Supported Configurations

Reference Architecture for Hyper-V, PowerEdge, VDX and Storage Center

Date : 10/28/2011
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Reference Architecture for a VM Dense Virtualization Environment for Microsoft Hyper-V

Designed for customers seeking to build a high-performance VM dense environment, this reference architecture was created for highly available configurations based on market-leading Dell™ Blade Servers, Dell Compellent™ storage, Brocade® networking and Microsoft® Hyper-V™ hypervisor. The architecture includes Microsoft® System Center and Dell Enterprise Manager for management tasks.

Key benefits of the reference architecture are:

  • Minimized risk associated with multi-vendor solutions
  • Scalable to accommodate growth and your changing storage and compute needs
  • Reliable infrastructure that is designed with built-in redundancies and failover that creates a highly available environment to facilitate excellent service-level-agreement (SLA) delivery
  • Shortened deployment time, which supports rapid return on investment (ROI)

Dell virtualization, server and storage engineering teams, along with Brocade engineers, created and tested the architecture to ensure there are no infrastructure, interoperability or integration issues.

Design Components

Key components of the Reference Architecture include:

  • Dell PowerEdge™ Blade Servers

    • 11th generation M710HD blade server

      • Intel® Xeon® 5500/5600 processors
      • Intel® QuickPath® memory technology
      • Unified Server Configurator 
    • Flex address
    • CMC and iKVM for enclosure management
  • Dell Compellent™ Storage Center
    • Fluid data architecture with thin provisioning and automated tiered storage
    • Centralized management using Enterprise Manager
    • Fast Track
  • Brocade® VDX Switches
    • Brocade VCS technology
    • Transparent interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL)
    • Converged fabric with Data Center Bridging (DCB)
  • Brocade® 5100 Fibre Channel Switches
    • IU 40 port high density switch
    • 1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbps Fibre Channel
  • Microsoft® Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
    • Failover clustering (high availability and live migration)
    • Dynamic memory
  • Microsoft® System Center
    • Virtual Machine Manager — hypervisor and VM management
    • Operations Manager — system monitoring and reporting