Dell VxRail Network Planning Guide

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Plan network settings for VxRail management components

The IP addresses assigned to VxRail components that are members of the external management network and the VMware vCenter Server management network, follow these requirements:

  • The scheme must be a public IP address range.
  • Fixed (no DHCP).
  • Can not be in use.
  • The range must all be in the same subnet.

You have some flexibility in how the IP addresses are assigned to the VxRail management components. You can manually assign the IP addresses to the VMware ESXi hosts or auto-assign during the initial build. The final VxRail configuration that is planned for your data center impacts the number of required IP addresses.

  • If wanted, reserve additional IP addresses for VxRail management to assign to VxRail nodes for expansion in a single rack. When a node is added to a VxRail cluster, an IP address is assigned from the unused reserve pool, or you are prompoted for an IP address if none are in reserve and unused.
  • Decide whether you are going to use the VMware vCenter Server instance that is deployed in the VxRail cluster or an external VMware vCenter Server that is operational in your data center. If you use the VMware vCenter Server instance that is supplied by VxRail, you must reserve an IP address for VMware vCenter Server.
  • Decide if you are going to use VMware vSphere Log Insight that can be deployed in the VxRail cluster. If you use an external VMware vCenter Server that is operational in your data center for VxRail, VMware vSphere Log Insight cannot be deployed.

Reserve a subnet range with sufficient open IP addresses to cover VxRail initial build and any planned expansion.

Use the following table to determine the number of public IP addresses required for external connectivity:

Table 1. IP addresses required for external connectivityIP addresses required for external connectivity.
Component Condition
VxRail node Single stack: 1

Dual-stack: 2 per VxRail node

VxRail Manager
  • Single stack: 1
  • Dual-stack: 2
VMware vCenter Server
  • Customer-managed: 0
  • VxRail-managed:
    • Single stack: 1
    • Dual-stack: 2

Depending on whether VxRail is being deployed with single-stack or dual-stack , your networking team must provide the IPv4 or IPv6 network settings for the VxRail External Management Network. Use the following tables to capture these values:

Table 2. External management network settings for IPv4 networking External management network settings for IPv4 networking
Network configuration table Action
Row 8 Enter the IPv4 subnet mask for the VxRail external management network.
Row 9 Enter the IPv4 gateway for the VxRail external management network.
Table 3. External management network settings for IPv6 networking External management network settings for IPv6 networking
Network configuration table Action
Row 10 Enter the IPv6 subnet mask for the VxRail external management network.
Row 11 Enter the IPv6 gateway for the VxRail external management network.

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