VxBlock

Dell EMC – Enterprise Hybrid Cloud (EHC) 4.1.2

David Ring FEHC , , , , , , ,

EHC LOGO

EHC (Enterprise Hybrid Cloud) which is the DellEMC turnkey VMware (vRealize Suite) based cloud offering has made great strides in recent releases transforming the cloud strategy for CPSD CI/HCI, namely EHC on VxBlock/VxRack Flex/VxRail (Engineered, manufactured, managed, supported and sustained as one product) and this release is no different with massive improvements around automation especially in relation to both the Install and Upgrade process associated with the EHC platform on VxRail leading to far quicker and more seamless deployments of the EHC stack. Enhanced multi-site capabilities, DRaaS offering on VxRail and factory delivered EHC on VxRack Flex w/NSX are some of the biggest milestones with this release. Continue reading →

V(x)Block – AMP VUM & SQL Active Directory Integration

David Ring FEHC, Vblock, VMware , , , , ,

When a VxBlock is shipped from the factory all Windows & SQL user/db accounts are setup as local accounts, due to obvious reasons (customer AD does not exist in factory!). This post details the steps to integrate a VUM VM & SQL with Active Directory and change the local WIN&SQL accounts to AD accounts, along with modifying the SQL DB permissions to an assigned AD account.

At a high level these are the prerequisite steps:

– Change DNS values on the Windows VUM VM (if different from LCS stated values).
– Join Windows VUM VM to AD.
– Reboot VUM VM.
– Snapshot VUM VM (precautionary step).
– Add domain\svc_vum to local admin group of the VUM VM.

Use the following procedure to configure domain service accounts for the VUM Server and services & configure SQL Server access permissions on a VxBlock based EHC deployment:

Continue reading →

DellEMC EHC 4.x ‘Hybrid Management Model’ (VxBlock/VxRack)

David Ring FEHC , , , ,

This post provides a high level overview of the Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 4.x ‘Hybrid Management Model’, which is the default model used for VxBlock & VxRack EHC solutions.

The following DellEMC acronyms are used throughout this post:

EHC =  Enterprise Hybrid Cloud
CPSD = Converged Platforms & Solutions Division 
AMP = Advanced Management Pod
ESSM = EMC Simple Support Matrix
RCM = Release Certification Matrix
vCSA = vCenter Server Appliance
CI = Converged Infrastructure
HCI = Hyper Converged Infrastructure
LCS = Logical Configuration Survey

The images used in this post were taken from the EHC Architecture Guides, for more detailed architectural explanations please refer to the following EHC 4.1 Architecture Guides:

EHC Reference Architecture Guide

EHC Concepts and Architecture Guide

Continue reading →

EMC EHC 3.5 Release

David Ring FEHC , , , , ,

Based on the vSphere v6.0 platform the Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 3.5 solution has a host of new features, code upgrades and converged platforms support which result in an impressive release of the product.

What’s New

Feature wise here are some of the notable feature additions included with EHC 3.5:

•XtremIO DR support with RecoverPoint (Source & Target = XtremIO)
•VMAX3 DR support with VPLEX and RecoverPoint (Source & Target = VMAX3)
•Encryption Services: CloudLink SecureVM v5.0 support
•Add EHC BaaS to existing or imported VMs (New workflow ‘Ingest for DP’)
•Add EHC DRaaS to existing or imported VMs (New workflow ‘Ingest for DR’)
•VMware PSC replaces SSO
•Updated EHC Sizing Tool (platform-driven) Continue reading →