Tech Book—Dell Integrated System For Microsoft Azure Stack HCI

• 1

  Preface
• 2

  Document description
• 3

  Audience

• 1

  Business Transformation and Data Center Modernization
• 2

  Overview
• 3

  Technical debt
• 4

  IT budgeting
• 5

  Complexity
• 6

  Risks
• 7

  Threats
• 8

  Digital transformation and the rendezvous with the hybrid cloud
  • According to analyst research
• 9

  Accelerate your digital transformation journey

• 1

  Evolution of Data Centers to HCI and Hybrid Cloud
• 2

  Overview
• 3

  Mainframes – 1960s
• 4

  Client-server architecture – 1990s
• 5

  Server virtualization and 3 tier SANs (iSCSI and FC) – 2000s
• 6

  Converged infrastructure (CI) – 2010s
• 7

  HCI – 2015s
• 8

  Hybrid cloud operating model – 2015s

• 1

  A Closer Look at Microsoft Azure Stack HCI
• 2

  Microsoft Azure Stack HCI – an overview
• 3

  Why choose Dell Technologies for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI
• 4

  What makes Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI different
• 5

  Technical use cases and workloads
• 6

  Microsoft HCI Solutions from Dell Technologies - complete portfolio
• 7

  Choosing the right Microsoft HCI solution

• 1

  Azure Stack HCI Architecture and Building Blocks
• 2

  Overview
• 3

  Hardware ecosystem
• 4

  The hyperconverged infrastructure software stack
• 5

  Hyper-V
• 6

  Software-defined storage (SDS)
• 7

  Planning volumes with SDS
• 8

  Nested resiliency
• 9

  Software defined networking (SDN)
• 10

  Virtual switch
• 11

  Network Controller
• 12

  Software Load Balancing
• 13

  Gateway
• 14

  Compute building blocks
  • Virtual machine and containers
  • Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI (AKS-HCI)
• 15

  Refactoring traditional applications to containers with AKS
• 16

  Managing the hybrid solution
• 17

  Windows Admin Center
• 18

  Azure Arc
  • Azure app services and data services

• 1

  Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI Portfolio – AX Nodes
• 2

  A modern platform for Microsoft environments
• 3

  Powering the AX nodes, the Intel, and AMD processor
  • Intel® Xeon® scalable processors:
  • AMD EPYC™ processors:
• 4

  Dell integrated systems with security built-in
  • Cyber resilient architecture
  • Protect
  • Detect
  • Recover
  • Secured-core server

• 1

  Networking Topologies for Azure Stack HCI Solutions
• 2

  Overview
• 3

  Scalable
• 4

  Switchless storage
• 5

  Switch Embedded Teaming (SET)
• 6

  Remote Direct Memory Access
• 7

  Scalable architecture for Dell Solutions for Azure Stack HCI
• 8

  Fully converged network configuration
• 9

  Non-converged network configuration
• 10

  Switchless storage networking
• 11

  Single-link full mesh topology
• 12

  Dual-link full mesh topology
• 13

  2-node back-to-back connected architecture
• 14

  3-node single-link full mesh switchless interconnect
• 15

  Single-node clusters
• 16

  PowerSwitch model options for scalable infrastructure
• 17

  iWARP vs RoCE for RDMA
• 18

  Dell Fabric Design Center

• 1

  Stretch Clustering with Azure Stack HCI
• 2

  Azure Stack HCI stretch clustering
• 3

  Comparison of traditional and stretched clusters
• 4

  Business continuity planning
• 5

  Stretch clustering topology
  • Servers
  • Storage pools
  • Volumes
  • Setup configuration
  • Preferred site configuration
  • Affinity and anti-affinity VMs
  • Cloud witness
• 6

  Azure Stack HCI stretch clustering scenarios and concepts
  • Active/passive setup
  • Active/Active
  • Synchronous replication
  • Asynchronous replication
• 7

  Stretch clustering best practices with Azure Stack HCI
• 8

  Validated network topology
  • Basic configuration
  • High throughput configuration
  • Server and site affinity rules for VMs

• 1

  Managing the Hybrid Cloud
• 2

  Managing the hybrid cloud
• 3

  Dell OpenManage Integration with Microsoft Windows Admin Center (OMIMSWAC)
• 4

  Important features of OMIMSWAC
  • Automated cluster creation with Dell HCI configuration profile
  • Cluster expansion
  • CPU core management
  • 1-Click full stack LCM using cluster-aware updating
  • Infrastructure lock for AX nodes
  • Secured core
  • Cluster monitoring and management
• 5

  Kernel Soft Reboot
• 6

  Dell HCI Configuration Profile (HCP) policies for Azure
• 7

  Additional resources for Dell OpenManage Integration with Microsoft Windows Admin Center
• 8

  Azure Arc extends the Azure control plane
  • Azure Arc-enabled infrastructure
  • Azure Arc-enabled servers
  • Azure Arc-enabled SQL server
  • Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes
  • Azure Arc-enabled services
  • Azure Arc-enabled data services
  • Azure Arc-enabled application service
• 9

  Dell OpenManage Integration for System Center (OMIMSSC)
• 10

  Automation simplifies life cycle management of Microsoft HCI solutions

• 1

  Sizing and Configuration Best Practices
• 2

  Overview
• 3

  Dell Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI - procurement and deployment
  • Live optics
• 4

  Azure Stack HCI sizer tool
• 5

  Dell Fabric Design Center
• 6

  Best practices and example configurations
• 7

  Example of ROBO
• 8

  Example of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
• 9

  Example of high-performance Microsoft SQL server
• 10

  Example of general virtualization
• 11

  Cluster sets

• 1

  Dell Support and Services
• 2

  Overview
• 3

  Solution order and deployment path
• 4

  Factory installation of operating system
• 5

  Do It Yourself (DIY) installation of operating system
• 6

  ProDeploy
• 7

  ProSupport
  • Secure connect gateway
  • iDRAC service module

• 1

  Conclusion
• 2

  Summary
• 3

  Unrivaled performance
• 4

  Manageability
• 5

  Scalability
• 6

  Simplicity
• 7

  Resiliency
• 8

  Resource efficiency
• 9

  Security

• 1

  Additional Resources
• 2

  Additional resources
  • Dell resource list
  • Microsoft resource list