What's in a VxRail Appliance?
A VxRail Appliance is a turnkey solution for managing and deploying VMware infrastructure. VMware vSphere is pre-installed and pre-configured on each VxRail appliance. vSphere is a powerful hypervisor that can provide the embedded and cost-effective SDS feature, that is, vSAN. Customers can purchase VxRail with different types of vSAN licenses, such as Enterprise Plus, Enterprise, Advanced, or Standard. vSphere can provide different, powerful features, for example, VMware High Availability (HA), vSphere Storage vMotion, data protection of virtual machines, and Storage Policy-Based Management (SPBM). There are three groups of software components in a VxRail cluster: VMware SDCC, VxRail HCI System Software, and data protection options. This table shows a summary of each type of software on a VxRail appliance:
With the preceding table, we know what component is included in each piece of software. Now we will discuss each piece of software.
VMware SDDC
VMware vSphere is a hypervisor that can provide different virtualization-based services, such as VMware vSphere, ESXi (hypervisor), software-defined storage and networking, and so on.
Important note
vSphere licenses are not included in the VxRail Appliance; we can reuse existing vSphere licenses or order new licenses for each VxRail node.
The VxRail Appliance is bundled with a VMware vCenter Server instance that's used for all virtual machine management. VMware VCSA is a virtual appliance that provides a centralized management dashboard for day-to-day activities and the configuration of all virtual machines. With the embedded VxRail Manager plugin, we can administer VxRail appliances hosted from within the vCenter.
VMware vSAN is SDS that is bundled with the kernel of the vSphere hypervisor. VMware vSAN features are enabled on each VxRail appliance.
VMware vRealize Log Insight is a virtual appliance that is used to monitor the system events and provide the system log management of a VxRail cluster.
VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail is used to build up the SSDC. This platform runs on VMware vSphere and enables the VMware vSAN, NSX, and vRealize features.
Important note
VMware Cloud Foundation is an optional software feature on VxRail; this software is not included in VxRail appliances.
VxRail HCI System Software
VxRail Manager is a virtual appliance that delivers the central management dashboards in HTML and it is fully integrated with VMware VCSA, and it can provide LCM, system scale-out, and automatic deployments. All VxRail operations can be performed on vCenter Server via the VxRail Manager plugin.
VxRail ACE (Analytical Consulting Engine) is a cloud-based platform that can provide proactive system monitoring of VxRail HCI systems. VxRail ACE does not require optional costs for the customer if they are using VxRail HCI System Software. It collects all system events and logs from VxRail HCI systems and performs the system analysis.
ESRS (Secure Remote Services) is a 24 x 7 remote support service provided by the Dell EMC support team. They can deliver an immediate, secure response to VxRail system event reports, such as error alerts, which can greatly increase the availability of your VxRail system.
Data protection options
Dell EMC RP4VM is a Continuous Data Protection (CDP) solution and can deliver the data protection of virtual machines with its point-in-time synchronization or asynchronization in a local VxRail cluster or across VxRail clusters between two separate locations. RP4VM is directly managed by vCenter Server.
Important note
The RP4VM license includes five virtual machine licenses per node (E, P, V, D, and S Series) and 15 virtual machine licenses per chassis for the G Series.
VMware VR is a hypervisor-based disaster recovery solution; it can provide the data protection of virtual machines asynchronously in a local VxRail cluster or across VxRail clusters between two separate locations. VR is directly managed by vCenter Server. VR can also work with VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) to provide automated failover and failback to minimize downtime.
Important note
VMware SRM requires optional licenses for enabling disaster recovery. You need a license for at least 25 virtual machines per site.
Now we understand which software components are bundled with the VxRail Appliance.