Dell S5248F-ON VxFlex Network Deployment Guide using EMC Networking 25GbE swit - Page 6

1 1.1 Introduction VxFlex is a software-only solution that uses existing servers' local disks and LAN to create a virtual SAN that has all the benefits of external storage - but at a fraction of cost and complexity. VxFlex uses the existing local storage devices and turns them into shared block storage. For many workloads, VxFlex storage is comparable to, or better than, external shared block storage. The lightweight VxFlex software components are installed on the application servers and behave like a software initiator. A standard Ethernet network provides a communication channel for I/O requests sent to VxFlex block volumes. An efficient decentralized block I/O flow, combined with a distributed, sliced volume layout, results in a massively parallel I/O system that can scale to thousands of nodes. VxFlex is designed and implemented with enterprise-grade resilience. The software features an efficient distributed self-healing process that overcomes media and server failures, without requiring administrator involvement. In the modern data center, 100 Gbps Ethernet is now at an affordable price to respond to the increasing demands of bandwidth from storage and compute. Dell EMC Networking offers the S5248F-ON, 25/100GbE Ethernet switch, designed to be used as a data center Leaf or Top of Rack (ToR) switch. The example topology that is illustrated in this guide uses VxFlex Ready Nodes (formerly known as ScaleIO Ready Nodes). Dell EMC VxFlex Ready Nodes are a combination of VxFlex software-defined block storage and Dell PowerEdge servers, optimized to run the VxFlex OS, enabling the deployment of an entirely architected, software-defined, scale-out server SAN. This guide covers deploying the VxFlex solution on VMware vSphere ESXi, creating a Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) by enabling each ESXi host to present computing as well as storage resources. This guide does not cover physically cabling or connecting to existing data center infrastructure. A prerequisite for this deployment guide is access to a VMware vCenter Server capable of using virtual distributed switches. Note: For deploying a spine-leaf architecture using Dell EMC Networking, see Dell EMC Networking Layer 3 Leaf-Spine Deployment and Best Practices with OS10, or use the Dell EMC Fabric Design Center discussed on page 43. For steps on deploying and configuring VMware vSphere, see the vSphere Networking Guide for vSphere 6.5, ESXi 6.5, and vCenter Server 6.5. Typographical conventions This document uses the following typographical conventions: Monospaced text Command Line Interface (CLI) examples Bold monospaced text Commands entered at the CLI prompt Italic monospaced text Variables in CLI examples Bold text Graphical User Interface (GUI) fields and information that is entered in the GUI 6 VxFlex Network Deployment Guide using Dell EMC Networking 25GbE switches and OS10EE