VxBlock

Dell EMC – VxBlock System 1000

David Ring Cisco, Vblock , ,

‘Welcome to the New era of Dell EMC CI’

Some brief highlights and related articles covering the next generation of Dell EMC CI – VxBlock System 1000

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4X Storage Array Types

The VxBlock 1000 architecture is designed to allow for the option of running multiple storage arrays within a single VxBlock system supported under one RCM (beginning with RCM 6.5.3), which means the concept of storage extensions becomes a mute point and allows for the ease of expansion and mixing of storage arrays and their associated resources as required for specific workloads. The four Dell EMC array types include VMAX, Unity, Isilon Gen6 and XtremIO X2(available post GA). Previous VxBlock systems allowed for a single array per system, now dependent on the SAN switch chosen the VxBlock 1000 supports up to 10 arrays per system (mixed array types if required to cater for varying workloads). Continue reading →

VxBlock + VMAX 950F/FX

David Ring Vblock, VMAX , ,

VxBlock offers the award-winning  all-flash enterprise storage VMAX 950F – Either with a VxBlock 740 as primary storage or as a VxBlock Storage Technology Extension (STE) add-on to a VxBlock 350, 540 or 740.

vxblock_vmax950_0

The VMAX 950 hardware code-named Thunderbolt , along with running the Hypermax Cypress release offers further enhancements in terms of performance and functionality. When combined with a VxBlock 740 you now have the most powerful, intelligent, scalable and enterprise ready industry leading CI to support your most mission-critical applications. Continue reading →

DellEMC VxBlock – Cisco UCS Ethernet Adapter Policy

David Ring Cisco, Vblock , ,

The following details the creation of a VxBlock Cisco UCS ‘Ethernet Adapter Policy’ for a compute B-Series blade running VMware ESXi. This policy is leveraged by a service-profile which gets associated with their respective compute blades.

Note: This guidance is based on vSphere 6.0

UCS Manager GUI

  1. From the UCS Manager GUI click on ‘Servers’ and navigate to Policies->root->Adapter Policies.
  2. Chose the option to ‘Add’ a new Ethernet Adapter Policy and provide a name & description (e.g VMQ-Default).ucs_eth_adpt_policy3
  3. Under Resources enter the following settings:

Continue reading →

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 →