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Dell PowerFlex Solutions Design 2023 > Dell PowerFlex Appliance with PowerFlex 4.x Architecture Overview > Flashcards

Dell PowerFlex Appliance with PowerFlex 4.x Architecture Overview Flashcards

1
Q

What two network topologies can you use?

A

Access Aggregation
Leaf-Spine

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2
Q

What network hardware can you use with PowerFlex?

A

Cisco Nexus
PowerSwitch

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3
Q

What is a hybrid deployment of PowerFlex?

A

mixture of HCI and compute/storage only nodes

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4
Q

What is the minimum number of nodes for the management plane on a PowerFlex cluster?

A

3

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5
Q

What are the two virtualization options on PowerFlex?

A

bare-metal (hypervisor agnostic / two layer approach)
VMWare ESXi (HCI nodes)

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6
Q

What are the encryption options on PowerFlex?

A

D@RE
CloudLink
Optional SEDs

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7
Q

What are the backend connectivity options on PowerFlex?

A

25GbE
100GbE

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8
Q

What SDNs are supported on PowerFlex?

A

Cisco ACI
VMWare NSX

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9
Q

What nodes support software defined persistent memory (SDPM)?

A

PowerFlex R760 and R660

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10
Q

What nodes support NVDIMM?

A

PowerFlex R750 and 650

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11
Q

What are the three exceptions for PowerFlex supporting multi-VLAN or multi-subnets for the same network type?

A

data networks
vSAN
NSX overlays

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12
Q

What security admin features does PowerFlex have?

A

non-root user
SSH key pairs
LDAP users

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13
Q

What are the file features of PowerFlex?

A

NAS Server/file system clones
FLR
multi-tenancy

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14
Q

What is the role of PowerFlex Manager?

A

UI for block/file storage
LCM of HW components

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15
Q

When is VMWare ESXi deployed on PowerFlex?

A

default hypervisor for compute only and HCI nodes

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16
Q

What role does vCSA play in ESXi deployments of PowerFlex?

A

provides managements services to VMWare compute environment including both compute only and HCI nodes

also manages VMs of PowerFlex management controller

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17
Q

What is CloudLink?

A

optional component that provides key management for self-encrypting drives and D@RE encryption for non-self encrypting units

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18
Q

What nodes can be used for HCI configurations?

A

R660/R760
R650/R750
R640/R640xd/R840

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19
Q

What nodes can be used for compute only?

A

R660/R760/R6625/R7625
R650/750/R6525/R7525
R640/R740xd/R840

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20
Q

What nodes can be used for file data?

A

R660/R650

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21
Q

What is the backend for compute only nodes?

A

4 x 25GbE
4 x 100GbE

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22
Q

What nodes can be used as storage only?

A

R660/R760/R650/R750
R640/R740/R840

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23
Q

What Cisco switch can you use for management?

A

Cisco Nexus 92348GC-X

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24
Q

What Cisco switch can you use for aggregation?

A

Cisco Nexus 9336C-FX2

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25
Q

What Cisco switches can you use for access?

A

Cisco Nexus 93240YC-FX2

Cisco Nexus 93180YC-FX3

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26
Q

What Cisco switches can you use for spine?

A

Cisco Nexus 9336C-FX2

Cisco Nexus 9364C-GX

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27
Q

What Cisco switches can you use for leaf?

A

Cisco Nexus 93240YC-FX2

Cisco Nexus 9336C-FX2

Cisco Nexus 9364C-GX

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28
Q

What Cisco switches can you use for border leaf?

A

Cisco Nexus 9336C-FX2

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29
Q

What Cisco switch can you use for optional ACI?

A

Cisco Nexus 93240YC-FX2

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30
Q

What Dell switch can you use for management?

A

Dell PowerSwitch S4148T-ON

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31
Q

What Dell switch can you use for aggregation?

A

Dell PowerSwitch S5232F-ON

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32
Q

What Dell switches can you use for access?

A

Dell PowerSwitch S5224F-ON

Dell PowerSwitch S5248F-ON

Dell PowerSwitch S5296F-ON

Dell PowerSwitch S4148F-ON

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33
Q

What nodes can you use for the management controller in PowerFlex?

A

PowerEdge R660/R650

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34
Q

What are the network management deployment options for PowerFlex?

A

full network automation
partial network automation

PowerFlex nodes themselves can be fully managed by PowerFlex Manager in both options

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35
Q

What is full network automation?

A

PowerFlex Manager configures the node facing ports on the customer switches if they are supported

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36
Q

What is partial network automation?

A

used when you have customer network switches that are not supported by Dell

customer responsible for configuring the node facing ports along with the rest of the network

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37
Q

How are NSX Edge nodes connected in Agg-Acc?

A

triple link 25G to Agg Switches

38
Q

How are the controller nodes and management switch connected in Agg-Acc?

A

10G connection

39
Q

What are HCI/compute/file nodes connected in Agg-Acc?

A

25/40/100G connection to Acc switches

40
Q

Besides the controller nodes what is the management switch connected to?

A

WAN (10/25G) and Agg/Acc switches (1G)

41
Q

How are the Agg and Acc switches connected to each other?

A

100G connection

42
Q

how are leaf switches connected to one another?

A

virtual peer link

43
Q

How are NSX nodes connected in border leaf switches?

A

25G triple link to border leaf switches

44
Q

What are the minimum network configurations?

A

one customer provided management switch
one pair of access or leaf switches (Dell PowerSwitch/customer provided
one pair of border leaf switches (only in a leaf-spine configuration)

45
Q

What are the minimum storage configurations?

A

at least 4 nodes (recommendation is a minimum of 6 for a storage pool)

46
Q

What are the hardware requirements if compression is active on PowerFlex?

A

two SPDM components/two NVDIMM components

47
Q

What are the minimum hardware requirements for compute only nodes?

A

at least 3

48
Q

What is the hardware minimum for an HCI configuration?

A

minimum of 4 nodes (recommendation of at least 6)

49
Q

What are the management cluster requirements for PowerFlex?

A

single or multinode

50
Q

What is the compute requirement for deploying NSX Edge nodes?

A

NSX Transport configured on compute only/HCI nodes

51
Q

What is the network requirement for deploying NSX Edge nodes?

A

support either tradition Ethernet architecture (Cisco/Dell) or leaf-spine (Cisco)

connect directly to either agg or border leaf switches - can be connected to acc or leaf switches if ports are unavailable

52
Q

What is the storage requirement for deploying NSX Edge nodes?

A

can run in either local RAID 1+0 (recommended) or vSAN

NSX Manager run on general shared datastores provided by PowerFlex within the management controller

SO nodes not supported as NSX transport nodes

53
Q

What is the management requirement for deploying NSX Edge nodes?

A

4 controller nodes for high availability

4th node included to host NSX Manager

54
Q

What is the minimum configuration for NSX node deployment?

A

2 node minimum if using local RAID
4 node minimum if using vSAN

55
Q

How are NSX Edge nodes connected to a cluster?

A

three dual port 25G connected to border leaf or agg switches

min of 4 interfaces used for transport/external edge traffic

other 2 interfaces used for ESXi management/vSAN traffic w/ LACP

56
Q

What determines what IO is sent to the SDR for replication?

A

volume address mapping (presented to the SDC by the MDM)

SDC is not aware of replication happening

57
Q

Why would someone want to use SDT instead of going through SDC?

A

allows you yo use agentless solution

provides more flexibility options for OS where SDC is not supported

reduces operational complexity of deploying/maintaining host agent

58
Q

What are the rules of protection domains?

A

node participates in only one PD at a time

only nodes in the same PD can affect each other - nodes outside of it are isolated

can create different PDs for different node types

all hosts in PD must have same type/configuration

HCI nodes can’t be in same PD as SO nodes

59
Q

What is a protection domain?

A

group of SDSs

secure multi-tenancy an be created w/ PDs since data doesn’t mingle across PDs

60
Q

What are storage pools?

A

subset of physical storage devices in a protection domain

each storage device belongs to only one storage pool

61
Q

What is best practice when configuring storage pools?

A

have same type of storage devices within to ensue volumes distributed over same type of storage in PD

62
Q

What are the two types of storage pools available?

A

Medium Granularity

Fine Granularity

volumes can be non-disruptively migrated between the two layouts

63
Q

How does compression work on a FG pool?

A

can be enabled/disabled on a per volume basis

64
Q

What are the characteristics of MG pools?

A

support either thick/thin provisioned volumes

no attempt is made to reduce the user written data (except all zero data)

have higher storage access performance than FG pools but use more disk space

65
Q

What are characteristics of FG pools?

A

based on log structure array (LSA) architecture

require both flash and SDPM/NVDIMM

thin provisioned and zero padded by nature

support in line compression/more efficient snapshots/persistent checksums

use less disk space than MG but have slightly lower storage access performance

66
Q

What are fault sets?

A

logical entity that contains a group of SDSs within a PD that have a higher chance of going down together

EX: if they’re all powered in the same rack

67
Q

What is the advantage of fault sets?

A

mirrors data for a fault set on SDSs that are outside the fault set

availability assured even if all servers within one fault set fail simultaneously

68
Q

What is the average compression ratio on PowerFlex?

A

2:1

69
Q

How are FG pools are able to drastically reduce data?

A

because of the 4K allocation it drastically reduces snapshot overhead

since new writes/updates to the volumes data do not each require a 1MB read/copy action

70
Q

How do checksums work on FG pools?

A

all data written to FG pool receives a checksum and is tested for compressibility

checksum for every write is stored with the metadata and adds additional layer of data integrity

71
Q

What performance impact does compression/snapshots have on FG pools?

A

almost zero performance impact - MG pools still best for overall performance

72
Q

How can snapshots be created?

A

initiated manually or by new automated snapshot policies

can define up to 60 policy managed snapshots per volume

73
Q

How do snapshots work in FG vs MG?

A

more space efficient and have better performance in FG than MG

74
Q

How are snapshot policies configured on PowerFlex?

A

based on time retention mechanism

75
Q

How does volume migration work?

A

non-disruptive to ongoing IO and is supported across SPs within the same PD or across PDs

76
Q

What is vTree granularity?

A

migrating volumes from one SP migrates the volume and all its snapshots together

77
Q

What is a part of the PowerFlex Management Control Plane?

A

VMWare ESXi to deliver high availability for VMs
PowerFlex management controller (PE Server w/ customer configuration)
either a SDS, single PFlex management controller w/ RAID, or customer provided management controller

78
Q

What is the PowerFlex Management Platform?

A

software management and orchestration stack of the PowerFlex

implemented on the PowerFlex Management Controller

includes the container environment running on physical or virtual Linux instances

79
Q

What are the two primary business cases for PowerFlex NAS?

A

traditional NAS (home directories/file shares)
transactional NAS (database/VMWare workloads)

80
Q

How do PowerFlex file nodes work?

A

provide compute capabilities and consume storage from SDS

81
Q

What are the naming and directory services provided by PowerFlex file?

A

DNS
LDAP/NIS
Local Files

82
Q

What is DNS?

A

service that provides translation between hostnames and IP addresses

83
Q

What is LDAP/NIS?

A

services that provide a centralized user directory for username and ID resolution

84
Q

What is local files?

A

individual files uses to provide username and ID resolution

85
Q

What kind of NDMP is supported on PowerFlex?

A

three way (Can backup to tape library or backup device)

transfers both the metadata and backup data over the network

86
Q

What are the three primary components of NDMP?

A

primary system
data management application
secondary system

87
Q

What is the minimum ToR switches needed in PowerFlex?

A

2

88
Q

How does volume data mirroring work in PowerFlex?

A

every write to a volume is written both to primary SDS and replicated to another SDS

if a node or disk fails the primary and secondary copies are quickly rebuilt on the remaining nodes/disks

89
Q

How does network traffic work on an HCI configuration?

A

storage traffic is physically and logically separated from mgmt/workload traffic

90
Q

What is a caveat when sizing fault sets?

A

not typically needed except in large installations

Dell PowerFlex Solutions Design 2023 (11 decks)

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