Dell PowerFlex Appliance with PowerFlex 4.x Architecture Overview

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PowerFlex two-layer deployment

A PowerFlex appliance two-layer deployment has a base configuration that is similar to a PowerFlex storage-only node deployment, but adds a minimum set of PowerFlex compute-only nodes. The minimum set of PowerFlex storage-only nodes and fixed network resources are also required.

Within the base configuration, you can customize the following hardware aspects:

Table 1. Customizable hardware aspectsThe following table describes the customizable hardware aspects available.
Hardware	Minimum set
Compute	At least three PowerFlex compute-only nodes.
Network	One customer-provided management switch One pair of access or leaf switches (Dell PowerSwitch switches or customer-provided switches) One pair of border-leaf switches NOTE:Only in a leaf-spine configuration.
Storage	At least four PowerFlex storage-only nodes are required. However, Dell Technologies recommends using at least six nodes to build a PowerFlex storage pool. Software-defined SAN storage (uses local disks to build a PowerFlex storage pool). If storage compression is active, two SDPM components (for PowerFlex R660 or PowerFlex R760) or a minimum of two NVDIMM components (for PowerFlex R650 or PowerFlex R750) per PowerFlex node are required. A recommendation is made according to the system sizing calculation.
Management	Standalone or multi-node PowerFlex management controller with high availability or customer provided management infrastructure.