VxRail is a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) appliance that combines VMware’s vSAN software with vSphere and vCenter, running on clustered, Dell PowerEdge servers. This product, first released in 2016, leverages the on-going advancements of VMware’s vSAN and Dell server technology.
VxRail uses a modular, scale-out architecture of 1U and 2U appliance chassis each containing one, two or four multi-core processors and either all-flash solid-state disks (SSDs) or a hybrid mix of flash SSDs and hard disk drives (HDDs). VxRail clusters are usually comprised of at least three and as many as sixty-four nodes and can be scaled non-disruptively by adding appliances. Two nodes can also be direct-connected for smaller environments, and VxRail Satellite nodes are single-node edge devices. Each node is configured with 2.5” drive form-factor SSDs and 2.5” or 3.5” HDDs (S Series only) in either hybrid or all-flash
configurations.
vSAN is embedded in the VMware hypervisor kernel, allowing for more optimization of the data path and simpler management. This integration also leverages the features of vSphere, such as High Availability (HA), vMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), Site Recovery Manager, vRealize Automation, etc.
VxRail HCI System Software is Dell-engineered software that integrates with vSAN to provide lifecycle management, automated deployment, node image management, cluster management and other functions. HCI System Manager includes VxRail Manager, the management and service interface for the VxRail cluster. Run as a single virtual machine, all features are integrated with vCenter through the vCenter Server Plugin for VxRail Manager.
Dell VxRail Product Brief includes:
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