VCE Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Solutions

Remember, that VCE converged infrastructure solutions are single products, with distinct compute, network, and storage components, where compute servers access storage over a SAN network. In contrast, VCE hyper-converged infrastructures combine compute, network and storage resources into single rack mount units for deployment. They do not have a physical SAN network, and they do not have a distinct physical storage controller like converged infrastructure products.

Instead, storage drives are part of compute server racks in a direct attached storage, or DAS configuration. And the storage controller function runs as a software based service on each server. This hyper-converged architecture provides an improvement to system scalability and resilience. VCE offers two hyper converged infrastructure solutions. The VxRack system and the VxRail appliance.

The VxRack System 1000 series is a VCE engineered and manufactured product family with industry-best life cycle management. Like VCE converged infrastructure systems, these have storage, network, and compute functions. However, storage, network, compute technologies used in these systems are very different.

Each VxRack system contains multiple 2RU racks that we'll refer to as VxRack enclosures. These contain compute, network, and storage hardware and software components. Don't confuse a VxRack enclosure with a VxRack system cabinet. Each VxRack system comes in it's own cabinet, which holds multiple VxRack enclosures. Each enclosure houses compute in a rack mount form factor, and each contains one to four servers or nodes.

Although the VxRack cabinet has network switches, there is no switch in the VxRack enclosures themselves. And while there is no physical SAN in these systems, Virtual SAN software is installed on the enclosure nodes.

You won't find a storage array of any kind in VxRack systems but there are storage drives configured as direct attached storage or DAS. These drives are installed on each rack along with the compute components and with EMC ScaleIO software defined storage they produce a sharable pool of network-based storage that’s similar to SAN storage. Each enclosure can house up to 24 storage drives. Remember that each VxRack cabinet contains multiple VxRack enclosures so that customers can start small and grow as they need.

Each VxRack System contains a pair of top of rack network switches that provide connectivity to the customer's site network. They also provide network switching to every server node contained in the VxRack System. These systems can also contain another high powered network aggregation switch which is installed when customers need to connect multiple VxRack Systems together. We'll discuss this more in a moment.

The VxRack System 1000 series can reach massive scale and is adaptable to multiple types of environments. Multiple VxRack enclosures can be installed in a single VxRack cabinet so the capacity of VxRack Systems can start small. But, don't be fooled. VxRack Systems are tremendously scalable and capable of addressing the most demanding IT needs in large enterprises and service providers.

The VxRack System 1000 offers two families. The VxRack System 1000 Flex, and the VxRack System 1000 SDDC. Each target specific use cases and offer several configurations. We'll discuss these in more detail soon.

VCE's other hyper-converged infrastructure product is the VxRail appliance. While it uses some of the same technology found in the VxRack System 1000 systems, it's a different type of product. The VxRail product is an appliance, which is an important distinction. It contains compute in a rack mount form factor that can contains multiple servers or nodes.

Unlike the VxRack System, the VxRail appliance does not have any network switches. Also, it uses a Virtual SAN and has no physical SAN. Customers provide their own network switches for connectivity to their organization network, and for connectivity between VxRail appliances as needed.

This appliance is a small scale hyper-converged infrastructure product. Like the VxRack systems, it utilizes direct attached storage with storage drives installed in each appliance and there is no storage array. The VxRail appliance utilizes VMware Virtual SAN for creating pools of storage resources.

The VxRail Appliance focuses on ease of use. And while it can not scale like the VxRack System, it can scale to as many as sixteen appliances in a single installation.

Like the smaller capacity Vblock Systems, VxRail Appliances target mid-sized organizations as well as remote sites or individual departments that need local IT capacity. You'll learn more about these use cases shortly.