vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview Release 1.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview Table of Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4 2 Audience............................................................................................................... 4 3 Solution Overview ................................................................................................... 5 3.1 Storage Expansion Options ...........................................
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview 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.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview 3 Solution Overview The solution discussed in this whitepaper is powered by Dell PowerEdge servers, Dell EqualLogic iSCSI storage, Dell PowerConnect networking, and VMware vSphere. The solution implements Dell and VMware best practices and utilizes the latest Dell-developed vSphere integration offerings that provide management enhancements.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview Below is the description of the solution components: Table 1. Component Component Logical Groups Description Role ESXi Cluster PowerEdge R620 servers running VMware ESXi Embedded Host virtual machines (VMs) iSCSI Storage EqualLogic PS6100X with 24 x 300 GB 10K RPM 2.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview 3.2 Product Overview This section provides an overview of the components in the solution. 3.2.1 PowerEdge R620 for ESXi Cluster The Dell PowerEdge R620 uses Intel® Xeon® E5 2600 series processors and Intel chipset architecture in a 1U rack mount form factor. The R620 supports up to ten 2.5” drives. There is also an option for an LCD on the front of the server for system health monitoring, alerting, and basic management configuration.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview EqualLogic also provides a Multipath Extension Module (MEM) for VMware vSphere to enable MPIO for the iSCSI storage.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview 3.2.3 PowerEdge R420 for management server The Dell PowerEdge R420 uses Intel® Xeon® E5 2400 series processors and Intel chipset architecture in a 1U rack mount form factor. The PowerEdge R420 supports up to eight 2.5” drives. The internal RAID controllers supported are PERC H310/H710/H710P. The server features two sockets and 12 memory DIMM slots supporting 2, 4, 8, 16 or 32GB DIMMs, up to a total of 192 GB of memory.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview 4 Delivery Model The solution will be racked, cabled, and delivered to the customer site, ready for deployment1. Dell Services will deploy and configure the solution based upon the architecture developed and validated by Dell Engineering, while meeting the customer’s business and technical needs. The final turn-key virtualization infrastructure solution will be available for customer’s use.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview 5 Design Principles and Solution Capabilities This section lists the design principles, requirements, and solution capabilities behind the vStart solution architecture. 5.1 No Single Point of Failure The solution is designed so that there is no single point of failure and redundancy is incorporated into all mission critical components of the solution.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview Table 3.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview 5.6 Leverage EqualLogic Storage Integration with VMware As mentioned earlier in the document, EqualLogic is tightly integrated with VMware to provide better performance and manageability. Integration is achieved through various features like EqualLogic MEM for storage network connection multipathing, VAAI integration for better performance, and ASM/VE for snapshot capabilities. These features are available as a part of the solution. 5.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview Figure 3. Screenshot of Dell Management Plug-in for vCenter 6.3 System Inventory In addition to providing health information, the Dell Management Plug-in for vCenter also provides a detailed inventory from Dell servers. Dell hardware warranty information can also be accessed online. 6.4 Performance Monitoring Performance monitoring and troubleshooting can often be difficult in a complex environment such as virtualized infrastructure.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview Figure 4. Screenshot of the HIT/VE Plug-in for vCenter 6.6 Hardware and Hypervisor Maintenance Change Management can include updating the server hardware (BIOS and firmware), storage array, and hypervisor. There are several ways to update server BIOS and firmware; one of the easiest ways is through the Dell Management Plug-in for vCenter. Updates can be applied using just a single console and with zero down time.
vStart 50 VMware vSphere Solution Overview Ability to launch iDRAC console from Dell Management Plug-in for vCenter For more information, see the Embedded Server Management web site. 7 Cooling, Power, and Weight Requirements This section provides power, cooling, and weight requirements for the solution. Power values provided in the table are estimated maximum power values for the solution based on Dell Labs measurements.
