DELL VXRAIL
Whether you are accelerating data center modernization, deploying a hybrid cloud or creating a developer-ready Kubernetes platform, VxRail delivers a turnkey experience that enables users to automate operations, innovate with seamless technology integration, and accelerate business value.
VxRail, powered by Dell PowerEdge server platforms and VxRail HCI System Software, features next generation technology to future proof your infrastructure and enable deep integration across the VMware ecosystem. VxRail invests in the complete lifecycle, including advanced automation, making it easier for you from day one forward, allowing you to further simplify IT infrastructure and operations.
VxRail is the only fully integrated, pre-configured, and tested HCI system optimized for VMware vSAN and is the standard for transforming VMware environments. VxRail provides a simple, cost effective hyperconverged solution that solves a wide range of your operational and environmental challenges and supports almost any use case, including tier-one applications, cloud native and mixed workloads.
VxRail HCI System Software, a suite of integrated software elements that sits between infrastructure components such as vSAN and VMware Cloud Foundation, delivers a seamless and automated operational experience.
VxRail offers native integration between VxRail Manager and vCenter, all VxRail management is done within the familiar vCenter Server interface. Intelligent lifecycle management (LCM) automates non-disruptive upgrades, patches, node addition or retirement while keeping the VxRail infrastructure in a continuously validated state to ensure workloads are running and clusters are optimized.
VxRail HCI System Software includes cloud-based multi-cluster management and orchestration for centralized data collection and analytics that uses machine learning and AI to help customers keep their HCI stack operating at peak performance and ready for future workloads. IT teams benefit from actionable insights to optimize infrastructure performance and improve serviceability. Plus, experienced customers can utilize the Configuration Portal to self-deploy VxRail on their own timeline.
VxRail on the latest industry-leading PowerEdge servers offers next generation technologies that accelerate IT transformation and future proof your infrastructure. With multiple configuration options including choice of 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors or AMD EPYC processors, VxRail offers millions of configuration options to optimize the platform for your workload requirements. NVMe drives provide additional caching options to dramatically bolster application response time. Additionally, NVIDIA graphic cards are used for scaling high performance virtual graphics and compute.
VxRail offers flexible deployment options including a rugged and self-contained VD-4000, a single-node satellite node or two-node cluster for the edge, three-node clusters at the core, and entry level four node or standard eight node on-premise cloud with VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail. For those needing more storage flexibility, VxRail dynamic nodes – compute nodes with full VxRail LCM, can utilize VMware HCI Mesh or external storage arrays to address data centric workloads. There's also an option for an integrated rack deployment with networking flexibility. Mixed generations of hardware in the same cluster, non-disruptive scaling and storage expansion provide a simple, predictable, “pay-as-you-grow” approach for future scale up and out as your requirements evolve. Additionally, enterprise capabilities such as batch node expansion, REST APIs for cloud extensibility, and flexible object renaming, accelerate growth and save time.
VxRail, the flagship HCI foundation for APEX Hybrid and Private Cloud, is the first hyperconverged system fully integrated with VMware Cloud Foundation SDDC Manager to deliver a simple and direct path to the hybrid cloud with one, complete, automated platform. Full stack integration means VxRail Manager and SDDC Manager have been integrated to allow for an automated and seamless update and upgrade process orchestrated by SDDC Manager. This means the HCI infrastructure layer and VMware cloud software stack lifecycle are managed as one, complete, automated, turnkey hybrid cloud platform, significantly reducing risk and increasing operational efficiencies.
VCF on VxRail enables consistent management and orchestration between private and partner public clouds, allowing organizations to run, manage, connect and secure their entire application portfolio across multiple clouds. VCF on VxRail supports remote clusters, enabling customers to extend existing VCF operational capabilities to the edge.
Security is built into every level of the VxRail HCI stack, starting with each processor and PowerEdge server through the VxRail HCI System Software including the integrated VMware software, to efficiently minimize risk and create a secure infrastructure foundation. Enhanced security includes FIPS 140-2 validated cryptography and automated hardening scripts and VxRail Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) for customers who want to comply with DISA and STIG requirements. Industry-leading enterprise data services, including HCI-native data-at rest encryption, in-transit encryption, replication, backup, and file services make VxRail ready for the most demanding application or workload. All flash models can leverage compression, deduplication, and erasure coding for further efficiency. VxRail supports 2-factor authentication (SecurID and CAC), allowing you to avoid limited options and high cost of self-encrypting drives. vSAN encryption is built for compliance requirements and simple key management with support for vSphere compatible KMIP compliant key managers.
Dell PowerStore 
Dynamic AppsON combines compute-only VxRail dynamic nodes with PowerStore T model appliances in a tightly integrated solution that allows users to scale compute or storage independently. It increases flexibility for both platforms, giving VxRail environments access to PowerStores’s enterprise efficiency, data protection and resiliency features, and helping PowerStore environments quickly expand compute for CPU-intensive workloads – all while simplifying operations with end-to-end automation and management integration.
Deploy PowerStore as a standalone appliance complementing existing infrastructure, or as a storage option within Dell VxBlock for CI, our allin- one autonomous infrastructure cloud platform. No matter which model you choose, flexible purchase options simplify storage acquisition to match the needs of your organization. From traditional CAPEX to APEX Custom Solutions pay-per-use offerings that align spending with usage, PowerStore optimizes both technological and financial outcomes. Whether you’re adding storage only, or launching an end-to-end solution involving multiple product categories, we’ll make sure you get the best possible return on your IT spend – both at the start and as you expand your environment.
PowerStore offers more ways to migrate than ever, including native tools that let you automate entire block or file migrations directly from the PowerStore Manager wizard. If you have an existing Dell storage platform, you can complete a nondisruptive array-to-array transfer in as few as seven clicks.16 Hosts are remapped transparently, and completely offloaded, keeping workload performance high throughout the process.
PowerStore now includes advanced DataDobi’s DobiMigrate file migration software with every new appliance purchase. DobiMigrate simplifies large, complex migration projects and is trusted by IT teams around the world. The software is free of charge for PowerStore customers, even for the largest migrations.
End-to-end ProSupport and ProDeploy services help you configure, support and optimize PowerStore, making your new infrastructure solution easy to adopt and manage.
The current period of unprecedented change across the global business and technology landscapes has been particularly impactful for storage, where IT managers are dealing with an explosion in both the amount and the distribution of data. No longer confined to a centralized location, today’s applications are powered by data that is now captured and stored everywhere, residing in diverse formats both inside and outside the core data center.
To keep pace with this rapid transformation, companies have adopted new distributed IT strategies such as multi-cloud and edge computing. Many of these deployments are well underway – and businesses that have not transitioned to a modern approach are realizing they need to catch up fast! But as solution scope and diversity increases, companies also know they can’t afford to add complexity. Today’s infrastructure must be future-proof and simple. As plans change (and change again), IT managers want storage that will adapt seamlessly. Storage that just works.
PowerStore’s software-driven architecture is designed to give you a permanent agility advantage while eliminating management complexity. It can simplify your operations for the long term, helping you achieve both today’s goals – and the ones you have yet to set.
The PowerStore advantage begins with a comprehensive lineup of enterprise capabilities that provide maximum headroom and flexibility for change.
PowerStore’s unified design consolidates block, enterprise file, and vVols storage formats in a single high-density footprint, providing a convenient, easyto- manage platform for broad innovation. Ideal for both general purpose and specialized workloads, PowerStore supports applications as diverse as largescale databases, cloud native apps, edge-based IoT analytics, and file-based content repositories.
The platform fits seamlessly into existing infrastructures, with multi-protocol physical network support (including 32Gb FC and 100Gb Ethernet) and options to meet specialized industry requirements, such as DC/low-line-power, NEBSready solutions or government compliance. No matter where your business strategy takes you, PowerStore’s full-featured, adaptable design can help you build your unique breakthrough.
Consistent, predictable performance has long been a baseline for workload success – but the new key requirement for distributed IT is performance that can expand and grow with your needs.
Built from the ground up for NVMe technology, PowerStore leverages dual-port Intel® Optane™ NVMe SSDs both within the appliance base chassis and expansion enclosures, plus NVMe/TCP and NVMe/FC in the external network. This end-to-end NVMe ecosystem delivers extremely high IOPS and low latency, ensuring long-lasting value through multiple solution lifecycles.
Expanding the capabilities of your initial PowerStore configuration is simple and efficient, as performance and capacity may be scaled independently. Each PowerStore appliance features dual active-active nodes, and can grow with single-drive granularity to over 4.7 PBe NVMe capacity.3 Multiple appliances can be clustered in a federated configuration for increased processing power and capacities exceeding 18 PBe NVMe capacity.
No matter how you grow, PowerStore’s innovative Dynamic Resiliency Engine (DRE) safeguards business-critical data, leveraging advanced virtualization methods to protect against simultaneous drive failures while maintaining high levels of efficiency and cost savings.
In multi-appliance environments, native file, block and vVols replication provides data mobility and policy-based immutable snapshot protection for any workload. Across larger distances (up to 60 miles), native metro synchronous replication gives you a software-only, zero RTO/RPO high availability solution, configurable in as few as six clicks7 – for no extra cost!
PowerStore’s PowerProtect DD integration even lets you set up and manage remote or multi-cloud backups directly from PowerStore Manager UI, using the included Instant Access feature for easy, granular restores.
PowerStore, Güvenli Anlık Görüntüler, Dinlenme Durumunda Veri Şifreleme, PowerStore keeps you ahead of evolving cybersecurity threats with capabilities like Secure Snapshots, Data-at-Rest Encryption, Multi-Factor Authentication, File Level Retention (FLR), Hardware Root of Trust, security analytics and new STIG mode for US Federal/DoD environments. Data security is fundamental to PowerStore’s DNA, and the platform’s NIST-aligned development helps organizations of all kinds accelerate Zero Trust adoption to protect, prevent and recover from attacks more quickly and easily than ever.
But just having the capability to respond to change isn’t enough – you need change to be simple and non-disruptive.
PowerStore’s integrated intelligence auto-tunes efficiency, performance and availability without manual intervention on your part, even when you make rapid strategy shifts. All storage services are configured automatically, as soon as you insert a new drive. As the solution evolves, costs remain consistently low, with always-on intelligent data reduction providing a guaranteed average 4:1 DRR without compromising performance.
AI/ML processes eliminate dozens of labor-intensive tasks and decision points, for both individual and clustered appliances. From volume placement to migrations, resource balancing and issue resolution, PowerStore enables faster delivery of applications and services with up to 99% less management interaction.9 Additional intelligence handles metadata tiering and QoS, and the included SmartFabric Storage Software even eliminates manual effort in the network with the industry’s first automated end-to-end NVMe deployment.
When you do need to make decisions, PowerStore lets you move forward quickly with intelligent analysis and connected insights across multiple infrastructure categories – including servers, storage, networking and cloud. PowerStore’s AIOps application, CloudIQ, helps resolve issues up to 10x faster, reduce cybersecurity risk, improve staff productivity and forecast future needs – with convenient cloud-based access from any mobile device.
PowerStore intelligence simplifies your overall ecosystem, streamlining application development and automating storage workflows via a powerful REST API and integrations with leading orchestration frameworks.
DevOps users can shorten deployments from days to seconds, provisioning PowerStore directly from Kubernetes using the platform’s Ansible, Terraform and Container Storage Interface (CSI) plug-in integrations. Dell Container Storage Modules (CSMs) bring additional enterprise storage functions to Kubernetes, facilitating cloud native workloads, and Amazon EKS support lets you run container orchestration across public and on-premises clouds.
PowerStore offers both end-to-end VMware visibility within the PowerStore Manager interface and the ability to provision VM-level PowerStore services directly from vSphere. No matter which management perspective you prefer, these integrations help you analyze and control how PowerStore resources are consumed in a VMware environment, minimizing effort and risk, and providing quicker time to solution.
Additional integrations include vRO, VAAI and VASA support with the VSI plugins, native block, vVols, and file datastores, vVols-over-NVMe networks and native vVols replication. These capabilities make PowerStore well-suited for both standalone VMware storage deployments as well as a complement to HCI solutions such as Dell VxRail nodes. (See Dynamic AppsON sidebar.)
PowerStore’s software-driven architecture offers additional flexibility with support for a range of hybrid cloud and multi-cloud services. From VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) solutions that extend on-prem vSphere management to the cloud, to hyper-efficient encrypted backup with PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition Cloud Tier or fully-managed Cloud Data Services environments, PowerStore helps you leverage the strengths of individual cloud providers while reducing overall cost and maintaining complete control of your data.
If the advantages stopped here, this powerful lineup of enterprise features would already offer incredible future-proofing value. But the platform is also designed to simplify transitions when PowerStore technology itself evolves.
PowerStore’s container-based software architecture, known as PowerStoreOS, improves performance, fault tolerance and security by isolating individual OS components as microservices. This unique flexibility also allows the PowerStore engineering team to deliver new features and enhancements at an unprecedented pace, passing the innovations quickly to customers in the form of non-disruptive upgrades.
All array software is included with the hardware purchase – both the initial OS version and the ongoing performance and feature upgrades. There are no licenses to buy and maintain, and all software enhancements are provided without cost, for the life of the product.
PowerStore’s modular hardware platform is also designed to remain continuously modern. For example, Gen 1 customers can upgrade the performance of their current appliance to a Gen 2 equivalent (or higher model) via a simple node/controller swap – keeping their existing drives, base chassis and any expansion enclosures. These data-in-place upgrades are accomplished without downtime or application impact.
PowerStore’s non-disruptive hardware upgrades are very cost-effective when purchased as add-on options – but Dell takes the benefit one step farther with the industry-leading Anytime Upgrade program.
Anytime Upgrade is the simplest, most cost-effective way to take advantage of PowerStore’s adaptable architecture. Unlike other programs, Anytime Upgrade provides true flexibility, both in the number of ways you can transform your infrastructure and the flexible “no-lock-in” terms.
You don’t need to decide which upgrade you want until you redeem your benefit. Upgrades may be executed at any time during your maintenance contract, and you are not required to renew your contract to receive the upgrade. Professional deployment services are fully covered for node upgrades, allowing you to modernize your entire solution effortlessly. No need to re-budget for a new appliance – just choose when to upgrade, and Dell handles the rest. It’s the closest thing you can get to a cloud-like experience with on-prem storage, ensuring your workloads are always running on the latest technology.
And of course, we’re talking about a Dell Technologies platform, which means you get all the advantages of working with a trusted world-class infrastructure provider. You’ll never be limited to a single solution or deployment template. Dell has the broad business experience and deep workload knowledge to help you keep your options open in a rapidly changing world.
From top-tier ProSupport and ProDeploy services, supply chain excellence, and CAPEX-to-OPEX finance flexibility to FutureProof program guarantees and assurances, the Dell Technologies advantage is another fundamental strength of the overall PowerStore experience.
Get ready for a no-limits future. As PowerStore helps you build your next breakthrough – and the one after that – you can trust this continuously modern platform will be a long-term enabler of your business success.
