Dell VxRail 7.0.x Administration Guide

Automatic deployment

After you set up your system and configure network settings, VxRail Manager automates the installation and configuration of all nodes into a cluster.

Automatic scale-out

VxRail provides automated scale-out by detecting an unconfigured node when powered on and adding a node to the cluster. The following scale-out options are available:

• With multinode expansion, you reduce the time required to expand your cluster by adding up to six VxRail nodes into a cluster in parallel.
• If you are using VMware Loudmouth, VxRail Manager uses autodiscovery capabilities that are based on the RFC-recognized ZNC protocol. Loudmouth requires IPv6 multicast which is limited to the management VLAN that the nodes use for communication. VMware Loudmouth:
  • Runs on each VMware ESXi host device and on the VxRail Manager VM.
  • Enables you to automatically discover and configure VxRail on your network.
  • Enables VxRail Manager to discover all nodes and automate the configuration process.

Node failure tolerance

VxRail tolerates node failures when using VMware vSAN, as defined by the VMware vSAN policy. VxRail implements the following standard VMware vSAN policy of one failure by default:

• An entire node can fail, and the system continues to function.
• A drive failure cannot affect more than one node.
• One cache drive can affect as many as six capacity drives (HDDs or SSDs).
• One network port on any node can fail without affecting the node.

VxRail Manager configures network failover through the virtual switch configuration in VMware ESXi during the initial setup.

Logging and log bundles

VxRail Manager provides logging and log bundles that provide operation and event information about your VxRail cluster.