Dell PowerStore on Equinix Metal¶

Equinix Metal™ hosts and operates single-tenant, Dell PowerStore T model appliances as part of our platform and infrastructure.

Availability¶

Dell PowerStore appliances are available in all Metros where Equinix Metal is available.

Ordering an Appliance¶

Ordering, pricing, and fulfillment of Dell PowerStore appliances is handled through a sales and hardware reservation process. A comparison doc, pricing, and the solutions brief is available on the Dell PowerStore partner page.

When you order an appliance, we will arrange for it to be located in racks physically near to your current Equinix Metal infrastructure. If you are also ordering new servers to connect to the appliance, we will arrange them to be located within the networking requirements.

Configuration Overview¶

This document covers initial setup for your cluster networking and infrastructure in preparation for running the PowerStore Initial Configuration Wizard.

At a high-level, these steps include:

• Deploying the PowerStore appliance within Equinix Metal.
• Configuring the bonded ports and setting up the intra-cluster networking.
• Setting up a cluster discovery network and configuring a management server.
• Provisioning a Management network for eventual access to PowerStore Management through the Cluster IP.

After you have completed the setup covered in this doc, you will be able to run the PowerStore Initial Configuration Wizard to finish configuring your cluster and prepare it for your storage use-case.

Please reach out to support should you have any questions or need help.

Provisioning PowerStore Appliances¶

Once you have ordered the appliance and the order has been fulfilled, the PowerStore appliances will show up as reserved hardware in the Equinix Metal console.

To provision your PowerStore appliances, navigate to the Servers tab, click +Add New Server and select Reserved. Each PowerStore node is displayed and managed individually, as if each node was a separate server. Equinix Metal will provide the information on which instance corresponds to which node for each appliance. In this example, f363207f is Node A for the PowerStore 1000T appliance, and b074aa6a is node B.

After selecting one of the PowerStore nodes from Select Server Reservation, configure the hostname to be a user-friendly name to help identify the node within the console, and select Dell Appliance as the OS.

In this example, the PowerStore model, node identity, and Dell Service Tag (DST) have been used in the name. After updating the information, click Deploy Now.

The deployment may take a few minutes to complete, and after the PowerStore nodes are deployed, they are displayed with your other servers in the console.

Clicking a node provides more information on it.

If you need to update the hostname or description, click Edit Instance Details.

Appliance Port and Network Configuration¶

Every PowerStore appliance is deployed into a PowerStore cluster with a minimum of one PowerStore appliance and a maximum of four PowerStore appliances. The networks that allow the nodes to communicate to each other are internal PowerStore networks named the Intracluster Management (ICM) and Intracluster Data (ICD) networks. In PowerStore, the ICM and ICD networks communicate through the network with untagged VLAN network packets that have auto-generated IPv6 addresses.

Before a cluster can be created, each node in every appliance that will be part of a PowerStore cluster must be able to communicate with each other through a bonded port on the appliance. On Equinix Metal, this port will appear as bond0 in the console.

Before configuring the network, confirm that the ports on the PowerStore appliance are currently bonded. Select the PowerStore node from the Server page and navigate to its Network panel. If bond0 is in any configuration other than Layer 2 Bonded, then you're going to have to change the network mode.

Select bond0 and click Convert to Other Network Type. Then, click Layer 2 and ensure that the Bonded option is selected. Click Convert to Layer 2.

Creating the Cluster Network¶

For just the PowerStore nodes in the cluster, configured on bond0 of the PowerStore appliances.

You can now create the new network for clustering purposes. Click your Project's IPs & Networks tab, then select Layer 2. On the Layer 2 page, click + Add New VLAN.

Fill in your information for the new VLAN.

• Location - The VLAN needs to be located in the same metro as your PowerStore appliance and Equinix Metal servers. In the example, the VLAN is being added to Dallas (DA).
• Description - A user-friendly description to identify the VLAN, the example uses "PowerStore Cluster Network".
• VNID - The VNID is used to separate this network traffic from other traffic in the environment. In this example the VNID 3999. It can be any number between 2 and 3999 that is not already in use in your Project.

Click Add to provision the VLAN. When the new network is available it will appear on your Project's Layer 2 page.

Note: If multiple PowerStore clusters are being added to the same environment, create different Layer 2 networks for each cluster, each with a different name and VNID.

Adding Nodes to the Cluster Network¶

After creating the VLAN for cluster communication, add each PowerStore appliance to the network.

From your Servers page, click the hostname of the PowerStore appliance. Navigate to its Network page, and click + Add New Vlan.

In the Add new Vlan screen, the new network can be applied to the Interface. Under Interface, select bond0.

Under Interface, select bond0, and under Network select the VLAN you created for cluster networking. Click Add, to add the appliance to the cluster network.

Repeat these steps for each node in your cluster.

Cluster Discovery¶

PowerStore appliances on Equinix Metal are pre-configured to advertise a discovery IP address on the appliance's mgmt0 port in the 169.254.x.x address range on the native VLAN within a network. You create the temporary discovery network to connect to the appliances and a management server for discovery and configuration purposes.

Setting Up a Discovery Network¶

Set up another Layer 2 VLAN as the temporary network to discover and configure the PowerStore appliances in the environment. This network can be deleted after the cluster is created and management is configured. In the example, the PowerStore Discovery Network has been created using VNID 3998.

After creating the new layer 2 network for discovery, add each PowerStore appliance in your cluster to the network. From the appliance's Network page, click + Add New Vlan.

Under Interface, select mgmt0, and under Network select the discovery network VLAN you created. Click Add, to add the appliance to the cluster network.

Repeat these steps on each management port for each node in the cluster.

Configuring a Management Server¶

Next, set up and configure a management server to connect to your PowerStorage cluster. This server will be part of cluster discovery and connect to the cluster to run the PowerStore Initial Configuration Wizard. You can use an existing server or provision a new one in your Project, just be sure that it is a server that you can configure to use Hybrid networking mode. To convert to Hybrid networking mode, on the server's Network page, click Convert to Other Network Type.

Select Hybrid from the networking mode options, and Bonded from the sub-options. Choose your discovery network from the drop-down menu. To add the server to the network click Assign New VLAN & Convert to Hybrid Networking.

Now the discovery network is listed as a Layer 2 network on the server.

Next, you will have to configure your server's operating system to use the new network by creating a new network interface and assigning it an IP address in the same 169.254.x.x network as the discovery address for the PowerStore appliances. The following examples set the IPv4 address to 169.254.1.2 and the netmask to 255.255.0.0.

modprobe 8021q
lsmod | grep 8021q
echo "8021q" >> /etc/modules-load.d/networking.conf

auto bond0.3998
iface bond0.3998 inet static
address 169.254.1.2
netmask 255.255.255.0
vlan-raw-device bond0

Once the server is added to the VLAN and the IP address is set, PowerStore appliances can be discovered by the management server.

Performing Discovery¶

At this time all PowerStore appliances should be accessible from the discovery host. PowerStore by default uses several 169.254.x.x IP addresses for discovery purposes. Once the cluster is configured, these IPs will no longer be available on the system. To confirm the host can access a PowerStore appliance within the environment, complete a ping test and/or browse to the following IPs from the management host:

• http://169.254.0.10
• http://169.254.0.20
• http://169.254.0.30
• http://169.254.0.40
• http://169.254.0.50

If successful, browsing to the IP in an internet browser window from your management server will show the login screen for PowerStore. If the system cannot be reached, confirm the discovery network information is correct within the environment.

Configuring the Management Network¶

The final network you need to complete the setup for your PowerStore cluster is the Management Network. Set up another VLAN in the same metro as your PowerStore appliances and management server, giving it a friendly description, and assigning it a VNID. In this example, the VNID is 100.

Once you create the management network, add the PowerStore nodes and your management server to it. This VLAN is configured on mgmt0 on the PowerStore appliances and bond0 on the management server.

From the appliance's Network page, click + Add New Vlan. Under Interface, select mgmt0, and under Network select the management VLAN. Click Add, to add the appliance to the management network.

Important Since the discovery network is also assigned to mgmt0 and is designed to operate on the native VLAN, you need to set the PowerStore discovery network as the native VLAN in the Equinix Metal console after you add the node to the management network.

On the Network page of the PowerStore node, click Manage next to the mgmt0 entry with the PowerStore discovery network VLAN. In the Manage VLAN panel, click Set Native VLAN.

After configuring the node, add the new management network and set the native VLAN on the remaining PowerStore nodes.

Next, add the management server to the new management network. From the server's Network page, click + Add New Vlan. Under Interface, select bond0, and under Network select the management VLAN. Click Add, to add the server to the management network.

You will also have to configure the server's OS to use the new network, just as you did for the discovery network. Create a new network interface and, since this network is going to for management of the cluster post-configuration wizard, configure it with an IP address in the same IP address space as your future Cluster IP.

For example, if your eventual PowerStore Cluster IP in going to be 192.168.1.10, then assign management server an IP of 192.168.1.2.

Once the PowerStore cluster is created (after running the PowerStore Initial Configuration Wizard), the host will be able to access PowerStore Manager over the management network.

You do not have to set the discovery network as the native VLAN on the server, as VLAN tagging is handled within the OS at the interface level.

PowerStore Initial Configuration Wizard¶

Once you have your three networks set up and your management server can reach your PowerStore appliance over the discovery network, you can configure your cluster by running the Initial Configuration Wizard (ICW). The ICW is an HTML5-based configuration wizard hosted on the PowerStore appliance that gathers all necessary information about networking and infrastructure services. The appliance automatically applies this configuration and brings PowerStore into a configured, operational state. If multiple PowerStore appliances exist within the network, a cluster can be created while completing the Initial Configuration Wizard.

Running the wizard has multiple parts covered in the Dell documentation. Some things to keep in mind as you are setting up your cluster:

• VLAN management network tagged traffic and ID number - since we set up the management VLAN in EM to have VNID 100, for example, the management network also has to have the VLAN ID set to 100.
• Your Cluster IP, your management server, and any other servers that you want to be able to access the the Cluster IP should all be attached to the management VLAN and all have IP addresses in the same IP address space on that VLAN.

After you have run the Wizard and the cluster configuration is complete, the cluster can now be managed through the Cluster IP address.

Using Your PowerStorage Appliance for Storage¶

In general, for most use-cases on Equinix Metal, you will need to set up a new Layer 2 VLAN for a Storage network and connect each PowerStore appliance and your servers to it.

Keep in mind that the PowerStore Intracluster Management (ICM) and Intracluster Data (ICD) networks run on the native VLAN on the bonded ports. If a second network is assigned to the bonded ports in the Equinix Metal console, communication within the PowerStore cluster for the ICD and ICM networks will be interrupted and a critical level error message within PowerStore Manager will be seen. It is important that the PowerStore cluster network within the Equinix Metal console be tagged as the native VLAN when a second network is added to the node’s bonded ports.

How you configure and use your storage is dependent on your environment and host operating systems. The Dell documentation contains a variety of resources for setup and configuration for a variety of uses-cases, including:

• Configure Storage and NAS networks in PowerStore Manager
• Host Configuration for VMware vSphere ESXi
• Host Configuration for Microsoft Windows
• Host Configuration for Linux

Please reach out to your technical account manager, your sales representative, or support if you have further questions.