Dell PowerFlex Appliance with PowerFlex 4.x Architecture Overview Flashcards
(90 cards)
1
Q
What two network topologies can you use?
A
Access Aggregation
Leaf-Spine
2
Q
What network hardware can you use with PowerFlex?
A
Cisco Nexus
PowerSwitch
3
Q
What is a hybrid deployment of PowerFlex?
A
mixture of HCI and compute/storage only nodes
4
Q
What is the minimum number of nodes for the management plane on a PowerFlex cluster?
A
3
5
Q
What are the two virtualization options on PowerFlex?
A
bare-metal (hypervisor agnostic / two layer approach)
VMWare ESXi (HCI nodes)
6
Q
What are the encryption options on PowerFlex?
A
D@RE
CloudLink
Optional SEDs
7
Q
What are the backend connectivity options on PowerFlex?
A
25GbE
100GbE
8
Q
What SDNs are supported on PowerFlex?
A
Cisco ACI
VMWare NSX
9
Q
What nodes support software defined persistent memory (SDPM)?
A
PowerFlex R760 and R660
10
Q
What nodes support NVDIMM?
A
PowerFlex R750 and 650
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
12
Q
What security admin features does PowerFlex have?
A
non-root user
SSH key pairs
LDAP users
13
Q
What are the file features of PowerFlex?
A
NAS Server/file system clones
FLR
multi-tenancy
14
Q
What is the role of PowerFlex Manager?
A
UI for block/file storage
LCM of HW components
15
Q
When is VMWare ESXi deployed on PowerFlex?
A
default hypervisor for compute only and HCI nodes
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
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
18
Q
What nodes can be used for HCI configurations?
A
R660/R760
R650/R750
R640/R640xd/R840
19
Q
What nodes can be used for compute only?
A
R660/R760/R6625/R7625
R650/750/R6525/R7525
R640/R740xd/R840
20
Q
What nodes can be used for file data?
A
R660/R650
21
Q
What is the backend for compute only nodes?
A
4 x 25GbE
4 x 100GbE
22
Q
What nodes can be used as storage only?
A
R660/R760/R650/R750
R640/R740/R840
23
Q
What Cisco switch can you use for management?
A
Cisco Nexus 92348GC-X
24
Q
What Cisco switch can you use for aggregation?
A
Cisco Nexus 9336C-FX2
25
What Cisco switches can you use for access?
Cisco Nexus 93240YC-FX2
Cisco Nexus 93180YC-FX3
26
What Cisco switches can you use for spine?
Cisco Nexus 9336C-FX2
Cisco Nexus 9364C-GX
27
What Cisco switches can you use for leaf?
Cisco Nexus 93240YC-FX2
Cisco Nexus 9336C-FX2
Cisco Nexus 9364C-GX
28
What Cisco switches can you use for border leaf?
Cisco Nexus 9336C-FX2
29
What Cisco switch can you use for optional ACI?
Cisco Nexus 93240YC-FX2
30
What Dell switch can you use for management?
Dell PowerSwitch S4148T-ON
31
What Dell switch can you use for aggregation?
Dell PowerSwitch S5232F-ON
32
What Dell switches can you use for access?
Dell PowerSwitch S5224F-ON
Dell PowerSwitch S5248F-ON
Dell PowerSwitch S5296F-ON
Dell PowerSwitch S4148F-ON
33
What nodes can you use for the management controller in PowerFlex?
PowerEdge R660/R650
34
What are the network management deployment options for PowerFlex?
full network automation
partial network automation
PowerFlex nodes themselves can be fully managed by PowerFlex Manager in both options
35
What is full network automation?
PowerFlex Manager configures the node facing ports on the customer switches if they are supported
36
What is partial network automation?
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
37
How are NSX Edge nodes connected in Agg-Acc?
triple link 25G to Agg Switches
38
How are the controller nodes and management switch connected in Agg-Acc?
10G connection
39
What are HCI/compute/file nodes connected in Agg-Acc?
25/40/100G connection to Acc switches
40
Besides the controller nodes what is the management switch connected to?
WAN (10/25G) and Agg/Acc switches (1G)
41
How are the Agg and Acc switches connected to each other?
100G connection
42
how are leaf switches connected to one another?
virtual peer link
43
How are NSX nodes connected in border leaf switches?
25G triple link to border leaf switches
44
What are the minimum network configurations?
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
What are the minimum storage configurations?
at least 4 nodes (recommendation is a minimum of 6 for a storage pool)
46
What are the hardware requirements if compression is active on PowerFlex?
two SPDM components/two NVDIMM components
47
What are the minimum hardware requirements for compute only nodes?
at least 3
48
What is the hardware minimum for an HCI configuration?
minimum of 4 nodes (recommendation of at least 6)
49
What are the management cluster requirements for PowerFlex?
single or multinode
50
What is the compute requirement for deploying NSX Edge nodes?
NSX Transport configured on compute only/HCI nodes
51
What is the network requirement for deploying NSX Edge nodes?
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
What is the storage requirement for deploying NSX Edge nodes?
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
What is the management requirement for deploying NSX Edge nodes?
4 controller nodes for high availability
4th node included to host NSX Manager
54
What is the minimum configuration for NSX node deployment?
2 node minimum if using local RAID
4 node minimum if using vSAN
55
How are NSX Edge nodes connected to a cluster?
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
What determines what IO is sent to the SDR for replication?
volume address mapping (presented to the SDC by the MDM)
SDC is not aware of replication happening
57
Why would someone want to use SDT instead of going through SDC?
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
What are the rules of protection domains?
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
What is a protection domain?
group of SDSs
secure multi-tenancy an be created w/ PDs since data doesn't mingle across PDs
60
What are storage pools?
subset of physical storage devices in a protection domain
each storage device belongs to only one storage pool
61
What is best practice when configuring storage pools?
have same type of storage devices within to ensue volumes distributed over same type of storage in PD
62
What are the two types of storage pools available?
Medium Granularity
Fine Granularity
volumes can be non-disruptively migrated between the two layouts
63
How does compression work on a FG pool?
can be enabled/disabled on a per volume basis
64
What are the characteristics of MG pools?
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
What are characteristics of FG pools?
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
What are fault sets?
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
What is the advantage of fault sets?
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
What is the average compression ratio on PowerFlex?
2:1
69
How are FG pools are able to drastically reduce data?
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
How do checksums work on FG pools?
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
What performance impact does compression/snapshots have on FG pools?
almost zero performance impact - MG pools still best for overall performance
72
How can snapshots be created?
initiated manually or by new automated snapshot policies
can define up to 60 policy managed snapshots per volume
73
How do snapshots work in FG vs MG?
more space efficient and have better performance in FG than MG
74
How are snapshot policies configured on PowerFlex?
based on time retention mechanism
75
How does volume migration work?
non-disruptive to ongoing IO and is supported across SPs within the same PD or across PDs
76
What is vTree granularity?
migrating volumes from one SP migrates the volume and all its snapshots together
77
What is a part of the PowerFlex Management Control Plane?
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
What is the PowerFlex Management Platform?
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
What are the two primary business cases for PowerFlex NAS?
traditional NAS (home directories/file shares)
transactional NAS (database/VMWare workloads)
80
How do PowerFlex file nodes work?
provide compute capabilities and consume storage from SDS
81
What are the naming and directory services provided by PowerFlex file?
DNS
LDAP/NIS
Local Files
82
What is DNS?
service that provides translation between hostnames and IP addresses
83
What is LDAP/NIS?
services that provide a centralized user directory for username and ID resolution
84
What is local files?
individual files uses to provide username and ID resolution
85
What kind of NDMP is supported on PowerFlex?
three way (Can backup to tape library or backup device)
transfers both the metadata and backup data over the network
86
What are the three primary components of NDMP?
primary system
data management application
secondary system
87
What is the minimum ToR switches needed in PowerFlex?
2
88
How does volume data mirroring work in PowerFlex?
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
How does network traffic work on an HCI configuration?
storage traffic is physically and logically separated from mgmt/workload traffic
90
What is a caveat when sizing fault sets?
not typically needed except in large installations
