to solve, current pain points, and outcomes he would like to see from VxRail. | |
SaaS Controller SurpriseIn this technical review, CTO Advisor Analyst Alastair Cooke sits down with CTO Advisor Engineer Thom Greene and Dell Technologies VxSeal Curtis Edwards. The trio review the work from a more traditional technical perspective. Specifically, the team goes deeper into the SaaS controller. | |
VxRail Technical Overview – Part 1Keith rejoins the program for a conversation with Thom Greene. Thom shares the high-level technical results of his VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail analysis. Keith probes Thom to understand the overall operational potential value for the CTOA as an organization. | |
VxRail Technical Overview – Part 2Alastair and Thom are joined by Dell Technologies technologist Joe Mauer to discuss the technical details of VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail, as well as findings from Thom’s review. | |
End DesignKeith wraps the technical overview and describes the benefits of VxRail within the CTO Advisor Hybrid Infrastructure. | |
Concluding AnalysisKeith provides an executive overview of the research the team conducted and introduces the written work. |
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Learn About the Latest VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1.1 on Dell VxRail 8.0.210 Release
Tue, 26 Mar 2024 18:47:52 -0000
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The latest VCF on VxRail release delivers GenAI-ready infrastructure, runs more demanding workloads, and is an excellent choice for supporting hardware tech refreshes and achieving higher consolidation ratios.
VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1.1 on VxRail 8.0.210 is a minor release from the perspective of versioning and new functionality but is significant in terms of support for the latest VxRail hardware platforms. This new release is based on the latest software bill of materials (BOM) featuring vSphere 8.0 U2b, vSAN 8.0 U2b, and NSX 4.1.2.3. Read on for more details…
VxRail hardware platform updates
16th generation VxRail VE-660 and VP-760 hardware platform support
Cloud Foundation on VxRail customers can now benefit from the latest, more scalable, and robust 16th generation hardware platforms. This includes a full spectrum of hybrid, all-flash, and all NVMe options that have been qualified to run VxRail 8.0.210 software. This is fantastic news as these new hardware options bring many technical innovations, which my colleagues discussed in detail in previous blogs.
These new hardware platforms are based on Intel® 4th Generation Xeon® Scalable processors, which increase VxRail core density per socket to 56 (112 max per node). They also come with built-in Intel® AMX accelerators (Advanced Matrix Extensions) that support AI and HPC workloads without the need for additional drivers or hardware.
VxRail on the 16th generation hardware supports deployments with either vSAN Original Storage Architecture (OSA) or vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA). The VP-760 and VE-660 can take advantage of vSAN ESA’s single-tier storage architecture, which enables RAID-5 resiliency and capacity with RAID-1 performance.
This table summarizes the configurations of the newly added platforms:
To learn more about the VE-660 and VP-760 platforms, please check Mike Athanasiou’s VxRail’s Latest Hardware Evolution blog. To learn more about Intel® AMX capability set, make sure to check out the VxRail and Intel® AMX, Bringing AI Everywhere blog, authored by Una O’Herlihy.
VCF on VxRail LCM updates
Support upgrades to VCF 5.1.1 from existing VCF 4.4.x and higher environments (N-3 upgrade support)
Customers who already upgraded to VCF 5.x are already familiar with the concept of the skip-level upgrade, which allows them to upgrade directly to the latest 5.x release without the need to perform upgrades to the interim versions. It significantly reduces the time required to perform the upgrade and enhances the overall upgrade experience. VCF 5.1.1 introduces so-called “N-3” upgrade support (as illustrated on the following diagram), which supports the skip-level upgrade for VCF 4.4.x. This means they can now perform a direct LCM upgrade operation from VCF 4.4.x, 4.5.x, 5.0.x, and 5.1.0 to VCF 5.1.1.
VCF licensing changes
Simplified licensing using a single solution license key
Starting with VCF 5.1.1, vCenter Server, ESXi, and TKG component licenses are now entered using a single “VCF Solution License” key. This helps to simplify the licensing by minimizing the number of individual component keys that require separate management. VMware NSX Networking, HCX, and VMware Aria Suite components are automatically entitled from the vCenter Server post-deployment. The single licensing key and existing keyed licenses will continue to work in parallel.
Removal of VCF+ cloud-connected subscriptions as a supported VCF licensing type
The other significant licensing change is the deprecation of VCF+ licensing, which the new subscription model has replaced.
Support for deploying or expanding VCF instances using Evaluation Mode
VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1.1 allows deploying a new VCF instance in evaluation mode without needing to enter license keys. An administrator has 60 days to enter licensing for the deployment, and SDDC Manager is fully functional at this time. The workflows for expanding a cluster, adding a new cluster, or creating a VI workload domain also provide an option to license later within a 60 day timeframe.
For more comprehensive information about changes in VCF licensing, please consult the VMware website.
Core VxRail enhancements
Support for remote vCenter plug-in
One of the notable enhancements in VxRail 8.0.210 is adopting the vSphere Client remote plugin architecture. It showcases adopting the latest vSphere architecture guidelines, as the local plug-ins are deprecated in vSphere 8.0 and won’t be supported in vSphere 9.0. The vSphere Client remote plug-in architecture allows plug-in functionality integration without running inside a vCenter Server. It’s a more robust architecture that separates vCenter Server from plug-ins and provides more security, flexibility, and scalability when choosing the programming frameworks and introducing new features. Starting with 8.0.210, a new VxRail Manager remote plug-in is deployed in the VxRail Manager Appliance.
LCM enhancements, including improved VxRail pre-checks and self-remediation of iDRAC issues.
VxRail 8.0.210 also comes with several small features based on Customer feedback that combine to improve the LCM experience's reliability. These include:
- VxRail Manager root disk space precheck prevents the upgrade errors related to lack of disk space (for rpm-based upgrades).
- Self-remediation of iDRAC issues during LCM upgrades provides a more reliable firmware upgrade experience. By clearing the iDRAC job queue and resetting the iDRAC, the process may recover from a firmware update failure.
Serviceability enhancements, including improved expansion pre-checks, external storage reporting, and improved troubleshooting capabilities.
Another group of features contributes to overall improved serviceability and visibility into the system:
- The UI now implements new errors and warnings for incompatible disks when the user tries to add an incompatible disk during the disk addition process (see the following figure)
- The improved hardware views report on storage capacity and utilization for dynamic nodes, improving the overall visibility for the external storage attached to dynamic nodes directly from the vSphere Client.
- VxRail cluster troubleshooting efficiency has improved thanks to better standardization of log format and event grooming for disk exhaustion.
- The improved node-add health checks reduce the risk of successfully adding a faulty or mismatched node to a VxRail cluster.
VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA
With VCF 5.1.1, VMware introduces VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA as Initial Access. Dell Technologies Engineering intends to validate this feature when it is generally available.
This solution aims to enable enterprise customers to adopt Generative AI capabilities more easily and securely by providing enterprises with a cost-effective, high-performance, and secure environment for delivering business value from Large Language Models (LLMs) using their private data.
Summary
The new VCF 5.1.1 on VxRail 8.0.210 release is an excellent option for customers looking for a hardware refresh, Gen AI-ready infrastructure to run more demanding workloads, or to achieve higher consolidation ratios. Additional enhancements introduced in the core VxRail functionality improve the overall LCM experience, serviceability, and visibility into the system.
Thank you for your time, and please check the additional resources if you like to learn more.
Resources
- VxRail’s Latest Hardware Evolution blog
- VxRail and Intel® AMX, Bringing AI Everywhere
- VxRail product page
- VxRail Infohub page
- VxRail Videos
- VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell VxRail Release Notes
- VCF on VxRail Interactive Demo
- VMware Product Lifecycle Matrix
Author: Karol Boguniewicz
Twitter: @cl0udguide
What’s New: VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5.1 on Dell VxRail 7.0.450 Release and More!
Thu, 11 May 2023 15:55:52 -0000
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This latest Cloud Foundation (VCF) on VxRail release includes updated versions of software BOM components, a bunch of new VxRail platform enhancements, and some good ol’ under-the-hood improvements that lay the groundwork for future features designed to deliver an even better customer experience. Read on for the highlights…
VCF on VxRail operations and serviceability enhancements
View Nvidia GPU hardware details in VxRail Manager vCenter plugin ‘Physical View’ and VxRail API
Leveraging the power of GPU acceleration with VCF on VxRail delivers a lot of value to organizations looking to harness the power of their data. VCF on VxRail makes operationalizing infrastructure with Nvidia GPUs easier with native GPU visualization and details using the VxRail Manager vCenter Plugin ‘Physical View’ and VxRail API. Administrators can quickly gain deeper-level hardware insights into the health and details of the Nvidia GPUs running on their VxRail nodes, to easily map the hardware layer to the virtual layer, and to help improve infrastructure management and serviceability operations.
Figure 1 shows what this looks like.
Figure 1. Nvidia GPU visualization and details – VxRail vCenter Plugin ‘Physical View’ UI
Support for the capturing, displaying, and proactive Dell dial home alerting for new VxRail iDRAC system events and alarms
Introduced in VxRail 7.0.450 and available in VCF 4.5.1 on VxRail 7.0.450 are enhancements to VxRail Manager intelligent system health monitoring of iDRAC critical and warning system events. With this new feature, new iDRAC warning and critical system events are captured, and through VxRail Manager integration with both iDRAC and vCenter, alarms are triggered and posted in vCenter.
Customers can view these events and alarms in the native vCenter UI and the VxRail Manager vCenter Plugin Physical View which contains KB article links in the event description to provide added details and guidance on remediation. These new events also trigger call home actions to inform Dell support about the incident.
These improvements are designed to improve the serviceability and support experience for customers of VCF on VxRail. Figures 2 and 3 show these events as they appear in the vCenter UI ‘All Issues’ view and the VxRail Manager vCenter Plugin Physical View UI, respectively.
Figure 2. New iDRAC events displayed in the vCenter UI ‘All Issues’ view
Figure 3. New iDRAC events displayed in the VxRail Manager vCenter Plugin UI ‘Physical View’
Support for the capturing, displaying, and proactive dial home alerting for new iDRAC NIC port down events and alarms
To further improve system serviceability and simplify operations, VxRail 7.0.450 introduces the capturing of new iDRAC system events related to host NIC port link status. These include NIC port down warning events, each of which is indicated by a NIC100 event code and a ‘NIC port is started/up’ info event.
A NIC100 event indicates either that a network cable is not connected, or that the network device is not working.
A NIC101 event indicates that the transition from a network link ‘down’ state to a network link ‘started’ or ‘up’ state has been detected on the corresponding NIC port.
VxRail Manager now creates new VxM events that track these NIC port states.
As a result, users can be alerted through an alarm in vCenter when a NIC port is down. VxRail Manager will also generate a dial-home event when a NIC port is down. When the condition is no longer present, VxRail Manager will automatically clear the alarm by generating a clear-alarm event.
Finally, to reduce the number of false positive events and prevent unnecessary alarm and dial home events, VxRail Manager implements an intelligent throttling mechanism to handle situations in which false positive alarms related to network maintenance activities could occur. This makes the alarms/events that are triggered more credible for an admin to act against.
Table 1 contains a summary of the details of these two events and the VxRail Manager serviceability behavior.
Table 1. iDRAC NIC port down and started event and behavior details
Let’s double click on this serviceability behavior in a bit more detail.
Figure 4 depicts the behavior process flow VxRail Manager takes when iDRAC discovers and triggers a NIC port down system event. Let’s walk through the details now:
1. The first thing that occurs is that iDRAC discovers that the NIC port state has gone down and triggers a NIC port down event.
2. Next, iDRAC will send that event to VxRail Manager.
3. At this stage VxRail Manager will validate how long the NIC port down event has been active and check whether a NIC port started (or up) event has been triggered within a 30-minute time frame since the original NIC port down event occurred. With this check, if there has not been a NIC port started event triggered, VxRail Manager will begin throttling NIC port down event communication in order to prevent duplicate alerts about the same event.
If during the 30-minute window, a NIC port started event has been detected, VxRail Manager will cease throttling and clear the event.
4. When the VxRail Manager event throttling state is active, VxRail Manager will log it in its event history.
5. VxRail Manager will then trigger a vCenter alarm and post the event to vCenter.
6. Finally, VxRail Manager will trigger a NIC port down dial home event communication to backend Dell Support Systems, if connected.
Figure 4. Processing VxRail NIC port down events, and VxRail Manager throttling logic
Figure 5 shows what this looks like in the vCenter UI.
Figure 5. VxRail NIC port down trigger alarm in vCenter UI
Figure 6 shows what this looks like in the VxRail Manager vCenter Plugin ‘Physical View’ UI.
Figure 6. VxRail Manager vCenter Plugin ‘Physical View’ UI view of a VxRail NIC port down event
VCF on VxRail storage updates
Support for new PowerMax 2500 and 8500 storage arrays with VxRail 14G and 15G dynamic nodes using VMFS on FC principal storage
Starting in VCF 4.5.1 on VxRail 7.0.450, support has been added for the latest next gen Dell PowerMax 2500 and 8500 storage systems as VMFS on FC principal storage when deployed with 14G and 15G VxRail dynamic node clusters in VI workload domains.
Figure 7 lists the Dell storage arrays that support VxRail dynamic node clusters using VMFS on FC principal storage for VCF on VxRail, along with the corresponding supported FC HBA makes and models.
Note: Compatible supported array firmware and software versions are published in the Dell E-Lab Support Matrix for reference.
Figure 7. Supported Dell storage arrays used as VMFS on FC principal storage
VCF on VxRail lifecycle management enhancements
VCF Async Patch Tool 1.0.1.1 update
This tool addresses both LCM and security areas. Although it is not officially a feature of any specific VCF on VxRail release, it does get released asynchronously (pun intended) and is designed for use in VCF and VCF on VxRail environments. Thus, it deserves a call out.
For some background, the VCF Async Patch Tool is a new CLI based tool that allows cloud admins to apply individual component out-of-band security patches to their VCF on VxRail environment, separately from an official VCF LCM update release. This enables organizations to address security vulnerabilities faster without having to wait for a full VCF release update. It also allows admins to install these patches themselves without needing to engage support resources to get them applied manually.
With this latest AP Tool 1.0.1.1 release, the AP Tool now supports the ability to use patch VxRail (which includes all of the components in a VxRail update bundle including VxRail Manager and ESXi software components, and VxRail HW firmware/drivers) within VCF on VxRail environments. This is a great addition to the tool’s initial support for patching vCenter and NSX Manager in its first release. VCF on VxRail customers now have a centralized and standardized process for applying security patches for core VCF and VxRail software and core VxRail HCI stack hardware components (such as server BIOS or pNIC firmware/driver for example), all in a simple and integrated manner that VCF on VxRail customers have come to expect from a jointly engineered integrated turnkey hybrid cloud platform.
Note: Hardware patching is made possible due to how VxRail implements HW updates with the core VxRail update bundle. All VxRail patches for VxRail Manager, ESXi, and HW components are delivered in a the VxRail update bundle and leveraged by the AP Tool to apply.
From an operational standpoint, when patches for the respective software and hardware components have been applied, and a new VCF on VxRail BOM update is available that includes the security fixes, admins can use the tool to download the latest VCF on VxRail LCM release bundles and upgrade their environment back to an official in-band VCF on VxRail release BOM. After that, admins can continue to use the native SDDC Manager LCM workflow process for applying additional VCF on VxRail upgrades. Figure 8 highlights this process at a high level.
Figure 8. Async Patch Tool overview
You can access VCF Async Patch Tool instructions and documentation from VMware’s website.
Summary
In this latest release, the new features and platform improvements help set the stage for even more innovation in the future. For more details about bug fixes in this release, see VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell VxRail Release Notes. For this and other Cloud Foundation on VxRail information, see the following additional resources.
Author: Jason Marques
Twitter: @vWhipperSnapper
Additional Resources
- VMware Cloud Foundation on Dell VxRail Release Notes
- VxRail page on DellTechnologies.com
- VxRail Info Hub
- VCF on VxRail Interactive Demo
- Videos