vStart 100 and 200 VMware® vSphere™ Reference Architecture Release 1.
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vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Table of Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4 2 Audience............................................................................................................... 4 3 Solution Overview ................................................................................................... 4 3.1 4 5 Product Overview ................................
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture 1 Introduction The vStart solution is a virtualization infrastructure solution that has been designed and validated by Dell Engineering. It is delivered racked, cabled, and ready to be integrated into your datacenter. The vStart VMware vSphereTM is offered as two configurations: vStart 100 and 200.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture 200 includes six PowerEdge R720 servers and two EqualLogic arrays. Storage expansion modules are offered in this release, for which more details are provided in the section below. Figure 1 and Figure 2 below provide a high-level overview of the components utilized in each of the configurations. Figure 1.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Figure 2.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Table 1 below describes the solution components: Table 1. Component Logical Groups Component Description Role ESXi Cluster PowerEdge R720 servers running VMware ESXi Embedded Host virtual machines (VMs) iSCSI Storage EqualLogic PS6100X with 24 x 600 GB 10K RPM 2.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture With a 24 drive chassis full of 600GB SAS drives, the PS6100X array delivers 14.4 Terabyte (TB) of iSCSIbased storage built on fully-redundant, hot-swappable enterprise hardware. Scale out capacity and performance is provided by adding additional arrays. Built-in software functionality includes automated load balancing, snapshots and replication, multi-path I/O (MPIO), and consistency sets.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture 3.1.5 Dell Hardware and Storage Management integrated into vCenter Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter is included in the solution.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture 4.2 Physical Separation of LAN and iSCSI SAN Traffic Dedicated NICs and switches are provided for iSCSI storage traffic to isolate the storage traffic from LAN traffic. This ensures minimal latency for storage I/O operations. 4.3 Logical Separation of multiple LAN traffic types Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) are used to provide security and logical separation of various traffic types required for virtualization. 4.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture 4.5 VMware vSphere Features The solution is designed to enable key features of VMware vSphere: Support for VMware HA to enable High Availability for VMs. VMware vMotion is supported for manual load balancing and zero downtime maintenance. VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), Dynamic Power Management (DPM), and Storage vMotion are also supported. 60 day trial versions of VMware vCenter Server and vSphere ESXi are included.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture LAN - This network supports management, VM, vMotion, and out-of-band management. In addition, uplinks to core infrastructure provide connectivity to the solution support services (DNS, NTP, and Database for vCenter Server). SAN – This network supports iSCSI data and SAN switch management traffic. Uplinks are supported to connect into an existing iSCSI network; however, these uplinks are not required for full solution functionality.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture The table below summarizes the use of each traffic type. Table 3. Traffic Type Traffic Type Summary Use Management Supports virtualization management traffic and communication between the ESXi servers in the cluster, and configuration and monitoring of the storage arrays and LAN switches. vMotion Supports migration of VMs between ESXi servers in the cluster.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture ―Mgmt‖ is a VMKernel port, which allows the ESXi kernel to communicate with the management network. Figure 4. LAN vSwitch configuration 5.3 SAN Architecture The SAN includes two PowerConnect 7048 or 6248 switches, which support iSCSI data traffic. The two switches are connected together with stacking modules on each switch.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Figure 5. SAN vSwitch Configuration An additional VMkernel port is created on the iSCSI subnet serving as the default vmkernel port for storage heartbeat traffic with the EqualLogic storage. This heartbeat sits outside of the iSCSI software initiator and does not consume any additional iSCSI storage connections. It is simply used as the lowest vmkernel port for vmkping and other iSCSI network functions.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Figure 6. EqualLogic Organizational Concepts Group Pool Member Pool Member Member The iSCSI volumes are created at the pool level. In the case where multiple members are placed in a single pool, the data is distributed amongst the members of the pool. With data being distributed over a larger number of disks, the potential performance of iSCSI volumes within the pool is increased with each member added. 5.3.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture simultaneous iSCSI sessions. For more information, refer to the current EqualLogic Firmware (FW) Release Notes available at the EqualLogic Support site. 5.4 Management Architecture The management architecture of the vStart configurations includes hardware and software components that will manage all components of the vStart architecture. They can be found on the R620 server or on VMs running on the R620. 5.4.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture LAN Switch Management: Management of the LAN switches can be performed through a web browser, serial cable, or telnet. EqualLogic Array Management: The EqualLogic arrays are managed through the EqualLogic Group Manager web interface which can be accessed from the management server. Administrator primary tasks within Group Manager include configuration and troubleshooting of the arrays.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Figure 7. Management Overview (LAN) PowerEdge R720 ESXi Cluster PowerEdge R620 Management Server (vCenter Server, SAN HQ) 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 LNK 47 ACT R 5 4 Stack No.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture 6 Scalability When adding additional servers or storage to the rack, power, weight, and cooling requirements must be taken into account. The power limits of PDUs and UPS must be understood prior to installing a new system. Switch ports on both the LAN and SAN switches are available for expansion. Those ports must be enabled and configured to support the new servers and/or storage arrays.
vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture 7 References VMware references: VMware vSphere Edition Comparisons https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/editions_comparison.html VMware vSphere Compatibility Matrixes http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_compatibility_matrix.pdf VMware High Availability (HA): Deployment Best Practices http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10166 EqualLogic references: Dell EqualLogic PS Series Architecture Whitepaper http://www.
