Below are questions that have been presented to me about VxRail from either pre-sales configurations or post-sales deployments. Gartner has recently bestowed a great award on VxRail, stating that Dell/EMC’s hyper-converged infrastructure solution is number 1 in three areas: ERP, Mission Critical, and VDI.
Question: Why should I choose VxRail to replace my current virtualization infrastructure?
Answer: VxRail is an all-in-one solution for IT departments. The solution solves many manually tasks such as: lifecycle management, infrastructure management, integration with VMWare’s SDDC and removes the need to have a 3-tiered architecture of a server environment, storage environment and storage network environment.
Question: What is different in VxRail that makes it easier to manage my infrastructure?
Answer: VxRail combines server, storage, networking and SDDC in to a single-pane of glass. You manage all of the above products and equipment through vCenter. vSAN controls your storage plane, and a new product called OMNI (Open Manager Network Interface) allows you the ability to manage your fabric via Smart Fabric. If you need to scale out your VxRail, no problem, you can do all this from inside vCenter. Since VxRail version 4.7 No more having to touch multiple interfaces to prepare scaling out.
Question: How often is an update package for VxRail posted? Do they test it with all series of VxRail.
Answer: Composite Update Packages are published whenever a newly tested and certified version of any software within the VxRail solution. Commonly, update packages are published due to vSphere/vCenter updates. A new update will be published shortly to mitigate an I/O issue with the HBA 330 firmware. So to answer your question, an update can be in the form of a hardware firmware update or an update to one of the VMWare products.
Question: How does the update process work?
Answer: This is the number one question I get asked all the time and it is the most exciting question, because, I feel as someone that previously sat behind a desk in your position, lifecycle management is by far the easiest with VxRail. Once you click “Update” in VxRail Manager or vCenter (depending on your version) you will be presented with a pop-up, the pop-up asks for the username and passwords of critical components of VxRail. Even though these credentials are stored in the Mystic database, I think this is more of an “are you sure you want to update or proceed” kind of step. However, once you input the credentials you are off to the races. The update job will first update VxRail Manager, then vCenter Server and the PSC. Once those are finished, it will proceed to update the hosts one-by-one -updating firmware, ESXi, PTAgent, iDRAC, etc… While it is updating the host, they are put in maintenance mode, once the host is finished, VxRail Manager will check to ensure the update was successful, take the host out of maintenance mode, then proceed to the next host. This is referred to as a “rolling upgrade”. You will see very shortly the value of having VxRail and the ability to no longer stare at a screen during the updating process, instead all those project on your backlog can be focused on without having an entire team dedicated to your infrastructure.
Question: I want to put NSX and Horizon on VxRail, is it compatible?
Answer: YES! As stated in my opening paragraph, VxRail is number 1 in VDI. NSX is a product of VMware and is part of the VMWare Validated Design (VVD). However, since they are not a native component of VxRail, these two products will need to be updated independently. I am confident the VxRail development team will make this a part of the one-click upgrade process.
Question: Who do I call for support if ANY component of VxRail is having an issue?
Answer: You call one phone number, Dell/EMC support -that’s it! If there is an issue with the VMWare side, they have very knowledgeable and professional experts ready to assist you. If they are stumped (which is rare) they will manage the communication between yourself and VMWare. Unlike other HCI products from competitors, you call just one phone number and prepare to have a resolution quickly, because they have over 100 professionals and experts at their Utah office and can quickly escalate the issue to another tier while they shadow and provide details so you are not repeating yourself, thus saving you time and reaching a quicker restoration.
Question: What features can I use natively with VxRail?
Answer: While VxRail is built on automation and seamless integration, there are a few components that cannot be changed without a Dell/EMC support rep or partner engagement such as Premier Broadband & Consulting, LLC. We use the SolVe Desktop/Online application take make these changes since they are validated to work and will not break your solution. Some of these features have caveats. Back to the features:
- Deduplication
- Compression
- Erasure Coding
- Encryption
- Connecting to a storage device via iSCSI or NFS
- Import any OVA
- ESRS VE
Question: What is ESRS VE and do I need it?
Answer: ESRS stands for EMC Secure Remote Services Virtual Edition and yes, you do need it. The appliance is deployed through VxRail Manager or vCenter. Type in the Site ID, IP Address and passwords for the appliance, deployment and configuration is automated. Upon a successful configuration, the ESRS status will change from Activated to Enabled. Once enabled, ESRS will only send information related to the status of your cluster securely to EMC (ESRS DOES NOT send information about your company data). The information is sent to Dell/EMC for analysis and catch an issue before it becomes a problem. When the issue surfaces, the system will automatically create a support ticket and engage an engineer to mitigate the reported issue before it becomes problematic.
Jonathan was a Solutions Architect now he and his family own Premier Broadband & Consulting, LLC. a managed services company specializing in servers, storage, networking, cybersecurity, and services. He has designed and deployed VxRail numerous times and is a 2xVCP (Network Virtualization and Datacenter Virtualization) and a certified Dell/EMC VxRail Implementation Engineer and Certified Dell/EMC Network Professional.
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