Dell EMC XC430 Series Hyper-Converged Appliance Solutions Guide
Notes, cautions, and warnings NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your product. CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid the problem. WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death. © 2015 - 2019 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Dell, EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Contents 1 About Dell Hyper-Converged Appliance solution.............................................................................................4 2 Supported hardware, firmware, and software................................................................................................ 5 3 Documentation references.............................................................................................................................6 4 Licensing overview.............................................
1 About Dell Hyper-Converged Appliance solution Dell provides a hyper-converged appliance solution that includes the Dell XC430 server and software from Nutanix (used as a virtual appliance), which simplifies virtualization by converging computer, storage, and network into a single appliance that is deployed in a clustered environment. The following figures show the Dell XC430. For more information about the Dell XC430 appliance, see the Dell XC430 Owner’s Manual available at Dell.com/xcseriesmanuals.
2 Supported hardware, firmware, and software For a list of the most up-to-date supported hardware, firmware, and software, see the Dell XC430 Hyper-Converged Appliance Support Matrix available at Dell.com/xcseriesmanuals.
3 Documentation references For information about the Dell documents, see the Support Matrix specific for your product. For information about the Nutanix documents that applies to a specific release of Nutanix solution software, see the Support Matrix specific for your product.
4 Licensing overview The Nutanix virtual computing platform includes various features that allow you to administer your environment according to your current and future requirements. You can use the default feature set of the Nutanix solution software, upgrade to an enhanced feature set, update your license for a longer term, or reassign existing licenses to nodes or clusters as required.
License management For more information about license management, complete the following tasks: 1 On the Nutanix Documentation portal, see the Web Console Guide (for access details, see the Documentation matrix section in the Support Matrix). 2 In the Nutanix Web Console Guide, see the License Management section. 3 Perform the relevant licensing tasks for your system.
5 Deploying your appliance Before you deploy your appliance, ensure that you read through this document and have yourself familiarized with the process and required materials. WARNING: Before you set up and operate your Dell appliance, review the safety instructions that shipped with your storage enclosure. WARNING: The weight of your appliance without the physical disk drives installed (empty weight) is 16.73 kg (36.88 lb). WARNING: Your appliance must be installed by Dell certified service technicians.
• Virtual Machines should not be run directly on the SATADOM. Ensure that the Virtual Machines run only on solid state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs). Before you begin CAUTION: It is important that you perform all the steps in this guide prior to doing other configuration steps.
Boot error message for missing SD card The Dell appliance has only one SD card. When you start the appliance, you may see the following error message: The secondary SD card is missing, not responding, or in write-protected mode. Do one of the following: 1 Install an SD card media in the secondary SD card slot. 2 Reseat or replace the SD card media. 3 If the secondary SD card is intentionally not installed or write-protected mode is expected, then no response is required.
• Disables drivers associated with pass-through storage controllers. • Installs the following VIBs: Nutanix VAAI, updated ixgbe and igb driver, and GPU VIBs (if applicable). • Renames local VMFS datastore to standard naming convention: NTNX-local-ds--. • Starts CVM and check for the existence of /tmp/svm_boot_succeeded. • Restarts host.
• For more information, see the Acropolis Virtualization Administration Guide. VMware vSphere: • Create storage pools through the Nutanix web console. • Create and mount containers as NFS datastores on appropriate hosts through the Nutanix web console. • Manually add and configure vSphere clusters by using the Nutanix guidelines. For more information, see the vSphere Administration Guide. Microsoft Hyper-V: • Create storage pools and containers through the Nutanix web console.
6 Downloading and installing Software applications Topics: • OpenManage Essentials • Installing Dell OpenManage Essentials on a separate server • Dell Nautilus OpenManage Essentials OpenManage Essentials is a hardware management application on a separate server that provides a comprehensive view of the Dell XC430 and its components.
• Documentation Dell Nautilus Dell Nautilus is a general maintenance release utility for updating firmware for SAS and SATA drives (or disks). For information about the supported Dell Nautilus version number, see the Supported hardware, firmware, and software section in this document. To download the Dell Nautilus Firmware Update Utility for SAS and SATA disk Solid State Drives (SSDs): 1 Go to Dell.com/support/drivers.
7 Monitoring Table 2.
8 Updating firmware Table 3.
9 Replacing hardware This section describes high-level tasks to replace components correctly within the Dell appliance solution. Before you begin, for information about downloading the following required documents for the three hardware replacement tasks, see the Documentation matrix section in the Support Matrix. The documents are: • Hardware Replacement Documentation • Dell XC430 Hyper-Converged Appliance Owner’s Manual After you review these documents, proceed to hardware replacement tasks.
10 Recovering appliance For information about recovering your appliance, contact Dell Support.
11 Getting help Topics: • • • • Contacting Dell EMC Dell SupportAssist Locating Service Tag Quick Resource Locator Contacting Dell EMC Dell EMC provides several online and telephone based support and service options. If you do not have an active internet connection, you can find contact information about your purchase invoice, packing slip, bill, or Dell EMC product catalog. Availability varies by country and product, and some services may not be available in your area.
Figure 5. Locating service tag Quick Resource Locator Use the Quick Resource Locator (QRL) to get immediate access to system information and how-to videos. This can be done by visiting Dell.com/QRL or by using your smartphone or tablet and a model specific Quick Resource (QR) code located on your Dell system. To try out the QR code, scan the following image. Figure 6.