Book Image

Implementing VxRail HCI Solutions

Book Image

Implementing VxRail HCI Solutions

Overview of this book

Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) can help you simplify the provisioning and daily operations of computing and storage. With this book, you'll understand how HCI can offload the day 0 deployment and day-to-day operations of a system administrator. You'll explore the VxRail Appliance, which is an HCI solution that provides lifecycle management, automation, and operational simplicity. Starting with an overview of the VxRail Appliance system architecture and components, you'll understand the benefits of the VxRail system and compare it with the environment of traditional servers and storage. As you advance, the book covers topics such as disaster recovery and active-active and active-passive solutions for VxRail. By the end of this book, you'll have gained the confidence to manage the deployment, administration, planning, and design of a VxRail system.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Section 1: Getting Started with VxRail HCI System
4
Section 2: Administration of VxRail
10
Section 3: Advanced Solutions for VxRail

VxRail management interfaces

In this section, we will introduce the VxRail management interfaces, such as vSphere Client, vSphere Web Client, VxRail Manager, the VxRail Manager plugin for vCenter, and the Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC). Prior to VxRail 4.7.100, VxRail Manager and vCenter Server were two separate management interfaces in a VxRail appliance. For virtual machine operation tasks, we needed to perform them with vCenter Server. For VxRail operation tasks, such as hardware replacement, node scale-out, software upgrades, and so on, we had to perform them with the VxRail management interface. There was no full integration and management with both vCenter Server and VxRail Manager. Starting with VxRail 4.7.100, the VxRail Manager Plugin for vCenter is available, which can provide central management of the VxRail cluster, and can be accessed with vSphere Client. Let's learn about these interfaces in more detail. Figure 3.1 shows the VxRail management interface...