Deployment Guide

7 ScaleIO/VxFlex OS IP Fabric Best Practice and Deployment Guide with OS10EE | version 1.0
This document defines a VxFlex OS deployment on a Leaf-Spine topology where deployed network-
management technologies, advanced routing, and link aggregations are implemented. The paper focuses on
a Leaf-Spine network with greater cluster size and workloads, requiring high-speed network ports on leaf
switches and interconnection ports for large workloads.
1.1 VxFlex OS
Dell EMC VxFlex OS is a software solution that uses existing server storage in application servers to create a
server-based storage area network (SAN). This software-defined storage environment gives all member
servers access to all unused storage in the environment, regardless of which server the storage is on. VxFlex
OS combines different types of storage (hard disk drives, solid-state disks and Peripheral Component
Interconnect Express [PCIe] flash cards) to create shared block storage. VxFlex OS is hardware-agnostic and
supports physical and/or virtual application servers. By not requiring an FC fabric to connect the servers and
storage, VxFlex OS reduces the cost and complexity of a traditional FC SAN.
Note: VxFlex OS supports all Ethernet speeds (100Mb, 1Gb, 10Gb, 25Gb, 40Gb, 100Gb), and the
InfiniBand (IB) communications standard.
This document supplements existing VxFlex OS documentation. It provides details on how to implement a
VxFlex OS solution using Dell EMC products. The following list shows a sample of the VxFlex OS
documentation available:
• Quick Start Guide
• Deployment Guide
• Security Configuration Guide
• User Guide
Note: Navigate to Dell EMC ScaleIO/VxFlex OS Software Only: Documentation Library to download the full
documentation package and Dell EMC ScaleIO/VxFlex OS Documentation Hub for additional VxFlex OS
documentation. You may need to enter EMC Community Network (ECN) login credentials or create an ECN
account to access the documentation package.
1.1.1 Benefits of VxFlex OS
The benefits of VxFlex OS include the following:
Scalability
VxFlex OS scales from a minimum of 3 nodes to a maximum of 1024 nodes. It can add more compute or
storage resources when needed without incurring downtime. This allows resources to grow individually or
together to maintain balance.
Extreme Performance
All servers in the VxFlex OS cluster process I/O operations, making all I/O and throughput accessible to any
application in the cluster. Throughput and Input/output Operations per Second (IOPS) scale linearly with the
number of servers and local storage devices added to the environment. This allows the cost/performance
ratio to improve as the environment grows. VxFlex OS automatically performs rebuild and rebalance