Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter 1.7 Reference Guide
Contents
1. 20 7 21 Dell Inc 3 vStart 100 200 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 vSphere is offered as two configurations vStart 100 and 200 The vStart 100 and 200 configurations include Dell PowerEdge R720 servers running VMware ESXi Dell EqualLogic PS6100 iSCSI storage Dell PowerConnect switches and a Dell PowerEdge R620 server that manages the solution by hosting VMware vCenter Server VMware ESXi versions 4 1 Update 2 and 5 0 are both supported The solution can either be configured with PowerConnect 6248 or PowerConnect 7048 switches The configurations also include Dell Management and Dell EqualLogic Host Integration Tools for VMware Edition HIT VE Plug ins for VMware vCenter The two vStart configurations discussed in this paper vary based upon the number of R720 servers and EqualLogic PS6100 storage arrays required to meet the customer s resource needs The following documents are available to describe the various aspects of the solution Customers can contact their Dell Sales teams to get the latest version of these documents e vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Th2. ip BEBE OR BEE EqualLogic PS6100 e tt sid Optional Available with vStart 200 Storage Expansion PowerEdge R720 m o 9 r4 5 a PowerEdge R620 PowerConnect 7048 EqualLogic SAN HQ and Group Manager OMSA Out of Band Virtualization Cluster Management Dell Management and HIT VE Plug ins for VMware vCenter Server Dell Inc 6 vStart 100 200 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 5 SAS Drives Provide shared storage for the ESXi cluster to host the VMs Management Server PowerEdge R620 server running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Standard Edition Host VMware vCenter Server and EqualLogic SAN HQ LAN Traffic Switches PowerConnect 7048 or 6248 switches Support VM vMotion Management and Out of Band Management traffic SAN Traffic Switches PowerConnect 7048 or 6248 switches Support iSCSI data and iSCSI management traffic Dell Management Plug in for VMware vCenter Dell virtual appliance hosted on the ESXi Cluster Enables hardware monitoring inventory firmware updates bare
3. Management Assistant For more information refer to the white paper Dell Systems Management for VMware ESX and ESXi available at http support dell com support edocs software eslvmwre sysman sysman htm For the PowerEdge R620 the Dell OpenManage Installation DVD is available for download from support dell com The OpenManage Web Service option allows the PowerEdge R620 to serve out the OpenManage web pages for the ESXi servers The OMSA option provides hardware management for the local system Dell Management Plug in for VMware vCenter The plug in provides server details for all PowerEdge R720 servers in the solution at the datacenter cluster and host level within vCenter Server Inventory monitoring alerting BIOS and firmware updates and access to online warranty information are available within vCenter Server In addition the plug in provides the ability to directly launch the iDRAC or OMSA web interfaces for each server ESXi Cluster Management Management of the ESXi cluster will typically be performed directly with vCenter Server but can also be performed by connecting to each server through the VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client VI Client In addition for troubleshooting purposes KVM or virtual console through iDRAC connectivity to an ESXi server may be required to utilize the Direct Console User Interface DCUI Dell Inc 17 vStart 100 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture LAN Switch Management
4. 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 The HIT VE Plug in for VMware vCenter can also be used to manage the storage arrays from within vCenter Server EqualLogic Array Monitoring SAN HQ is installed on the management server to provide current performance monitoring and historical statistics Group Manager can also be used for array monitoring A logical overview of the LAN management architecture is shown in Figure 7 Notice that the PS6100 arrays are managed via the dedicated management ports that are connected to the LAN switches Dell Inc 18 vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Figure 7 Management Overview LAN PowerEdge R720 LAN PowerConnect 7048 Core Network SS ENEE S38 Gene ie ualLogic PS6100 Support Services AD DNS Database NTP 7 Cp dnd ae ie For Management Server Soluti Dell Inc PowerEdge R620 1Gb LAN Out Of Band Mgmt 19 vStart 100 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture 6 Scalability When adding additional servers or st
5. 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 1 Management the LAN The management of the devices on the LAN includes the following items e Out of band server management e Server management through Dell OpenManage Server Administrator e Server management through Dell Management Plug in for VMware vCenter e ESXi cluster management through VMware vCenter e switch management through CLI or web browser e EqualLogic array management and monitoring Server Out of Band Management The PowerEdge R720 servers and the PowerEdge R620 can be managed directly by connecting to the iDRAC7 web interface In addition the iDRA7 supports remote KVM through a virtual console Dell OpenManage Server Administrator OMSA OMSA should be installed on the PowerEdge R720 servers and the PowerEdge R620 For the PowerEdge R720 servers OMSA is available to download as OpenManage Offline Bundle and VIB for ESXi from support dell com OMSA can be installed on each ESXi server either using vSphere Command Line Interface vSphere CLI or VMware vSphere
6. metal deployment of hypervisors and warranty retrieval all integrated into the vCenter Server user interface Dell EqualLogic HIT VE Plug in for VMware vCenter Dell virtual appliance hosted on the ESXi Cluster Enables Auto Snapshots and storage volume management all integrated into the vCenter Server user interface 3 1 Product Overview This section provides an overview of the components in the solution 3 1 1 PowerEdge R720 for ESXi 4 Cluster The Dell PowerEdge R720 uses Intel Xeon E5 2600 series processors and Intel chipset architecture in a 1U rack mount form factor The R720 supports up to sixteen 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 The server features two CPU sockets and 24 memory DIMM slots supporting 2 4 8 16 or 32GB DIMMs to meet the memory demands of a virtualized infrastructure 3 1 2 EqualLogic PS6100 for iSCSI Storage The Dell EqualLogic PS6100 is a virtualized iSCSI SAN that combines intelligence and automation with fault tolerance to provide simplified administration rapid deployment enterprise performance and reliability and seamless scalability The storage architecture delivers a self optimizing SAN that is simple to manage and has an all inclusive software suite to help reduce Total Cost of Ownership TCO In the vStart 100 and 200 the PS6100X uses 10 000 RPM Serial Attac
7. vSphere Reference Architecture Mgmt is a VMKernel port which allows the ESXi kernel to communicate with the management network Figure 4 LAN vSwitch configuration Virtual Switch vSwitch Remove Properties Virtual Machine Port Group Physical Adapters 3 Mgmt Network e vmnict 1000 Full 3 VLAN ID 162 e vmnic2 1000 Full 2 Virtual Machine Port Group e 9 vmnic6 1000 Full 4 J Network e e vmnico 1000 Full VLAN ID 167 VMkemel Port J vMotion e vmk6 172 30 22 101 VLAN ID 30 VMkemel Port Mgmt e vmk0 172 162 22 101 VLAN ID 162 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 In addition the solution supports up to eight 1Gb uplinks from each switch to link into an existing core iSCSI network infrastructure If required 10Gb uplink modules may be added to each switch The two switches are connected using two 10Gb Inter switch links ISLs The two 10Gb Link Aggregation Groups LAGs provide a path for communication across the switches In addition the LAGS support traffic between EqualLogic arrays if more than one array is present in the configuration The traffic for the SAN is also segregated into its own VLAN This facilitates isolation from the default VLAN and gives a separation between SAN traffic and any other traffic that it may c
8. Logic Group and Pool Configuration Each EqualLogic array or member is assigned to a particular group Groups help in simplifying management by enabling management of all members in a group from a single interface Each group contains one or more storage pools Each pool must contain one or more members and each member is associated with only one storage pool Figure 6 shows an example of a group with three members distributed across two pools Dell Inc 15 vStart 100 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Figure 6 EqualLogic Organizational Concepts 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 2 Storage Array RAID Configuration The storage array RAID configuration is highly dependent on the workload in your virtual environment The EqualLogic PS series storage arrays support four RAID types RAID 5 RAID 6 RAID 10 and RAID 50 The RAID configuration will depend on workloads and customer requirements In general RAID 10 provides the best performance at the expense of storage capacity RAID 10 generally provides better performance in random 1 0 situations and requires additional overhead in the case of a drive failure scenario RAID 50 generally p
9. M 4 2 4 4 3 1 Product OVERVIEW Mm 7 4 Design Principles and Solution Capabilities eene nnne nnn 9 4 1 No Single Point of Failure sess cccins ena terret rete rer reta seine aie MEER 9 4 2 Physical Separation of LAN and iSCSI SAN Traffic 10 4 3 Logical Separation of multiple LAN traffic types 10 4 4 Requirements for Integration into an Existing Data Center 10 4 5 VMware vSphere Features 11 4 6 Leverage EqualLogic Storage Integration with VMware 11 4 7 Thin Provisioning eoo serena epa Deoa ere pepe s se Dents ee goes nee Penser peres Deos s ge peces 11 4 8 Storage TIering os 2593595233 435993334399 5 483 433 99 08 QU aS E 11 NE gene eleutalelen 11 5 1 Network Architecture Overview sesenta tenens 11 5 2 LAN Pss TII IIT TIDAL 13 5 3 SAN Architect re 14 5 4 Management Architecture EO br EPIRI NEAR DUE RUE 17 6 Scalability
10. OOB management traffic is performed by the PowerConnect switches For the other traffic types the tagging is performed in the virtual switch by the ESXi hypervisor The PowerConnect switches can be configured to provide the routing function Additional VLANs can be implemented for VM traffic if required Table 4 provides an overview of the port configurations in the two PowerConnect LAN switches Trunk mode is used to allow multiple VLANs on a port and access mode is used when the switch performs the VLAN tagging function Each PowerEdge R720 has eight 1Gb ports of which four are dedicated for LAN traffic In addition the iDRAC OOB management interface is connected to the LAN switches A single ESXi virtual switch is created to support all LAN traffic Route based on the originating virtual switch port ID is recommended for the vSwitch load balancing Unique port groups are then created for management and VM traffic In addition VMkernel interfaces are defined for management and vMotion traffic Each port group and VMkernel interface is configured to tag with the appropriate VLAN The Management port group is utilized by the Dell Management Plug in and the EqualLogic HIT VE Plug in for VMware vCenter Figure 4 is a screenshot taken in vCenter Server of the LAN virtual switch on Server 1 Mgmt Network is a Virtual Machine Port Group which allows VMs to communicate on the management network and Dell Inc 13 vStart 100 200 VMware
11. a network path in out of the vStart LAN switches to the customer s network Existing network routing must be in place before the vStart solution can communicate with database DNS NTP and other services in the customers environment For details about the databases supported by vCenter Server refer to the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix DNS provides name resolution services for various solution components while an NTP server is required to synchronize time across various components in the solution and to enable VMware HA functionality Dell Inc 10 vStart 100 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture 4 5 VMware vSphere Features The solution is designed to enable key features of VMware vSphere e Support for VMware HA to enable High Availability for VMs e VMware vMotion is supported for manual load balancing and zero downtime maintenance e VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler DRS Dynamic Power Management DPM and Storage vMotion are also supported e 60 day trial versions of VMware vCenter Server and vSphere ESXi are included Additional OS licenses needed See your Dell Sales and Services representatives for more information 4 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 storag
12. affic Type Summary Traffic Type 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 VM Supports communication between the VMs hosted on the ESXi cluster and external systems Out of Band Supports configuration and monitoring of the servers through the iDRAC Management management interface iSCSI Data Supports iSCSI traffic between the servers and storage array s In addition the SAN switches can be managed on this network 5 2 LAN Architecture The LAN includes two PowerConnect 7048 or 6248 switches which support VM management vMotion and out of band management OOB traffic These traffic types are logically separated through the use of VLANs The two switches are stacked together which forms a single logical switch and provides a 48Gb stack bandwidth between the two PC6224 switches or 64Gb stack bandwidth between the two PC7024 switches The solution provides four 1Gb uplinks from each switch to link into an existing core network infrastructure If the core network infrastructure supports 10Gb Ethernet then 10Gb uplink modules may be added to each switch The traffic on the LAN is separated into four VLANs one VLAN each for management vMotion VM and OOB management traffic VLAN tagging for the
13. e network connection multipathing VAAI integration for better performance and ASM VE for snapshot capabilities These features are available as a part of the solution 4 7 Thin Provisioning The solution enables support for thin provisioning of storage both at the EqualLogic and the ESX level Thin provisioning avoids the inefficiencies of over allocation by limiting the actual physical storage resource allocation to what is utilized now and enables the automatic addition of storage resources as the requirements grow 4 8 Storage Tiering EqualLogic PS arrays provide IT organizations numerous techniques for storage tiering as a standard part of their all inclusive feature set These techniques extend the automation at the core of the PS Series design philosophy while allowing broad customization of storage tiers to suit a wide range of business and organizational requirements 5 Architecture The architecture for the vStart 100 and 200 is identical with the exception of the smaller number of servers and storage arrays in the vStart 100 As such the architecture discussed in this section will focus on the vStart 200 For those targeting to purchase or have currently deployed the vStart 100 the three additional servers and one additional iSCSI array can be ignored 5 1 Network Architecture Overview vSphere network traffic in this solution is comprised of four distinct types Virtual Machine VM Management vMotion and iSCSI In additi
14. hed SCSI SAS 2 5 form factor disk drives to provide capacity and performance for a range of applications Dell Inc vStart 100 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture With a 24 drive chassis full of 600GB SAS drives the PS6100X array delivers 14 4 Terabyte TB of iSCSI based 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 1 0 MPIO and consistency sets SAN is also available for Multi SAN historical performance monitoring Advanced data protection features such as Auto Replication and Auto Snapshot Manager ASM also come standard The ASM integrates with VMware vCenter and VMware s native snapshot technology to provide intelligent and consistent snapshots EqualLogic also provides a Multipath Extension Module MEM for VMware vSphere to enable MPIO for the iSCSI storage EqualLogic MEM offers e Ease of installation and iSCSI configuration in ESXi servers e Increased bandwidth e Reduced network latency e Automatic load balancing across multiple active paths e Automatic connection management e Automatic failure detection and failover e Multiple connections to a single iSCSI target 3 1 3 PowerEdge R620 management server The Dell PowerEdge R620 uses Intel Xeon E5 2600 series processors and Intel chipset arc
15. hitecture in 10 rack mount form factor The R620 supports up to ten 2 5 drives There is also an option for LCD on the front of the server for system health monitoring alerting and basic management configuration The server features two CPU sockets and 24 memory DIMM slots supporting 2 4 8 16 or 32GB DIMMs to meet the memory demands of a virtualized infrastructure 3 1 4 PowerConnect 7048 or 6248 for LAN and SAN Traffic At the heart of the solutions network configuration are four Dell PowerConnect 7048 and 6248 switches This managed Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet switch offers the enterprise class level of performance required for this configuration The LAN switches use a stacked configuration that enables connection redundancy and added bandwidth where required Additionally its 10Gb uplink enables design and implementation flexibility needed by advanced users LAN and SAN switches are physically and logically separated per best practices to support security and network traffic segmentation VLANs are implemented to support solution management security and network traffic segmentation and routing is leveraged to provide flexible connectivity Dell Inc 8 vStart 100 200 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 This enables customers to e Get deep level detail from Dell servers for invento
16. is document Provides solution overview and reference architecture for the solution e vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Solution Overview Provides a solution overview including various components and how the solution is delivered e vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Solution Specification Provides a detailed specification of various components included in the solution e vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Solution Design Guide Provides a detailed architectural solution design 2 Audience This document provides an overview of the vStart solution Customers including CTOs and IT managers can use this document to understand the overview and scope of the solution IT administrators and managers can use this document to understand the solution architecture 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 Dell Management Plug in for VMware vCenter and Dell EqualLogic HIT VE Plug in for vCenter are included in the solution which provides integration of Dell hardware management and storage configuration with vCenter EqualLogic SAN HeadQuarters SAN HQ is included in the solution for storage array management and monitoring The solution also inc
17. lLogic PS Series Architecture Whitepaper http www dell com downloads global products pvaul en dell_EqualLogic_architecture pdf e Configuring iSCSI Connectivity with VMware vSphere 5 and Dell EqualLogic PS Series Storage http www equallogic com WorkArea DownloadAsset aspx id 10799 e Host Integration Tools for VMware http www dell com downloads global products pvaul en EqualLogic host software pdf http www delltechcenter com page EqualLogic HIT VE new features fbid xzSL8xnCju5 e How to Select the Correct RAID for an EqualLogic SAN http www EqualLogic com resourcecenter assetview aspx id 8071 e Using Tiered Storage in a PS Series SAN http www EqualLogic com resourcecenter assetview aspx id 5239 e Monitoring your PS Series SAN with SAN HQ http www EqualLogic com resourcecenter assetview aspx id 8749 Dell Management e Dell Management Plug In for VMware vCenter references Solution Brief http content dell com us en enterprise d business solutions virtualization en Documents dell management plug in vmware vcenter solution brief pdf aspx Dell Inc 21
18. ludes the rack power distribution units PDU and an optional uninterruptible power supply UPS KMM Keyboard Monitor Mouse and management server The solution is offered in two main configurations vStart 100 and 200 The variations between the two configurations are the number of PowerEdge R720 servers in the ESXi cluster and the number of EqualLogic arrays vStart 100 includes three PowerEdge R720 servers and one EqualLogic array vStart Dell Inc 4 vStart 100 200 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 Configuration Overview D Gane Bee ie BEBE ERE SE Optional Available with vStart 100 Storage Expansion EqualLogic PS6100 PowerEdge R720 m o S 2 PowerEdge R620 EqualLogic SAN HQ and Group Manager OMSA Out of Band Virtualization Cluster Management Dell Management and HIT VE Plug ins for VMware vCenter Server PowerConnect 7048 Dell Inc 5 vStart 100 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Figure 2 vStart 200 Configuration Overview BE
19. n 4 4 Requirements for Integration into an Existing Data Center A database domain name services DNS network time protocol NTP and routing between VLANs are requirements for the vStart solution The architectures assume that a network core and routing are in place and that a database is configured for VMware vCenter Server DNS and NTP support must also be configured and running in the customer s environment prior to deploying a vStart solution A site survey may be needed to gather additional information and confirm customer requirements Table 2 below provides more details about the requirements For more information about the site survey please contact your Dell Sales and Services representatives Table 2 Customer Infrastructure and vStart Solution Infrastructure Requirement Function vStart Solution Requirements Database vCenter Server requires a Existing database that can be database to store details about reached by the vCenter Server vCenter Server hosts VMs and to be installed in vStart or related attributes existing vCenter Server and database DNS Provides name resolution for IP ESXi hosts iDRAC and the address to hostnames Management Server require access to DNS for name resolution NTP Provides time synchronization ESXi hosts PowerConnect services for components in the solution Switches and EqualLogic Storage Arrays require time synchronization Network Routing Provides
20. of the solution Management applications are not architected with this level of redundancy because the mission critical workloads will continue to operate in the event of a management application failure Network redundancy for the mission critical components is achieved with redundant network interface controllers NICs and redundant switches VMware vSwitches provide failover and NIC teaming functionality across the redundant network interfaces Similarly for iSCSI storage redundancy is achieved with redundant NICs switches and storage controllers For both network and iSCSI traffic the redundant NICs are selected in such a way that they are mapped across the LAN On Motherboards LOMs and add in controllers to avoid any single point of failure VMware High Availability HA provides HA for VMs by restarting the VMs on other ESXi servers when an ESXi server failure is detected The solution also includes redundant power supplies connected to separate PDUs Dell Inc 9 vStart 100 200 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 1 0 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 virtualizatio
21. ome across if the SAN is uplinked to a LAN or extended to another SAN for replication For each PowerEdge R720 a single virtual switch is created to support all SAN traffic Four 1Gb physical networks that are dedicated for iSCSI traffic are connected to this virtual switch as shown in Figure 5 Four VMkernel vmk interfaces are created and each VMkernel interface is associated with only one physical network port Dell Inc 14 vStart 100 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Figure 5 SAN vSwitch Configuration Virtual Switch vSwitchi Remove Properties VMkernel Port Physical Adapters 3 ISCSI3 vmnic7 1000 Full vmks5 172 50 22 131 He 9 vmnics 1000 Full A VMkernel Port j e Ep vmnic3 1000 Full 9 2 15 512 4 Legg vmnici 1000 Ful 2 vmk4 172 50 22 121 VMkerne Port 67 ISCSI1 e vmk3 172 50 22 111 VMkernel Port 3 ISCSIO e vmk2 172 50 22 101 VMkerne Port 3 StorageHeartbeat e vmk1 172 50 22 150 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 This heartbeat has to be the lowest VMkernel port on the vSwitch and is not bound to the software initiator 5 3 1 Equal
22. on support for out of band management is included Two separate networks are created to support different traffic types 1 http www equallogic com solutions default aspx id 9687 Dell Inc 11 vStart 100 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture e 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 e 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 Figure 3 below depicts the logical LAN and SAN network architecture Detailed diagrams are available throughout the remainder of the document Figure 3 Network Topology Logical View R720 PowerEdge ect 7048 nect 7048 LAN PowerConn SAN PowerCont Meun Gee 56100 ssa ieee ialLogic 1Gb SAN AD DNS NTP Stacking Link Database for _ Management Server pom ae a 1 10Gb Out Of Band Mgmt Equi H a t a 5 8 Dell Inc 12 vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture The table below summarizes the use of each traffic type Table 3 Tr
23. orage 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 Adding new servers to the ESXi Cluster If additional VMs will be deployed that will exceed current resource capabilities or the ESXi cluster has reached its acceptable maximum CPU and memory resource utilization then additional servers can be added to the cluster Previously created iSCSI volumes on the EqualLogic array may require modifications to the access controls to grant access to the newly added servers When adding servers to an ESXi cluster it is recommended that the configuration be identical to the other systems in the cluster If this is not achievable then there may be restrictions on certain actions such as vMotion between the differing systems To understand vMotion compatibility requirements refer to the Dell whitepaper VMware vMotion and 64 Bit Virtual Machine Support for Dell PowerEdge Systems Compatibility Matrix available at http support dell com support edocs software eslyvmwre VS index htm For quick addition of a new server and for the ESXi cluster to be uniform host profiles can be used A host profile is created from an existing server on the same ESXi cluster It will cap
24. rovides more usable storage but has less performance than RAID 10 RAID 5 provides the most storage capacity at the expense of lower performance and availability than RAID 10 RAID 6 provides better data protection than RAID 5 or 50 For more information on configuring RAID in EqualLogic refer to the white paper How to Select the Correct RAID for an EqualLogic SAN available at http www EqualLogic com resourcecenter assetview aspx id 8071 5 3 3 Volume Size Considerations Volumes are created in the storage pools Volume sizes depend on the customer environment and the type of workloads Volumes must be sized to accommodate not only the VM virtual hard drive but also the size of the virtual memory of the VM and additional capacity for any snapshots of the VM Depending on the environment you may decide to create multiple 500 GB volumes with multiple VMs It is important to include space for the guest operating system memory cache snapshots and VMware configuration files when sizing these volumes Additionally you can configure thin provisioned volumes to grow on demand only when additional storage is needed for those volumes Thin provisioning can increase the efficiency of storage utilization With each volume created and presented to the servers additional iSCSI sessions are initiated When planning the solution it is important to understand that group and pool limits exist for the number of Dell Inc 16 vStart 100 200
25. ry monitoring and alerting all from within vCenter e Apply BIOS and Firmware updates to Dell servers from within vCenter e Automatically perform Dell recommended vCenter actions based on Dell hardware alerts e Access Dell hardware warranty information online e Rapidly deploy new bare metal hosts using Profile features EqualLogic HIT VE Plug in for vCenter is also included in the solution HIT VE enables customers to e Create and manage Smart Copies and Smart Clones of VI objects e Schedule creation of Smart Copies and Smart Clones e Provision new datastores and expand existing datastores e Create and deploy Virtual Desktops This is outside the scope of this solution and requires additional software For more information on Dell Management Plug in for VMware vCenter see the Dell Management Plug in for VMware vCenter web page For more information about the Dell EqualLogic HIT VE Plug in for VMware vCenter see Dell EqualLogic Host Integration Toolkit VMware Edition HIT VE Auto Snapshot Manager 3 0 at http www dellstorage com WorkArea DownloadAsset aspx id 1616 amp terms HIT72f VE 4 Design Principles and Solution Capabilities This section lists the design principles requirements and solution capabilities behind the vStart solution architecture 4 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
26. ture the networking storage and security settings from the validated configuration A new server with the basic vSphere installation can be added to the cluster and the host profile can then be applied to setup the networking storage and security configuration Note that host profiles require vSphere Enterprise Plus license edition Adding new storage to the EqualLogic group New EqualLogic arrays can be added to the existing EqualLogic group As each new array is added to the storage group the storage capacity and performance in terms of both bandwidth and IOPS are increased This increased capacity can be utilized without downtime When a new array is added to an existing pool the existing data will automatically be distributed to the newly added array If EqualLogic thin provisioning was utilized and virtual capacity allocated is nearing the limit of physical capacity then adding an additional storage array to the constrained pool will address this issue Dell Inc 20 vStart 100 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture 7 References VMware references e VMware vSphere Edition Comparisons https www vmware com products vsphere buy editions_comparison html e VMware vSphere Compatibility Matrixes http www vmware com pdf vsphere4 r40 vsp_compatibility_matrix pdf e VMware High Availability HA Deployment Best Practices http www vmware com resources techresources 10166 EqualLogic references e Dell Equa
27. vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Release 1 3 for 12 Generation Servers Dell Virtualization Solutions Engineering Revision March 2012 vStart 100 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture 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 Dell the DELL logo PowerConnect PowerEdge EqualLogic and OpenManage are trademarks of Dell Inc Microsoft Windows Server and SQL Server are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and or other countries Intel and Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation VMware ESXi vSphere and vCenter are registered trademarks or trademarks the Marks of VMware Inc in the United States and or other jurisdictions Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products Dell Inc disclaims any proprietary interest in trademarks and trade names other than its own March 2012 Dell Inc 2 vStart 100 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture Table of Contents UE
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