White Papers

Dell Inc. 1

1 Introduction

The vStart solution is a virtualization infrastructure solution that is designed and validated by Dell

Engineering. It is delivered racked, cabled, and ready to be integrated into your datacenter. vStart is

offered as four configurations: vStart 50, 100, 200 and 1000

The vStart 50 configuration includes Dell

PowerEdge

R620 servers running Microsoft

Windows

Server

2012 Datacenter Edition with Hyper-V

Role enabled, Dell EqualLogic

PS6100 iSCSI storage,

Dell PowerConnect

7024 or PowerConnect 6224 switches, an optional Dell PowerEdge R420 server

that manages the solution by hosting Dell management tools.

The configurations also include Dell EqualLogic Host Integration Tools for Microsoft (HIT Kit)

for

Windows Server 2012. The vStart 50 solution has two configurations that vary in the number of

EqualLogic PS6100 storage arrays to meet resource needs.

The following documents describe the various aspects of the solution. Contact your Dell Sales or

Services representative to get the latest revision of all the documents.

 vStart 50 Hyper-V Solution Overview (this document) – Provides a solution overview including

various components and how the solution is delivered.

 vStart 50 Hyper-V Solution Specification – Provides a detailed specification of various

components included in the solution.

 vStart 50 Hyper-V Solution Design Guide – Provides a detailed architectural solution design.

2 Audience

This document provides an overview of the vStart 50 solution. CTOs and IT managers and

administrators, can use this document to understand the overview and scope of the solution.

IT administrators and managers can use this document to understand the solution architecture.

vStart 100, 200 and 1000 are covered by a separate set of documents.

HIT Kit helps to automate the detection and configuration of MS iSCSI initiators while providing enhanced MPIO functionality

and EqualLogic Array detection and interoperability capabilities.

HIT Kit 4.5 which will have full support for Windows Server 2012 will be released Dec'12. Until then the solution will use Microsoft

Native MPIO. Once released, HIT can easily be incorporated into the existing solution.