Reference Architecture

Reference Architecture for Active System 800m with Hyper-V:
Dell Inc. 3
Table 1: Solution Components
Component
Description
Role
Compute Cluster
PowerEdge M620 blade servers
running Windows Server 2012
Datacenter Edition with Hyper-
V role enabled
Host highly-available virtual
machines (VMs)
Management Cluster
PowerEdge R620 servers running
Windows Server® 2012
Datacenter Edition with Hyper-V
role enabled.
Host management VMs: Dell
Active system Manager, optional
System Center Virtual Machine
Manager (VMM) 2012 SP1,
EqualLogic SAN HQ and Dell
OpenManage Essentials
Storage
Dell EqualLogic PS6110 Series
controllers with 24 bay 2.5‖ SAS
enclosures or 12 Bay 3.5‖ SAS
enclosures
Provide shared storage for the
Hyper-V clusters
Converged Network Switches
Two Force10 S4810 and Dell
PowerEdge M I/O Aggregator
modules for the blade chassis
Support VM, Live Migration,
Management, iSCSI and Cluster
traffic
OOB management Switch
One Force10 S55
Provide Management OOB
management connectivity
Microsoft Windows Server 2012: Microsoft® Windows Server® 2012 is Microsoft’s flagship server
operating system which provides the Hyper-V® virtualization platform. Hyper-V provides a
virtualization platform that can consolidate Windows® and Linux workloads enabling IT managers the
ability to more fully utilize their available hardware resources. The following Windows Server 2012
features are available in this solution.
Dell Active System Manager: Active System Manager sits at the center of Active System, and simplifies
infrastructure configuration, collapses management tools, and drives automation and consistency.
Through capabilities such as template-based provisioning, automated configuration, and infrastructure
lifecycle management, Active System Manager enables IT to respond rapidly to business needs,
maximize data center efficiency, and strengthen quality of IT service delivery.
The software enables a cloud like environment, and supports pre-built provisioning templates and
custom orchestrated workflows for a wide range of physical or virtual environments. Use and features
of the Dell Active System Manager will be described in more detail in subsequent sections of this
document. Additional detail can also be found on the Dell website at: Dell Active System Manager.
Note: Active System Manager offers limited functionality on Microsoft Hyper-V platforms with Active
System Manager version 7.0. The capabilities and benefits outlined above will be available on the
Microsoft Hyper-V platforms with the Active System Manager version 7.1 scheduled for release in mid
2013.
Dell OpenManage Essentials: The Dell OpenManage™ Essentials Console provides a single, easy-to-use,
one-to-many interface through which to manage resources in multivendor operating system and
hypervisor environments. It automates basic repetitive hardware management tasks — like discovery,