2 VxRail Appliances
VxRail is jointly developed by Dell EMC and VMware and is the only fully integrated, preconfigured, and
tested HCI appliance that is powered by VMware Virtual SAN (vSAN). VxRail is managed through the
vCenter Server interface. It provides a familiar vSphere experience that enables streamlined
deployment and the ability to extend the use of existing IT tools and processes.
VxRail appliances are managed using VxRail Manager software for hardware and appliance
maintenance tasks as well as software life cycle management. VxRail Manager incorporates Secure
Remote Services (SRS) and other serviceability capabilities. Additionally, VxRail appliances are
discoverable and visible in Dell EMC Vision™ Intelligent Operations.
Note: For day-to-day VM management, you manage the VMware stack on the VxRail
appliance directly through vCenter server.
The VxRail software bundle is preloaded and licensed onto hardware and consists of the following
components (specific software versions not shown):
•
VxRail Manager
•
VMware vCenter Server
•
VMware vRealize Log Insight™
1
•
VMware vSAN™
•
Dell Secure Remote Services (SRS)/VE
Also preloaded is VMware vSphere
®
; however, licenses are required and can be purchased through
Dell EMC, VMware, or your preferred VMware reseller partner.
The VxRail clusters also include licenses for software that can be downloaded, installed, and configured:
•
Dell EMC RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines (RP4VM) - 15 full licenses per G-series appliance
chassis or 5 full licenses per all other single node VxRail series appliances
VxRail is fully compatible with other software in the VMware ecosystem, including VMware NSX.
See the VMware Product Interoperability Matrices for specific versions of NSX supported on
specific versions of vSphere.
2.1 VxRail vCenter Server Options
The initial releases of VxRail deployed a vCenter Server appliance on the VxRail appliance. The license
for this vCenter Server appliance was included with VxRail. This vCenter Server deployment has been
referred to as “internal” vCenter Server or “embedded” vCenter Server. For consistency, the term that is
used throughout this guide is VxRail vCenter Server. VxRail orchestrates the deployment and life cycle
management of the VxRail vCenter Server. This VxRail vCenter Server can only manage the VxRail
cluster on which it is deployed.
Beginning with release 3.5, a VxRail appliance can optionally join a compatible vCenter Server
environment, hosted outside of the VxRail cluster. This feature allows for a central vCenter Server
instance to manage multiple VxRail clusters. Each VxRail environment appears within vCenter Server
as a cluster of hosts configured with a vSAN datastore. This environment has been referred to
“external” vCenter Server or “existing” vCenter Server. For consistency, the term that is used
throughout this guide is customer-supplied vCenter Server. This instance of vCenter Server must exist
before you deploy the VxRail appliance and requires a separate customer provided license. You are
responsible for deployment, configuration, and life cycle management of the customer-supplied vCenter
Server.
1
Log Insight is a configuration option only if VxRail vCenter Server is used.