Dell VxRail Network Planning Guide

• 1

  Revision history
• 2

  Introduction

• 1

  Plan the VxRail network
• 2

  VxRail clusters and nodes
• 3

  Network switch
  • VxRail relationship with the Ethernet switch
  • VxRail node discovery and the Ethernet switch
  • Basic switch requirements
  • Switch performance considerations
  • Storage network considerations
  • Network redundancy and performance considerations
• 4

  Data center network
  • Routing services
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  VxRail networking port options
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  VxRail Ethernet adapter options
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  VxRail FC adapter options
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  VxRail RoCE adapter options
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  VxRail DPU options
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  VxRail node connectivity options
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  VxRail networking rules and restrictions
• 12

  Topology and connections

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  VxRail Cluster Types
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  Original vSAN architecture
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  Express vSAN architecture
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  Dynamic cluster
  • FC storage option
  • Remote VMware vSAN data store option
  • PowerFlex storage option
  • IP-based storage options
  • NVMe option
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  VMware vSAN stretched cluster
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  2-node cluster
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  Satellite nodes

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  VxRail feature-driven decision points
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  Software-defined data center
• 3

  VMware vSphere with Kubernetes on VxRail

• 1

  VxRail hardware and switch selection decision points

• 1

  Prepare the data center to implement VxRail
• 2

  Prepare external network connectivity for VxRail
• 3

  Prepare service connectivity for VxRail
• 4

  Prepare for VMware vSphere+ subscription licensing
• 5

  Prepare data center routing services
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  Prepare for multirack VxRail cluster
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  Prepare for VMware vSAN HCI mesh topology
• 8

  Prepare external FC storage for dynamic clusters
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  Prepare for VxRail custom uplink assignments
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  Prepare data center network MTU
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  Prepare for LAG of VxRail networks
  • Identify switch ports to be configured for LAG
• 12

  Plan LAG on switch port pairs
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  Prepare certificate authority server for VxRail
• 14

  Identify isolation IP addresses for VMware vSphere High Availability

• 1

  Plan the VxRail cluster implementation
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  Decide on VxRail single point of management
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  Decide on VxRail network traffic segmentation
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  Decide on teaming and failover policies for VxRail networks
• 5

  Plan the VxRail logical network
  • IP address considerations for VxRail networks
  • VLAN considerations for VxRail networks
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  Plan network settings for VxRail management components
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  Plan network settings for VMware vCenter Server management network
• 8

  Identify IP addresses for VxRail management components
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  Select hostnames for VxRail management components
  • Select a top-level domain
  • Select a hostname for VxRail Manager
  • Select the ESXi hostnames
  • Select a hostname for the VxRail-managed VMware vCenter Server
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  Identify external applications and settings for VxRail
  • Set the DNS for VxRail management components
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  Prepare the customer-managed VMware vCenter Server
• 12

  Prepare a customer-managed virtual-distributed switch
  • Prepare LAG on a customer-managed virtual-distributed switch
• 13

  Reserve IP addresses for VxRail-managed VMware vSphere vMotion network
• 14

  Reserve IP addresses for VxRail vSAN network
• 15

  Decide on VxRail logging solution
• 16

  Assign passwords for VxRail management

• 1

  Planning vSAN Witness Networking
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  Overview of vSAN Witness for VxRail stretched cluster
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  Overview of vSAN Witness for VxRail 2-node cluster
• 4

  Networking rules for vSAN witness and VxRail
• 5

  Reserve network settings for vSAN witness networks

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  Planning VxRail Satellite Nodes Networking
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  Plan networking to support VxRail satellite node management
• 3

  Assign network settings to VxRail satellite nodes
• 4

  Assign passwords for VxRail satellite nodes

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  Configure the Network for VxRail
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  Setting up the network switch for VxRail connectivity
  • Configure multicast for VxRail internal management network
  • Configure unicast for VxRail vSAN network
  • Configure VLANs for the VxRail networks
  • Configure the inter-switch links
  • Configure switch port mode
  • Configure LAG
  • Limit spanning tree protocol
  • Enable flow control
• 3

  Set up the network switch ports for VxRail connectivity
• 4

  Set up the upstream network for VxRail connectivity
• 5

  Configure your network to support RoCE
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  Confirm your data center network
  • Confirm your firewall settings
• 7

  Confirm your data center environment

• 1

  Prepare to build the VxRail cluster
• 2

  Complete prerequisites for dynamic clusters
• 3

  Configure nodes for tagged VxRail management VLAN
• 4

  Configure a jump host or laptop for VxRail initialization
• 5

  Perform initialization to create a VxRail cluster

• 1

  VxRail network considerations after implementation
• 2

  Configure LAG on VxRail networks

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  Appendix A: VxRail Network Configuration Table

• 1

  Appendix B: VxRail Passwords

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  Appendix C: VxRail cluster setup checklist

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  Appendix D: VxRail Open Ports Requirements

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  Appendix E: VMware VDS port group default settings
• 2

  Default standard settings
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  Default teaming and failover policy
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  Default network I-O control (NIOC)
• 5

  Default failover order policy

• 1

  Appendix F: Physical Network Switch Examples
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  Pre-defined network profile: 2x10gb or 2x25gb from a single NDC/OCP
• 3

  Predefined network profile: 4x10gb or 4x25gb NDC/OCP
• 4

  Predefined network profile: 2 x 10/25 GB NDC/OCP and 2 x 10/25 GB PCIe
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  Custom option: Any NDC/OCP ports paired with PCIe ports
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  Custom option: Two NDC/OCP ports paired with PCIe ports other than the first slot
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  Custom option: PCIe ports only
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  Custom option: Six ports
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  Custom option: Eight ports
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  Custom option: Eight ports connected to four Ethernet switches