This ESG Lab Review was commissioned by Dell EMC and is distributed under license from ESG.
© 2018 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Background
As organizations continue to look for ways to modernize their infrastructures by delivering a cloud-like experience on-
premises, hyperconverged offerings are exceeding expectations. In fact, the adoption of hyperconverged infrastructure has
more than doubled over the last year and it shows no signs of slowing down.1 Simplified, flexible deployment options that
are easily managed and that easily scale are just a few of the factors driving the rapid adoption of hyperconverged
technology. As consolidation and modernization efforts are well underway across all of IT, hyperconverged offerings
continue to meet the needs of the business while satisfying existing and future application SLAs, whether they are related to
performance, scalability, reliability, or cost. With many organizations running enterprise applications and databases of
different shapes and sizes, including hypervisors and operating systems, on traditional physical or virtual infrastructure
models, all configurations and architectures must be considered when planning and expanding further adoption of
hyperconverged infrastructure in the data center.
VxRack System FLEX
VxRack System FLEX (VxRack FLEX) is a rack-based hyperconverged solution
that leverages Dell EMC ScaleIO to deliver flexible, scalable, and performant
software-defined storage. The ScaleIO software runs on industry-proven Dell
EMC PowerEdge servers to deliver a full hyperconverged stack that enables
IT organizations to deal with one vendor that can supply all the software,
hardware, and support required to modernize their data centers. Key to the
solution is the scale-out architecture, offering organizations flexibility to start
small and grow based on their needs. Further, this elasticity delivers on the
hyperconverged promise of cloud-like scale and flexibility on-premises. While many other hyperconverged offerings
disregard networking altogether, VxRack FLEX supports both physical and virtual networking and includes top of rack
switches that control network traffic, management, and redundancy. Put it all together and organizations get a
hyperconverged solution that can easily be used with all other Dell EMC products and services, and, together with ScaleIO,
deliver impressive performance and protection at scale. In addition to ScaleIO built-in data protection capabilities, advanced
data protection capabilities, including backup and recovery, continuous data protection, and protection storage are
available with technologies such as Dell EMC Data Domain with Data Domain Boost (DD Boost) and Dell EMC RecoverPoint.
ScaleIO – Data-center-grade Software-defined Storage
Powering the VxRack FLEX solution is ScaleIO, Dell EMC’s scale-out software-defined storage solution that abstracts the
direct-attached storage found in Dell EMC PowerEdge servers into a pool of shared block storage. By converging the storage
and compute on the same physical servers, this single and/or two-layer architecture helps to simplify management and
maximize storage efficiency as the infrastructure grows from four to thousands of nodes. Whether using HDDs, SSDs, or
even NVMe or PCIe flash, storage is combined into virtual block-storage pools with varying performance tiers. Combined
with QoS, snapshots, caching, fault sets and protection domains, and data-at-rest encryption, ScaleIO running within the
VxRack FLEX system delivers a data-center-grade, fully integrated hyperconverged solution. Leveraging a software-defined
storage approach to satisfy enterprise application and database block storage requirements enables organizations to
potentially break free of large initial investments and high operational costs commonly associated with traditional SANs.
Further, fears of technology updates, refreshes, and data migrations impacting costs, risk, and periods of downtime can be
all but eliminated.
1 Source: ESG Research Report, The Cloud Computing Spectrum, from Private to Hybrid, March 2016; and ESG Master Survey Results, Converged and
Hyperconverged Infrastructure Trends, October 2017.
ESG Technical White Paper
Enabling Enterprise Cloud Adoption with Dell EMC and VxRack FLEX
Date: March 2018 Author: Mike Leone, Senior IT Validation Analyst | Dom Amato, Associate IT Validation Analyst
Enterprise Strategy Group | Getting to the bigger truth.™
Lab Review: Enabling Enterprise Cloud Adoption with Dell EMC and VxRack FLEX 2
© 2018 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Transitioning to a Cloud Operating Model
Organizations continue to look for ways to
modernize their infrastructures for traditional and
emerging applications, which come in various
shapes and sizes, with different operating profiles
and SLA requirements. This is especially true in
massive, dynamic IT environments that consist of
multiple mission-critical applications leveraging the
same underlying infrastructure. As outlined by the
National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST), cloud computing must provide “a model
for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand
network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and
services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” 2
Additionally, in order to take full advantage of the cloud, organizations are looking for ways to follow a cloud operating
model on-premises in a private cloud environment, making the eventual transition to a hybrid or off-premises approach fast
and seamless.
VxRack FLEX serves as an ideal infrastructure for running traditional and emerging workloads that are deployed with a cloud
operating model in mind. Dell EMC understands that dynamic workloads come in all shapes and sizes, and the VxRack FLEX
is architected with those considerations in mind. With the VxRack FLEX allowing for easier resource management,
organizations can be confident in its ability to meet the application requirements for running mixed workloads
simultaneously. And because the underlying architecture is built with cloud infrastructure architectures in mind, VxRack
FLEX enables the delivery of cloud-like services that customers can depend on, including integrations with leading
hypervisors, such as VMware and major cloud vendors.
Cloud Computing Reference Model
According to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), a reference model is an
abstract framework for understanding the significant relations among the entities of an environment, and for the
development of consistent standards or specifications supporting that environment.3
The blueprint for a cloud infrastructure capable of delivering a cloud-like experience while continuing to meet the needs of
a dynamic business is shown through a cloud computing reference model. The model is designed specifically to describe
and align the various layers and cross functions that should be considered when designing and deploying a cloud
environment. Five logical layers include entities that may be present: physical, virtual, control, service orchestration, and
the services themselves. Further, three cross-layer functions
are essential to reliable and secure cloud services: service
management, business continuity, and security.
As an infrastructure foundation for a cloud operating model,
Dell EMC’s VxRack FLEX architecture enables IT organizations
to build cloud services leveraging VMware vRealize to
optimize workload and resource management.
ESG reviewed how VxRack FLEX supports and participates in
four specific aspects of the cloud computing reference
model: the physical, virtual, and control layers, as well as
the business continuity function.
2 Source: The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing 3 Source: Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)
Lab Review: Enabling Enterprise Cloud Adoption with Dell EMC and VxRack FLEX 3
© 2018 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Physical and Virtual Infrastructure Layers
The infrastructure layers of the cloud computing reference model act as the
foundation for the entire cloud environment. The physical layer includes all
physical components of the environment, including compute, network, and
storage, as well as any protocols, tools, and processes used to operate them.
These entities are also responsible for satisfying requests made by the other
layers. The virtual layer is deployed on top of the physical layer to virtualize the
resources provided by the physical layer, creating pools of virtual resources.
The VxRack FLEX, delivered as an engineered system, provides the physical and
virtual layers as an advanced hyperconverged infrastructure. This delivers a
turnkey experience as VxRack FLEX is engineered and architected into a release
certification matrix (RCM) for system lifecycle assurance and integrity. A fully
integrated rack-scale fabric provides for scalability with a fully integrated Cisco
rack-scale spine-and-leaf network fabric with pre-integrated physical networking. And for mission-critical applications with
the highest of performance SLAs, the physical and virtual layers of the VxRack FLEX are NVMe-ready, meaning organizations
gain peace of mind knowing that even their microsecond latency requirements will be met.
Control Layer
Next, the management and configuration of all physical and virtual resources are accomplished at the control layer. The
technology that enables this functionality is deployed on either the virtual or physical layer and handles requests from IT
administrators or top-level services.
The VxRack FLEX simplifies management and control by monitoring scale-out VxRack FLEX deployments within an
organization’s data center as a shared resource infrastructure rather than individual components. While the VxRack FLEX
monitors the infrastructure as a whole, granular control is still available to easily inspect the status and behavior of each
individual component. And when considering that most traditional applications are virtualized on VMware vSphere, the
addition of VMware vRealize software also allows for workload automation between layers to increase productivity by
alleviating time traditionally spent on mundane
administration tasks. This unified management approach
enables Dell EMC’s release certification matrix (RCM) to
ensure the entire infrastructure remains up to date with
the latest and greatest drivers, security patches, and
features/functions. The ability to provide a single update
process streamlines any maintenance and upgrades,
cutting off the potential for downtime or missed update
windows.
Business Continuity Function
Business continuity acts as a cross-layer function in the model to take measures against potential infrastructure downtime.
These measures are either proactive or reactive depending on the nature of an outage. IT administrators can plan ahead to
conduct business impact analysis, risk assessment, and deployment plans for any repairs, while also ensuring the proper
levels of data protection are leveraged to give IT administrators the tools for disaster restart and recovery in the event of a
machine or human failure, including malware or cyber-attacks. And being a cross-layer function, a solid business continuity
plan allows organizations to keep the lights on across all aspects of the infrastructure.
Lab Review: Enabling Enterprise Cloud Adoption with Dell EMC and VxRack FLEX 4
© 2018 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
On top of a virtualized, cloud-ready infrastructure, VxRack
FLEX gives customers the tools to securely back up and
recover data in both short- and long-term scenarios.
VxRack FLEX relies on Data Domain to address application
landscapes that include large production and non-
production database backup and recovery efforts. Backup
from native tools can still be performed, but additional
advantages through DD Boost ensure that only unique
data is sent to the backup server to decrease the amount of bandwidth required for each operation. This client-side
deduplication not only increases backup job speeds but also removes the management of duplicate data in physical or
virtual tape cartridges. For organizations moving data to the cloud with Data Domain Cloud Tier, data is natively tiered to
the public, private, or hybrid cloud for long-term retention. Only unique data is sent directly from Data Domain to the cloud
and data lands on the cloud object storage already deduplicated. This enables organizations to reduce their storage
footprint before shipping to the cloud, reducing cold cloud storage costs, and minimizing ingress/egress costs.
For disaster recovery, traditional tier-1 mission-critical workloads typically leverage existing expertise and process with
technologies like VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM). Tier-2 applications, in some cases due to cost and resource
constraints, have not been part of the same DR strategy. For these tier-2 applications, VxRack FLEX via Data Domain Cloud
DR allows enterprises to copy backed-up VMs from their on-premises Data Domain and Avamar environments to AWS
object storage (S3), as well as orchestrate DR testing, including failover and failback of cloud workloads in a disaster
scenario. With Cloud DR being an extension of the existing on-premises data protection to the cloud processes, the user
experience is quite familiar to administrators, minimizing required education and training. Additional benefits enabled with
Data Domain Cloud DR include a minimal cloud footprint (no additional compute is required during routine replication, and
minimal compute is required in case of test or recovery), and orchestrated recovery and failback of workloads.
The Bigger Truth
As organizations continue modernization efforts of existing IT infrastructures by running workloads in a cloud (whether
private or public), they require a solution capable of supporting their dynamic workloads. With the VxRack FLEX,
organizations gain an infrastructure that is pre-integrated and pre-validated before being shipped, making deployment
quick, easy, and free of disruption. With storage and compute that can scale independently, VxRack FLEX gives organizations
the ability to migrate data and workloads to an infrastructure that supports the operating principles put forth in the cloud
compute reference model.
With VxRack FLEX, organizations gain a fully software-defined infrastructure ready to work with integrated VMware IaaS to
easily pool resources with a goal of distributing workloads and decreasing the burden of management. With Data Domain
and DD Boost, not only can administrators efficiently and securely protect workloads on-premises, but also the backup
technology helps with the potential cost of long-term on-premises protection by moving data to a public cloud. And for
disaster recovery, Data Domain Cloud DR provides alternatives for safeguarding production environments, reducing the
expense and management of replicating workloads and broadening the number of applications protected with orchestrated
failover and failback from AWS.
ESG Lab recommends VxRack FLEX as a cloud-enabling HCI offering for IT organizations looking to invest in a modernized
infrastructure capable of seamlessly integrating infrastructure, workloads, and as-a-service technologies on-premises and in
the cloud.
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The goal of ESG Lab reports is to educate IT professionals about data center technology products for companies of all types and sizes. ESG Lab reports are not meant to replace the evaluation process that should be conducted
before making purchasing decisions, but rather to provide insight into these emerging technologies. Our objective is to go over some of the more valuable feature/functions of products, show how they can be used to solve real
customer problems and identify any areas needing improvement. ESG Lab's expert third-party perspective is based on our own hands-on testing as well as on interviews with customers who use these products in production
environments.