Requirements for deploying a UnityVSA

UnityVSA HA

UnityVSA HA is an enhanced version of single-SP UnityVSA. By adding dual-SP functionality, UnityVSA HA can recover from one SP failure, which significantly increases the applicable use case scenarios of the system. Unlike the single-SP UnityVSA, UnityVSA HA version is only available in Professional Edition (PE). It offers three capacity choices: 10 TB, 25 TB, and 50 TB.

Unity Cloud Edition

Deploying Unity Cloud Edition with VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) provides benefits to both cloud and on-premises storage resources.

Unity Cloud Edition enables your cloud resources to use UnityVSA features and file management in the cloud storage environment.

Data mobility between Unity Cloud Edition and on-premises Unity and UnityVSA appliances is the same as data mobility between on-premises appliances. As a result, Unity Cloud Edition enables cloud-based data protection for block and file resources hosted on-premises.

Figure 1. Unity Cloud Edition integration with VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC)

Unity Cloud Edition HA can be upgraded without disrupting workloads.

This document describes how to deploy UnityVSA, UnityVSA HA, Unity Cloud Edition, Unity Cloud Edition HA, and the Tie Breaker Node (TBN) for UnityVSA HA. For information about using UnityVSA or Unity Cloud Edition, see Dell EMC UnityVSA Frequently Asked Questions, which is available from the UnityVSA Info Hub, and see the UnityVSA online help.

ESXi host requirements

A 64-bit ESXi host running 6.0 or later is required for installing UnityVSA. For UnityVSA HA, separate ESXi hosts for SPA, SPB, and the Tie Breaker Node (TBN) are recommended. The use of vCenter to manage ESXi hosts is optional for a single-SP deployment and mandatory for a UnityVSA HA deployment.

Although you can use nested ESXi with a single-SP UnityVSA, deployment, it is not recommended unless it guarantees the exclusive reservation of computing and network resources. Do not use nested ESXi with a UnityVSA HA deployment, because it does not work with HA.

UnityVSA deployment is also supported on VMware Cloud on AWS.

VM environment for on-premises deployment

The ESXi host provides the storage virtualization, which abstracts the physical storage layer from the VM. Datastores are the logical containers that are created on physical storage. Datastores contain the virtual disks that are used by a VM to store its operating system, program files, and other data associated with its activities. You can configure VMs with multiple virtual disks.

From the standpoint of the VM, each virtual disk looks like a SCSI drive that is connected to a SCSI controller. Whether the actual physical storage is being accessed through local storage or network adapters on the host is typically transparent to the VM.

A VM is connected to a virtual network by assigning the VM's network adapters to that network's port group. A vSphere switch detects which virtual machines are connected to each of its virtual ports and uses that information to forward traffic to the correct VM.

For information about configuring and managing a VM environment, see the VMware vSphere documentation.

Network configuration

To deploy and configure UnityVSA, you must provide network configuration information. Contact your network administrator to gather network settings information before you install UnityVSA.

UnityVSA can be configured to use:

• One IPv4 address (static or dynamic)
• One IPv6 address (static or dynamic)
• Both an IPv4 address and an IPv6 address

To use dynamic addressing, your network environment must include a DHCP server (DHCPv4 for an IPv4 address and DHCPv6 or SLAAC for an IPv6 address). If the network environment is not dynamic, you must assign the management IP address manually.

If UnityVSA is configured with a single IP address, a DNS server is optional but highly recommended. If UnityVSA is configured with both an IPv4 and IPv6 address, a DNS configuration is required.

Heartbeat mechanism requirements

UnityVSA HA and the TBN use Layer 2 Ethernet broadcasts to monitor the heartbeats of connected systems. For UnityVSA HA and the TBN to function, each heartbeat network (HB0 and HB1) must reside on the same Layer 2 broadcast domain and VLAN and have Layer 2 broadcast traffic enabled.

Considerations for server hardware platforms that do not support CPU instruction set SSE 4.2

Starting in the UnityVSA 4.3 release, server hardware platforms that do not support CPU instruction set SSE 4.2 are no longer supported. You might encounter an error that prevents you from deploying your new 4.3 or later OVA under the following circumstances:

• You are running in an ESXi cluster environment.
• The Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) settings are set to strict.
• There is a nonsupported server in your cluster.

This error can occur even if the server on which you intend to install the UnityVSA supports SSE 4.2. If you deploy a 4.3 or later UnityVSA on a single server and receive this error, choose a newer server platform on which to run ESXi. If you deploy or upgrade a previously running 4.0, 4.1, or 4.2 version of UnityVSA within an ESXi cluster, update your EVC settings so that the UnityVSA can only run on the servers in the cluster whose CPUs support SSE 4.2. Otherwise, you must remove the older, nonsupported servers from your cluster environment.

For instructions on modifying the EVC setting within an ESXi cluster, see the VMware documentation.

Note:  Changes to your EVC control require you to power cycle UnityVSA within VMWare. A shutdown, restart, or a reboot of UnityVSA is not sufficient to correct this issue after modifying the EVC settings. Power cycling a UnityVSA is a disruptive operation that should be scheduled in advance.