2017 Apr 13 Lab Guide VxRail Deployment and Implementation v1.06

VxRail Appliance Deployment and
Implementation
Lab Guide
Dell EMC Education Services 1

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Document Revision History
Rev # File Name Date

1.0.s VCE VXRAIL Appliance Installation and Configuration Lab Guide May 2016
1.0.4 2017_Feb_22_Lab_Guide_VxRail_Deploynment_and_Implementation_v1.0.4.docx February 2017
1.0.5 2017_Mar_23_Lab_Guide_VxRail_Deploynment_and_Implementation_v1.0.5.docx March 2017

VxRail Appliance Deployment and Implementation Lab Guide
VxRail Deployment and Implementation Lab Contents
Lab Guide ............................................................................................................................................. 1

Copyright .......................................................................................................................................... 2
Document Revision History ................................................................................................................. 3
VxRail Deployment and Implementation Lab Contents .................................................................... 4
Lab 2: Setting the Management VLAN ................................................................................................ 5
Lab 2 Exercise A: Connecting to the VDC ........................................................................................ 6
Lab 2 Exercise B: Setting the Node Management VLAN .................................................................. 8
Lab 2 Exercise C: Team Collaboration Testing .............................................................................. 10
Lab 3: Customer Environment Validation........................................................................................... 11
Lab 3 Exercise A: Pre-Installation Site Checklist ............................................................................ 12
Lab 3 Exercise B: Validate Customer Network Environment .......................................................... 15
Lab 3 Exercise C: Generate Configuration JSON Files .................................................................. 18
Lab 4: VxRail Appliance Initialization ................................................................................................. 20
Lab 4 Exercise A: VxRail Appliance Initialization SolVe Procedures .............................................. 21
Lab 4 Exercise B: [One student per team] VxRail Appliance Initial Configuration ........................... 24
Lab 5: Post Deployment Tasks .......................................................................................................... 28
Lab 5 Exercise A: Verify Cluster using VxRail Manager ................................................................. 29
Lab 5 Exercise B: Verify Cluster using vCenter Web Client ............................................................ 31
Lab 6: Cluster Expansion................................................................................................................... 33
Lab 6 Exercise A: [One student per team] Add a node cluster expansion ...................................... 34
Lab 7: Troubleshooting ...................................................................................................................... 38
Lab 7 Exercise A: VxRail Master Knowledge Base (KB) Article ..................................................... 39
Lab 7 Exercise B: Review Component Errors, Events and Alerts ................................................... 41
Lab 7 Exercise C: Log Collection ................................................................................................... 44
Lab 7 Exercise D: [One student per team, Optional] Applying a VxRail Patch Bundle .................... 46
Lab 7 Exercise E: [One student per team, Optional] Quanta Node Factory Reset .......................... 47
Lab 7 Exercise F: [One student per team, Optional] Dell Node Factory Reset ............................... 51

Lab 2: Setting the Management VLAN

This lab prepares the network for the proper VLAN required for the training environment.
Scenario: VxRail is broadly compatible with most networks switches. VxRail nodes
communicate over one or more customer-provided network switches, typically a
top-of-rack switch where a logical path on the VxRail management VLAN is
required for a workstation to access the VxRail user interface for the cluster.
Student Lab Notes:

• An internet browser is needed, each student will have their own system
as multiple instances of Firefox on a shared Windows Management Host
by the same user ID is not supported.
Tasks: Lab resources for this activity are remote and will be access using the Virtual
Data Center (VDC). In the section of the lab, you will connect into the VDC
and log in to the management server that you will be using for all lab exercises.
The second exercise prepares the hosts for access and connectivity over the
correct VLAN used within the training environment.
The third exercise has your team determine and test a collaboration method for
later lab exercises to be conducted by one team member and observed by the rest
of the team.

Lab 2 Exercise A: Connecting to the VDC

Preface: This exercise documents the method to open and close a Remote Desktop Connection to a Windows
Management Host which will serve as a jump server to your lab resources.
Step Action
1. Lab resources for this activity are located remotely and will be accessed using the EMC Virtual Data
Center (VDC). In the section of the lab, you will connect into the VDC and log in to the
management server where you will launch the component interfaces required for this exercise.
a. Login to a local computer and open Internet Explorer. Point the browser to the following URL:
https://vdc.emc.com
b. Log in to the Virtual Data Center using the credentials supplied by your instructor. Record the
credential here for future reference:
VDC User name: ______________
VDC Password: ______________
2. Important lab conventions

a. The student lab environment is made up of multiple VxRail 4.0 Appliance systems, but not one
appliance per student
i. Certain lab exercises modify the appliance and one student will perform the steps while
other students on a team sharing an appliance will observe
ii. Lab exercises that view the appliance at the system level can be performed individually
iii. Lab exercises that modify settings at the node level can be performed individually since
each student is assigned to one node within an appliance
b. Lab exercises will reference information on a lab handout sheet where you will select the
information that pertains to your assigned VxRail system and node.
i. The key to this sheet will be your student number which you will also use for login to the
VDC
3. After successful authentication, a page will be displayed that shows a list of available systems.
a. Click on the vxrailNN-LN icon. This will launch a Remote Desktop Connection session to
your Windows Management jump host
4. In the Windows Security popup, log in with the user name Administrator and password Passw0rd!
a. If a Remote Desktop Connection dialog indicating certificate errors pops up, Click Yes to
connect despite the warning.

Step Action
5. When it comes time to disconnect from the VDC at the end of each day, there are two ways to exit
from your Remote Desktop Connection to the Windows Management Host. One will leave your
programs running, allowing for later reconnection. The other will cleanly close all programs.
a. Closing the Remote Desktop Connection window will pop up the following message:
This will disconnect your Remote Desktop Services session. Your programs will
continue to run while you are disconnected. You can reconnect to this session later
by logging on again.
i. Click OK to disconnect in this way
ii. When 2 students share a Windows management host, it is possible to connect to the other
students Remote Desktop session. You can either proceed to use this session, or choose
the other session when given a choice which one to connect to
b. Click on the Start menu and click Logoff to close all programs and logoff
i. In some environments, this second method might be selected as better for security
ii. In the classroom setting, it is probably preferable to use the first method which leaves in
progress work still open, aiding in your resuming your lab exercise work where you left
off

Lab 2 Exercise B: Setting the Node Management VLAN

Preface: This exercise prepare the hosts for access and connectivity over the correct VLAN used within the
training environment.
Step Action
1. Login to the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC)
a. In a Firefox Browser address bar, enter the BMC IP address for your assigned node from the
VxRail D&I Lab Worksheet
i. Note: This step must be completed for all 4 nodes in each team. If there are fewer than 4
students in your team, then you will ensure this lab is completed for the nodes not
assigned to other students.
b. Login Username admin and Password admin
2. Invoke the remote console
a. Select the Remote Control tab and select Console Redirection
b. Click the Java Console button
c. Click OK to open the jviewer.jnlp file with the Java Web Start Launcher
d. If prompted with Java Update Needed, click Later to continue without updating
e. Click Continue
f. Click Run
3. Enable SSH and ESXCLI
a. Type the F2 key
b. Login using Login Name root and Password Passw0rd!
c. Use the down-arrow to select Troubleshooting Options and type <Enter>
d. Select Enable ESXi Shell and toggle using the <Enter> key to Enabled state.
You will not be able to execute CLI commands in a later step if this is not Enabled.
e. Select Enable SSH and toggle using the <Enter> key to Enabled state
f. Type <Esc> to exit troubleshooting options
4. Open a command session
a. Enter Alt-F1
i. Select the BMC JViewer Keyboard menu option and check the Hold Left Alt Key
ii. Type the F1 key
iii. Return to the BMC JViewer Keyboard menu and uncheck Hold Left Alt Key
b. Login as root and Password Passw0rd!
5. Check to see if the Management VLAN is set
a. Enter
esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup list
b. If the VLAN IDs of both port groups match your Mgmt VLAN, skip to step 9
6. Set the Management VLAN
a. Identify your team Mgmt VLAN from the VxRail D&I Lab Worksheet
b. Enter ESXCLI commands substituting your team VxRail cluster VLAN
esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup set -p “Management Network” -v <Mgmt VLAN>
esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup set -p “VM Network” -v <Mgmt VLAN>

Step Action
7. Verify the Management VLAN settings
a. Enter
esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup list
b. You should see the VLAN ID’s you set in the VLAN ID column
8. Restart the loudmouth service
a. Enter
/etc/init.d/loudmouth restart
9. Exit the BMC session
a. From the BMC JViewer Video menu, select Exit
b. Close the browser tab in Firefox

Lab 2 Exercise C: Team Collaboration Testing

Preface: This exercise is an opportunity for your team to test and verify a collaboration method so one of you
can perform a lab exercise on your shared VxRail Appliance while the others observe.
Step Action
1. Email dialog with your team to determine potential collaboration tools
a. Use the login spreadsheet from your instructor to start an email thread amongst your team to
suggest potential collaboration tools that you all can use
b. Options include but are not limited to:
i. WebEx
ii. Skype or Skype for Business
c. Be sure to determine if all team members have access to the tool and are not blocked by
company firewalls
d. Once a potential solution is determined, test it
2. Testing
a. Have one person initiate the collaboration tool and provide the necessary information for other
team members to connect to the test session
b. Once all users are connected test the following features
i. Screen application sharing
ii. Audio for discussion
iii. Chat as an alternative to audio
iv. (Optional) session recording for sharing with team members who cannot stay connected
3. Confirm success to your instructor
a. Let your instructor know that your team has a working collaboration method
b. Your instructor can help your team use the Centra Breakout Rooms feature if you have been
unsuccessful in finding a better alternative

Lab 3: Customer Environment Validation

This lab examines the environment where the VxRail Appliance will be deployed. It examines the pre-
installation requirements for both the node configuration as well as the network topology.
Scenario: This lab exercise is designed to reinforce the pre-installation checklist

discussion by walking through a sample configuration. It also validates the
configuration of the network switches used within the training environment.
Tasks for this lab include:

Tasks: • Open pre-installation checklist to answer questions, additional
documents will be used in subsequent labs.
• Verify the network switch settings using the Dell CLI
• Generate the JSON file

Lab 3 Exercise A: Pre-Installation Site Checklist

Preface: This exercise simulates completing portions of the Pre-Installation Site Checklist as you would do in a
Deployment and Implementation Service engagement.
Step Action
1. On the desktop of your Windows Management Host, you will copy a folder of documents located
on the VR_DI share to your desktop. These documents represent a fixed version of the files to
correspond with lab instructions. When performing a Deployment and Implementation, ensure you
have the latest version of all documents.
a. Open Windows Explorer and browse to This PC
b. Navigate to the VxRail Class share
c. Right-click the VR_DI folder and select Copy
d. In the Navigation tree select your Desktop folder
e. Right-click empty space and select Paste so you have your own VR_DI folder
f. Leave Windows Explorer open for later lab steps
2. Open the Pre-Installation Checklist
a. Navigate to your desktop VR_DI folder and double-click to open
VxRail 4.0.0 Pre-Installation Site Checklist_20161208.xlsm
b. Click Enable Content to enable macros for customizing the checklist based on your
responses and creating JSON configuration files
3. Review the Introduction worksheet
a. Read the instructions in rows 6-9
b. Notice the referenced worksheet tabs
i. Begin Here
ii. Switch Config Actuals
c. Notice the reference to Switch configuration guides
i. The student lab uses Dell S4048-ON switches and the reference guide is in the shared
VR_DI folder
4. Start completing the Begin Here worksheet
a. In cell C1 leave the Production selection set
b. In cell C8 set the state to Not Performed (license issues will be covered in a later module)
c. In row 10 notice the need to review the Release Notes before completing the installation
5. Review the VxRail Release Notes
a. In your desktop VR_DI folder, double-click to open
docu80740_VxRail-Appliance-4.0-Release-Notes.pdf
b. Review the contents on page 1
c. Review the Version details on page 2
d. Review the Overview and What’s new on page 3
e. Scroll to page 7 and review the first two Known issues
i. Notice the description of the problems, the Workaround action and the available
Knowledge Base (KB) articles for more information
f. In order to be best prepared for a VxRail installation, you would need to more thoroughly
review the VxRail Release Notes
g. Close the VxRail Release Notes when you are finished reading

Step Action
6. Continue in the Begin Here worksheet
a. Change cell C10 to Confirmed
b. Review step 4 in row 12
i. This is the place where you note embedded or external vCenter and the configuration
requirements for an external vCenter
ii. Change cell C12 to Confirmed acknowledging that you checked this issue (not that an
external vCenter will be used)
c. In row 14 notice the need to complete the Network Basics worksheet
d. In row 16 notice the need to complete the VLAN Information worksheet
7. Complete the Network Basics worksheet TOR Switch Details section
a. Select the Network Basics worksheet tab
b. In cell D4 enter Dell
c. In cell D5 enter S4048-ON
d. Change cell D10 to Others
e. Leave cell D11 set to 1 VxRail appliance
f. Change cell D12 to 4 for the initial number of VxRail Appliance nodes
g. Change cell D13 to YES
h. Change cell D14 to YES noting that 220 VAC circuits are required for all except the VxRail-
60 model
i. Change cell D15 to YES to indicate that you have the SFP+ network cabling needed for the
Dell S4048 switch
j. Review the row 16 instructions for laptop configuration for VxRail configuration
8. Complete the Network Basics worksheet TOR Switch Settings section
a. Change cell D20 to 1 and notice many of the rows to be filled out becoming hidden
b. Change cell D23 to 10G
c. Leave cell D24 set to a single upstream switch
d. Change cell D25 to quoted string “47-48” indicating switch uplink ports
e. Change cell D26 into 3 comma separated values for the Mgmt VLAN, vSAN VLAN and
vMotion VLAN listed in the VxRail D&I Lab Worksheet
f. Change cell D33 to the comma separated quoted strings “1-8”, “9-10”
g. Change cell D37 to IP Address value for Dell S4048-ON in the Lab Worksheet
h. Change cell D39 to Netmask 255.255.255.224
i. Change cell D40 to the Gateway value for your team in the Lab Worksheet
j. Change cell D41 to the Mgmt VLAN for your team in the Lab Worksheet
k. Change cell D45 to IP Address value for Dell S4048-ON in the Lab Worksheet
l. Change cell D47 to Netmask 255.255.255.224
m. Change cell D48 to the Gateway value for your team in the Lab Worksheet
9. Complete the VLAN Information worksheet
a. Select the VLAN Information worksheet tab
b. Read the notes in column E
c. Change cell C5 to your team Mgmt VLAN value in the Lab Worksheet
d. Leave the VLAN Network Name in cells D5-7 with their default values
e. Cells C6-7 and the entire VM network table will be auto-filled from entries on other sheets

Step Action
10. Return to the Begin Here worksheet
a. Select the Begin Here worksheet tab
b. Change cell C14 to Confirmed
c. Change cell C16 to Confirmed
d. Read row 18 and change cell C18 to Confirmed, notice KB reference in cell D18
e. Read row 20 and change cell C20 to Confirmed
f. Read the following rows for instructions on configuration confirmation steps, some of which
will be used in subsequent lab steps
i. Read row 22
ii. Read row 24
iii. Read row 26
iv. Read row 28, notice KB reference in cell D28
v. Read row 30
vi. Read row 34
vii. Read row 36
viii. Read row 38
ix. Read row 40
g. Change cell C32 to Confirmed, since you completed this step in an earlier lab exercise
h. Review optional steps in rows 42-47
11. Save your changes to the Pre-Installation Site Checklist and leave it open for a subsequent lab
exercise.

Lab 3 Exercise B: Validate Customer Network Environment

Preface: This exercise simulates the process to verify the network configuration documented in the Pre-
Installation Site Checklist will work correctly when the VxRail is first installed.
Step Action
1. Verify no IP address conflicts with ping
a. Click the CMD Prompt link on the desktop to open a command prompt window
b. Using the the VxRail D&I Lab Worksheet values, check for conflicts by pinging values that
are still to be configured. There should be no response to these pings
i. Ping your assigned node’s ESXi IP Address
ping -n 1 <ip_address>
ii. Ping your assigned team vCenter IP Address
iii. Ping your assigned team Platform Services Controller IP Address
iv. Ping your assigned team Log Insight IP Address
c. This ping should respond since VxRail Manager is already assigned your team address, but in
standard deployments this ping should also fail
i. Ping your assigned team VxRail Manager IP Address
2. Confirm forward and reverse lookup DNS entries are in place with nslookup
a. Using the the VxRail D&I Lab Worksheet values
i. Check your ESXi forward lookup using your assigned ESXi Node Name. You may
need to append the domain vsb.edu to the network names in this step.
ii. Check your ESXi reverse lookup using your assigned ESXi IP Address
iii. Check your vCenter forward lookup using your assigned FQDN Name
iv. Check your vCenter reverse lookup using your assigned IP Address
v. Check your VxRail Manager forward lookup using your assigned FQDN Name
vi. Check your VxRail Manager reverse lookup using your assigned IP Address
vii. Check your Platform Services Controller forward lookup using your assigned
FQDN Name
viii. Check your Platform Services Controller reverse lookup using your assigned IP
Address
ix. Check your Log Insight forward lookup using your assigned FQDN Name
x. Check your Log Insight reverse lookup using your assigned IP Address
3. Confirm source server connectivity using ping
a. Using the the VxRail D&I Lab Worksheet values
i. Verify a response from your team Gateway IP Address
ii. Verify NTP Server present, enter ping 10.254.140.22
b. Additional confirmation pings that could be applicable to your customer include
i. External vCenter
ii. External syslog server
4. Close the command prompt

Step Action
5. Open a SSH session with logging to the ToR switch in order to confirm settings
a. Open a PuTTY session to the Dell S4048-ON switch assigned to your team
b. Configure session logging
i. Select and highlight under Category, under Session, select Logging
ii. For Log file name leave putty.log and click Browse and navigate for it to be saved to
your desktop VR_DI folder
iii. Select the Ask the user every time radio button for the action when the log file already
exists
iv. Check the Flush log file frequently
v. Check the Omit known password fields checkbox
c. Under Category, select and highlight Session
d. From the Lab Worksheet, enter your team Dell S4048-ON 10GB Switch FQDN or IP
Address in the Host Name (or IP address) field
e. Click Open to connect
f. Login as monitor with Password VMwar3!!
6. Verify link aggregation (LACP/EtherChannel) is disabled on appliance-connected ports
a. Enter show protocol-tunnel vlan <Mgmt VLAN>
i. You should see Error: Protocol tunneling is not enabled
7. Confirm VLAN settings
a. Enter show vlan
b. All appliance-connected ports (1-10) should be active for each of the following VLANs as
listed in the Lab Worksheet
i. vMotion VLAN
ii. vSAN VLAN
iii. Mgmt VLAN
c. Also the Mgmt VLAN should be active on the uplink port (47)
8. Confirm IPv6 Multicast is enabled on the Management VLAN
a. You are looking to confirm that both MLD snooping and MLD querier is enabled as the
preferred method to support IPv6 multicast. However the S4048-ON switch used in the
student lab does not support MLD Snooping and Querier, but does allow pass-through of
multicast traffic.
b. Disabling MLD Snooping is an alternative method to permit IPv6 multicast. It is less
desirable as it could lead to additional multicast traffic on the network. However VxRail
auto-configuration/management uses an extremely low volume of IPv6 multicast, so this is an
acceptable option.
c. Display IPv6 MLD counters, enter show ipv6 mld_host
i. All counters will likely display zero values
d. There are some additional commands available on this switch in Exec Privilege mode.
However, since you used a monitor login not allowing configuration changes to be mad e to
the switch, you cannot enter this mode.
i. For information purposes only:
• Enter enable, and when prompted enter administrator login password
• Enter show running-config mld to verify IPv6 Multicast Listener
Discovery is enabled on the Management VLAN

Step Action
9. Confirm IPv4 Multicast is enabled on the vSAN VLAN
a. Enter show ip igmp snooping interface vlan <vSAN VLAN ID>
i. For your team vSAN VLAN (check the Lab Worksheet) you should find both IGMP
(Internet Group Multicast Protocol) snooping and IGMP querier is enabled on the
VLAN interface
b. Display additional IGMP information
i. Enter show ip igmp snooping groups
ii. Enter show ip igmp snooping mrouter
iii. Additional information may be shown regarding Management VLAN IGMP support on
uplink/downlink ports, but is not needed because the lab is logically a single switch
configuration
10. Confirm no spanning tree on VxRail appliance-connected ports
a. Enter show vlan brief
i. Result should show 0 (zero) for the spanning tree group (STG) of each VLAN,
confirming no spanning tree configurations are present
b. There are many additional commands to display spanning tree information available on this
switch in Exec Privilege mode.
i. For information purposes, some of those commands are:
show running-config spanning-tree mstp
show running-config spanning-tree pvst
show running-config spanning-tree rstp
show running-config spanning-tree stp
c. If spanning tree configurations were present on the switch you would then need to confirm
through additional switch commands that the ‘portfast’ configuration option is set for
application-connected ports meaning spanning tree does not apply to them
11. Confirm no link aggregation on VxRail appliance-connected ports
a. There should be no port channel configuration on the ports connected to the VxRail nodes
b. Enter
show interfaces port-channel
i. Result on this switch should be Error: No such interface
ii. Result on any switch must show that the port channel interface is not present on the
ports that are being used by VxRail
12. Close the PuTTY connection to the ToR switch

Lab 3 Exercise C: Generate Configuration JSON Files

Preface: This exercise guides you through completing the Pre-Installation Checklist and the process to use the
checklist to automatically generate a Java Script Object Notation (JSON) file that will be used to configure the
VxRail Appliance.
Step Action
1. Continue in or re-open the saved Pre-Installation Checklist
a. Navigate to your desktop VR_DI folder and double-click to open
VxRail 4.0.0 Pre-Installation Site Checklist_20161208.xlsm
2. Complete the VxRail Network Configuration worksheet
a. Select the VxRail Network Configuration worksheet tab
b. For cell F11 enter UTC-5
c. For cell F12 enter 10.254.140.22
d. For cell F14 enter vxrail<Mgmt VLAN>-node or notice the prefix before the final number in
the ESXi Node Name column for any of your team’s four nodes
e. Change cell F15 to None
f. Change cell F16 set to Num X
g. For cell F17 enter vsb.edu
h. Review preview of ESXi Host FQDN in cell F18
i. For cell F19 enter IP Address for your team’s first node from VxRail D&I Lab Worksheet
j. For cell F20 calculate and enter the ending address by adding 7 to your F19 entry value
k. Change cell F21 to NO, notice row 22 becomes hidden as not applicable
l. From the Lab Worksheet obtain your team’s Name and IP Address for vCenter, Platform
Services Controller, and VxRail Manager and enter the values into cells F23-24, F35-36
and F38-39
m. For cell F41 enter 255.255.255.224
n. For cell F42 enter the Gateway value for your team from the Lab Worksheet
o. For cell F43 enter 10.127.81.115
p. For cell F44 enter VMwar3!!
q. For cell F45 enter VMwar3!!
r. For cell F46 enter vMotion IP for your team’s node 01 from the Lab Worksheet
s. For cell F47 calculate and enter the ending address by adding 7 to your F46 entry value
t. For cell F48 enter 255.255.255.0
u. For cell F49 enter vMotion VLAN for your team from the Lab Worksheet
v. For cell F50 enter vSAN IP for your team’s node 01 from the Lab Worksheet
w. For cell F51 calculate and enter the ending address by adding 7 to your F50 entry value
x. For cell F52 enter 255.255.255.0
y. For cell F53 enter vSAN VLAN for your team from the Lab Worksheet
z. For cell F54 enter Customer VM Network <TeamLetter>
aa. For cell F55 enter Mgmt VLAN for your team from the Lab Worksheet
bb. Change cell F64 to vRealize Log Insight, notice rows 65-66 now appear unhidden
cc. From the Lab Worksheet obtain your team’s FQDN Name and IP Address for Log Insight
and enter the values into cells F65-66
dd. Change cell F64 to None
i. We are removing the Log Insight setting to save 20+ minutes during the installation that
would be used to set it up
ii. There is a CS/PS Field Procedure in the SolVe Desktop that can be used to add vRealize
Log Insight at a later time

Step Action
3. Generate JSON format file
a. Save all your changes
b. Scroll to the top of the VxRail Network Configuration worksheet
and click Click to generate VxRail Network Configuration JSON format file
i. In the Save As dialog navigate to your desktop VR_DI folder
ii. In the File name field enter VxRail_network
iii. Click Save
4. Generate Switch Configuration JSON format file
a. Select the Switch Config Actuals worksheet tab
b. Notice the fields in column D have been auto-filled from other entries
c. Click Click to generate Switch Configuration JSON file
i. In the Save As dialog navigate to your desktop VR_DI folder
ii. In the File name field enter switch_config
iii. Click Save
5. View the generated JSON files
a. Navigate to your desktop VR_DI folder
b. Double-click to open VxRail_network.json and select to open it with WordPad
i. Scroll through the file and notice the values you entered in the Pre-Installation Checklist
ii. The JSON file can be used as input to the VxRail Manager Build process so you won’t
need to re-enter all the values
c. Compare the file with a gold copy version
i. Navigate to your desktop VR_DI\Solutions\JSON folder and double-click to open
team<Team Letter>_VxRail_gold_with_error_200.json
• The with_error part of the filename is because the instructions deliberately had
you specify something that will cause an error, enabling you to utilize a feature to
fix it without regenerating the file in the next lab exercise
ii. Compare this file with your VxRail_network.json file
iii. If you followed instructions there should not be any differences
iv. Close the JSON files
d. Double-click to open switch_config.json and select to open it with WordPad
i. Scroll through the file and notice the values you entered in the Pre-Installation Checklist
ii. This JSON file can be used as input to the Brocade switch configurator tool
(only applicable for Brocade ToR switches)
iii. Close the JSON file
Note: This exercise uses the Pre-Installation Site Checklist that was available at the time of
publication. The checklist had not yet been updated for 4.0.200 code which adds some fields to
enable the iterator to be in the middle or at the end for node names (node4VDI instead of just
VDINode4) so this spreadsheet will not produce a JSON file that is readable by VxRail Manager
4.0.200. Even if there is not a Pre-Installation Site Checklist that matches the level of code that is
being installed at a customer site it is useful to run through this exercise before arriving at the
customer site in order to make sure that the required information is available. We will look at other
methods of generating a configuration in later labs.

Lab 4: VxRail Appliance Initialization

This lab reviews and compares VxRail appliance installation procedures for different configurations and has
your team perform the initial installation for your team VxRail appliance.
Scenario: This exercise has you review SolVe procedures used to install and configure the
VxRail appliance cluster. With a detailed understanding of the installation and
initialization procedures the lab guides you through the installation using a
previously created JSON file.
Tasks for this lab include:

Tasks: • Review the procedures required to successfully install and configure a
VxRail Appliance.
• Configure a VxRail Appliance using a previously created JSON
configuration file.

Lab 4 Exercise A: VxRail Appliance Initialization SolVe Procedures

Preface: This exercise has you review three versions of the SolVe (Solution for Validating your engagement)
procedures to install a new VxRail single appliance cluster.
Step Action
1. Open the first Solve Initialization Procedure
b. Double-click to open
VxRail Appliance_VxRail_Gen2_v4_Installation_Single_Procedures - 1.docx
c. The Solve procedure was generated based on the answers to a number of questions. Those
questions are recorded in the Topic and Selections boxes on the first page
i. The Topic VxRail Gen 2 Appliance Installation Procedures was the first selection
ii. Install A New VxRail Gen 2 Single Appliance Cluster (VxRail 60 Appliance only)
was the second selection
iii. This procedure is for an embedded vCenter (external vCenter?: No)
iv. This procedure uses embedded vRealize Log Insight for the Syslog Option
v. This procedure is for a Single Top of Rack Switch
vi. No appendices were included because none apply to the present switch type
2. Review the procedure Contents
a. Scroll down to page 2, Contents
b. The first few tasks have been treated in this course as pre-installation tasks
i. Hardware installation in Tasks 1 - 5
ii. The VxRail BMC Interface is described in Tasks 6-12 some of which you already
used in a previous lab exercise
c. Configuring VxRail for the First time or Task 13 on pages 27-39 is the core of the
installation procedure
d. The last few tasks are post-deployment tasks, and will be covered in the next module
i. Installing and configuring ESRS or Task 14
3. Review Preliminary Activity Tasks
a. Scroll down to page 4, Preliminary Activity Tasks
i. Notice the inclusion of active links to Knowledgebase solutions that applies to the
installation based on the selections used to generate the SolVe procedure
b. Scroll down to page 5, . . . Project Information . . . form
i. This information would normally be automatically populated, but the relevant fields
were left blank in generating this procedure for classroom reference
c. Review VxRail Single Appliance Installation Procedure
i. Review Overview paragraph noting the network pre-installation steps
ii. Review Pre-installation preparation
• The previous module and lab addressed the key network pre-installation steps
• Step 1 informs you to download the most recent version of the Pre-Installation
Checklist from the SolVe Desktop
• Briefly review the other pre-installation steps
iii. Briefly review the VxRail hardware installation
• Briefly scan pages 6 - 26, noticing steps covered in previous module lecture and
lab exercises

Step Action
4. Review Task 13: Configuring VxRail for the first time
a. Page 27, step 1 is again confirmation of required network and DNS configuration
b. Step 2, has you invoke the VxRail Manager
NOTE: when you conduct this step in the next lab, only one person on your team will be able
to enter commands, while the other students on the team watch
c. Step 6 on page 30 should result in auto-discovery of the 4 present nodes
d. Step 9 on page 31 lets you choose between manually entering information or using the JSON
file you generated from the Pre-Installation Checklist
i. Notice the comment in step10, that through step 14, you can check information but the
JSON file should populate it for you
e. Step 16 at the bottom of page 36 is where all entered information is validated
f. Step 17 on page 37 is where the BUILD VXRAIL process has begun
g. Notice the statement of ~25 minutes duration for the build on the bottom of page 38
h. Step 20 on page 39 is a post-deployment step covered in the next module
i. Optionally leave the procedure open for comparison to the second procedure and reference in
the next lab exercise
5. Open the second Solve Initialization Procedure
VxRail Appliance_VxRail_Gen2_v4_Installation_Single_Procedures - External vCenter.docx
b. The Solve procedure was generated based on the answers to a number of questions
i. Most answers are the same as the previous procedure with a couple of important
differences
ii. This procedure is for an external vCenter (external vCenter?: Yes)
iii. This procedure uses a customer provided SysLog Server
iv. This procedure is for a Dual (High Availability) Top of Rack Switches
6. Review the variations in the procedure Contents
b. Task 4 has a different title Connecting to multiple TOR switches for high availability
c. Configuring VxRail for the First time connecting to an External vCenter is a modified
title
i. New task 13-14 include additional pre-installation steps
ii. Now Task 15 starting on pages 28 is the core of the installation procedure
iii. Notice the addition of Task 16 describing Steps to join external VC
7. Review the variations in the Configuring VxRail for the First time task
a. Page 4, Table 1 includes two additional KB links that apply for this initialization
b. Page 5, Section 1 is populated because those fields were filled in while generating the
procedure this time
c. Page 16, Figure 10 illustrates port connections for two ToR switches
d. Review Tasks 13-14 on pages 26-28 related to the External vCenter
e. On page 33-34 review step Task 16 step 3b where information is no presented to join an
existing vCenter Server
f. On pages 37 review step Task 16 step 7 where information is no presented to use an existing
syslog server
g. Close the Configure . . . to an External vCenter procedure

Step Action
8. Open the third SolVe Initialization Procedure
VxRail Appliance_VxRail_Gen3_v4_Installation_Single_Procedures - 1.docx
b. The Solve procedure is very similar to the first, except it is for a Gen3, Dell server
b. This procedure has two embedded PDFs for the installation of the rail mounts for the server
instead of embedding the information inside the procedure itself
c. The first few tasks are again what the course refers to as pre-installation tasks
ii. The Configuring iDRAC section replaces the similar VxRail BMC Interface section
in the first procedure you reviewed. You will have a chance in a later lab exercise to
use the iDRAC interface for a Dell server.
d. Configuring VxRail for the First time or Task 5 on pages 12-24 is the core of the
installation procedure
e. The last few post-deployment tasks are similar to the first procedure
10. Review Task 5: Configuring VxRail for the first time
a. Other than having different task numbers and pages, this procedure is identical to the one you
reviewed in the first file and that you will utilize in the next lab exercise
b. Task 7 on page 33, Installing the bezel is new, though there was also a bezel to install for
Gen 2 servers in a similar fashion
c. Close the third SolVe procedure

Lab 4 Exercise B: [One student per team] VxRail Appliance Initial

Configuration
Preface: In this exercise a student will use the JSON file created earlier to configure the VxRail Appliance.
Steps 1-4 will be conducted by each student individually in order to experience the validation process. Multiple
students should be able to run the validation simultaneously. However, Step 5 (the Build phase) can ONLY be
performed by ONE STUDENT PER TEAM. This exercise will be conducted by ONE person in each team
sharing his/her desktop while other members of the team observe, OR after the BUILD button is clicked by
ONE student, all other students on the team can reconnect to VxRail Manager from their own management
host/browser to monitor the build process.
Step Action
1. Validate the default VxRail appliance address
a. Ping the VxRail initial IP address 192.168.10.200 will fail in the student lab environment
because of network restrictions on static addresses, it could not be used
b. Validate the address it was set to by pinging your team VxRail Manager IP Address from
the Lab Worksheet
2. Get started with the build ensuring all the needed information is entered correctly
a. In a Chrome browser address bar, enter your team https://<VxRail Manager IP address>
from the Lab Worksheet
i. If prompted with Insecure Connection, click Advanced and click Add Exception then
click Confirm Security Exception
b. On the VxRail Welcome Screen, click the GET STARTED button
c. Click ACCEPT the End User License Agreement (EULA)
d. Wait for all 4 nodes to appear on the Expected nodes screen
e. Click the I confirm I want to configure the listed hosts checkbox
f. Click the Next button on the right side of the screen
3. You have two choices on how to configure the VxRail. Step-by-step will have you enter the same
information that you entered in the spreadsheet into the web browser. This can be useful in an
environment where security prevents you from easily bringing in the JSON file, you will also see
this interface when you check an imported JSON file. Configuration file allows you to import a
JSON file. We have created JSON files that match the code version or you may enter the
information manually. Step 4 will cover using a Configuration file, step 5 will cover the Step-by-
step process.

Step Action
4. [SKIP FOR STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS]
You have a number of choices in selecting which JSON configuration file you will use. We have
created a file with a small error to show how errors are detected during validation and can then be
fixed they are available at in the VR_DI directory on the desktop.
VR_DI\Solutions\JSON\team<Team Letter>_VxRail_gold_with_error_200.json
VR_DI\Solutions\JSON\team<Team Letter>_VxRail_gold_200.json
If you use the JSON file with the error the rest of this step will walk you through correcting it.
Get started with the build ensuring all the needed information is entered correctly
a. Select Configuration file and the JSON file from the choices listed in the previous step
b. If you chose one of the first two options, you should get an error about the Time Zone value
UTC-5
i. Notice the Time Zone value is a red line
ii. Using the drop-down menu select the value for US/Eastern
iii. This is an example of how you can correct a value in the JSON file but still use the rest
of the information entered
c. The Management section will have a red X since the JSON file stores the passwords in plain
text you will need to reenter VMwar3!! as the password
d. Use the Next (or Previous) buttons to double-check the screens with the information from
the rest of the JSON file
i. Time zone should be US/Eastern
ii. NTP Server should be 10.254.140.22
iii. Check the ESXi Node Name prefix and ESXi IP Address range in the Lab Worksheet
iv. Check the vCenter Server, Platform Services Controller, and VxRail Manager
information for your team in the Lab Worksheet
v. Check the Networking information
• Subnet mask should be 255.255.255.224
• Gateway should match the information for your team in the Lab Worksheet
• DNS server should be 10.127.81.115
vi. Click the eye icon to display that all Passwords are set to VMwar3!!
vii. Check the vSphere vMotion information for your team in the Lab Worksheet
viii. Check the VMware Virtual SAN information for your team in the Lab Worksheet
ix. Check the VM Networks name ends with your team letter and the VLAN ID matches
your team Mgmt VLAN in the Lab Worksheet
x. Check that Logging is set to None
e. Click VALIDATE
f. Resolve errors and click View Log for details (if the validation fails, you may want to try a
different browser)
Wait for each student on your team to complete the validation before proceeding to Step 5.

Step Action
5. [SKIP IF YOU LOADED A JSON FILE]
This process builds a configuration without a JSON file. This would be useful if you could not
easily get the preconfigured JSON file to a machine connected to the VxRail. It does take about 15
minutes.
a. Select Step-by-Step this will take you to the configuration wizard. The pages are listed on
the left and the fields to be filled out are on the right of the screen.
b. System: under Time Zone select US/Eastern from the drop down menu. Under NTP server
enter the NTP server on your Lab Worksheet. The wizard underlines in red fields that are
invalid and underlines in green fields that are valid. When moving to a new page make sure
that the fields you typed in are green and that there are no red fields. Press Next to go to the
management page.
c. Management: under ESXi hostname prefix type vxrailVV-node where VV is the Mgmt
VLAN on your Lab Worksheet. Select None for Separator and Num X for iterator. Leave
the offset and the ESXi hostname suffix blank. Enter the domain from your lab worksheet in
domain. The gray preview window should display the fully qualified domain name for the
first node.
For the ESXi starting address for IP pool put the ESXi IP address for node 1 from your lab
worksheet. For the ESXi ending address for IP pool put the ESXi IP address for node 5.
Fill out the fields under vCenter Server, Platform Services Controller, VxRail Manager and
Networking using the information on the Lab Worksheet. For the Passwords enter and verify
VMwar3!! And the ESXi password and the password for vCenter, PSC and VxRail Manager.
Press Next to go to the vMotion page.
d. vMotion: under starting address for IP pool put the vMotion IP for node 1 of your VxRail
cluster, under Ending address for IP pool put the vMotion address for node 5. The subnet
mask is 255.255.255.0 and use the vMotion VLAN from your Lab Worksheet.
Press Next to go to the Virtual SAN page.
e. Virtual SAN: under starting address for IP pool put the vSAN IP for node 1 of your VxRail
cluster, under Ending address for IP pool put the vSAN address for node 5. The subnet
mask is 255.255.255.0 and use the vSAN VLAN from your Lab Worksheet.
Press Next to go to the VM Networks page.
f. VM Networks: for the VM network name enter Customer VM Network <TeamLetter> for
the VLAN ID use the Mgmt VLAN on the Lab Worksheet.
Press Next to go to the Solutions page.
g. Solutions: under select logging select None this saves about 20 minutes on the configuration
time in the lab. There is a procedure to install vRealize later if you wish.
Press Next to go to the Validation page.
g. Validation: there must be a green check mark next to all the pages on the left in order to
validate. If one of them has a red X click on the page name and fix the issue. Validation will
take a couple of minutes and will further check your configuration, the initial screens check
that you have a valid IP address validate does a DNS lookup and makes sure that it has the
hostname you specified. Click VALIDATE
h. Resolve errors and click View Log for details (if the validation fails, you may want to try a
different browser)

Step Action
6. Start and observe the Build Phase (only ONE student per team will perform this step!!!)
a. Once no errors are detected, click BUILD VXRAIL
b. Observe the VxRail appliance build process
c. Typically you would have started VxRail Manager at the default IP address of
192.168.10.200.
i. Early in the build, a screen with the newly assigned VxRail Manager IP address would
appear
ii. You would then click START CONFIGURATION to continue
d. Monitor the build process to completion of 100%, this process will take 20 to 40 minutes
(each student on the team can reconnect to VxRail Manager from their own management
host/browser to monitor the build process).
e. Click View Log
i. New tab for the configuration log will open in the Firefox browser
• Right click and select Save Page As and save config_log.txt to your desktop
f. Select the VxRail Manager browser tab to return to watching build progress
g. Wait for the Hooray screen to display
7. Verify the VxRail Manager can be invoked
a. Click MANAGE VXRAIL
b. Login with Username administrator@vsphere.local
Password VMwar3!!
c. Click Authenticate

Lab 5: Post Deployment Tasks

This lab walks participants through the steps required to verify and finalize a VxRail Appliance
deployment.
Scenario: This lab exercise is designed to reinforce the post deployment tasks by walking
through the component interfaces to view the VxRail system configuration.
Tasks: Tasks for this lab:

• Log into management server and using the VxRail Manager interface to
view the status of the appliance
• Connect to vCenter and explore the virtual infrastructure configuration of
the appliance

Lab 5 Exercise A: Verify Cluster using VxRail Manager

Preface: This exercise reviews the health of the VxRail Appliance from VxRail Manager.
Step Action
1. Login to VxRail Manager
a. In a Firefox browser address tab, enter the VxRail Manager IP Address from the Lab
Worksheet
b. Login with Username administrator@vsphere.local
Password VMwar3!!
2. View VxRail Manager Dashboard screen
a. What is the Overall System Health?
i. A Warning or Error state is not unexpected due the Virtual SAN HCL DB up-to-date
check and other warnings typical of initial configuration steps not yet completed
ii. Warnings are also expected due to enabling ESXi Shell
b. What recent events are showing in the Event History?
i. Is your recent successful login one of them?
3. View VxRail Manager Events screen
a. Click the EVENTS icon on the left
b. Is the topmost event selected an Info event about your recent login?
i. If not select that event near the top and view it
c. Select an Error Severity event if there is one (if none check for a Warning Severity)
i. There may be one or more for Component VSAN
ii. Under Event Details read the Message detail for all events of this type
d. Highlight a Warning Severity event for Component Node if there is one
i. Review the event details including the Message detail
ii. Click on the Component ID link to see more detail
• This should display either the more detailed Physical or Logical Health
4. View VxRail Manager Logical Health screen
a. Click the HEALTH icon on the left
b. Observe the Main Health Timeline displays for Storage IOPS, CPU and Memory Usage
c. Observe the Storage Information including Used, Free and Provisioned Capacity
d. Observe the node 1 status
i. Notice the overall health status and the Capacity, Cache, ESXi Disk and NIC details
ii. Select the right angle bracket to see Capacity detail by component
5. View VxRail Manager Physical Health screen
a. Click Physical at the top of the screen
b. Observe the Cluster graphic image and Appliance Summary status
c. Click the Cluster graphic image to display more detail
d. Review the FRONT and BACK VIEWs
e. Successively select each Node in the BACK VIEW to view the detailed Node Information

Step Action
6. Run a system diagnostic test
a. Click the CONFIG icon on the left
b. Click General at the top of the screen
c. Scroll down until you see System Diagnostics and click Diagnostic
i. Wait for the diagnostic to run
ii. View the results
iii. You should see Alarms in vCenter/ESXi, you will clear these in the next lab exercise
iv. Click Close
7. Collect logs
a. Saving the install config logs after a successful installation can be helpful in providing
information including specifically named objects that VxRail counts on that customers might
change. These logs may be needed upon a system update when looking for specific names.
b. Scroll up until you see Log Collection and click Generate New Log Bundle
c. Wait a bit for the open/save dialog
i. Select the Open with radio button, leave Windows Explorer (default) selected
ii. Click OK to open
iii. Double-click the mystic_manager_data_collection_YYYY-MM-DD zipped file
• Navigate through the file folder structure to see the kinds of information available
iv. Close the Windows Explorer window
8. Switch to vCenter
a. Notice the vCenter icon on the top right
i. You should be able to click on this to easily switch to your VxRail vCenter instance
ii. If prompted with Insecure Connection, click Advanced and click Add Exception then
click Confirm Security Exception (possibly twice)
b. Notice the vCenter IP address in the browser address bar
c. Continue in vCenter in the next lab exercise

Lab 5 Exercise B: [One student per team] Verify Cluster using

vCenter Web Client
Preface: This exercise reviews the health of the VxRail Appliance from VMware vCenter.
Step Action
1. Login to vCenter
a. Continue in vCenter from the previous lab or connect here
b. In a Firefox browser address tab, enter the vCenter IP Address from the Lab Worksheet
i. If prompted with Insecure Connection, click Advanced and click Add Exception then
click Confirm Security Exception
c. Login with Username administrator@vsphere.local
Password VMwar3!!
2. Investigate the Marvin Virtual-Cluster
a. In the Content Area under Inventories click Hosts and Clusters
b. In the Navigator pane, expand and select the MARVIN-Virtual-SAN-Cluster
c. In the Content Area select the Summary tab
d. In the Content Area, review the CPU, MEMORY, and STORAGE usage bars at the top
right
e. In the Content Area, review the alarms waiting for acknowledgement
i. Notice the Virtual SAN HCL DB up-to-date is one of the alarms
ii. You will acknowledge these after applying the fix in the next step
3. Manually update the HCL DB to clear the error state
a. In the Navigator pane, select the MARVIN-Virtual-SAN-Cluster
b. In the Content Area select the Manage tab
c. In the Content Area under Virtual SAN select Health and Performance
d. In the Content Area under HCL Database
i. Notice the Last updated time of greater than either the 90 day warning threshold or the
180 day error threshold if one of your teammates has already done this step the Last
updated time will be today.
ii. Click Get latest version online
• Watch progress under Recent Tasks
iii. Notice the Last updated time is now Today
4. Acknowledge the alarms
a. In the Content Area select the Summary tab
b. Click Acknowledge for all alarms
5. Reboot the vCenter VM – While this may not be strictly necessary it is suggested in KB-482997.
Since this is before the VxRail goes into production we include it in the lab.
a. In the Navigator pane, expand the MARVIN-Virtual-SAN-Cluster. right-click the
VMware vCenter Server Appliance and select Power and then select Restart guest OS
i. Click Yes to confirm restart
b. Close your VMware vSphere Web Client browser window
c. Wait ~7 minutes for the restart to complete
6. Login to vCenter
a. In a Firefox browser address tab, enter the vCenter IP Address from the Lab Worksheet
b. Login with Username administrator@vsphere.local Password VMwar3!!

Step Action
7. Review Virtual SAN status
a. In the Navigator pane, select Hosts and Clusters
b. In the Navigator pane, expand and select the MARVIN-Virtual-SAN-Cluster
c. In the Content Area select the Summary tab
i. Notice the alarms have remained cleared
d. In the Content Area, review the Virtual SAN Health
i. Expand this display by clicking on the bottom right corner and dragging down
ii. Look at the 7 tests and the Test Result for each one
e. In the Content Area, review the Virtual SAN Capacity usage bars
f. In the Content Area, select the Monitor tab
i. Select the Virtual SAN sub-tab to see the same Virtual SAN Health information
• Select Health on the left if it is not already selected
• Select Virtual Disks on the left and expand and scroll to see detailed information
• Select the Capacity on the left and review
g. Click on the Performance sub-tab (all the way to the left at the top of the screen) and review
8. Clear your assigned node warnings
a. In the Navigator pane, notice the yellow warning triangles on each of your 4 ESXi nodes
b. In the Navigator pane, select your assigned node
i. In the Content Area select the Summary tab
ii. Review the warning about the ESXi Shell for the host has been enabled
• This appears because you enabled this in an earlier lab
• Click the Suppress Warning link
• Click Yes to continue
c. NOTE: this error must be suppressed for all nodes in the cluster before proceeding with the
node expansion lab in the next module. Ensure that the other students on your team have
suppressed the warning on their assigned nodes.
9. Explore the MARVIN datastores
a. In the Navigator pane, select the MARVIN-Virtual-SAN-Cluster
b. In the Navigator pane click the Storage icon
c. In the Navigator pane, select the first datastore under MARVIN-Datacenter
d. In the Content Area select the Monitor tab, select the Performance sub-tab
e. Review

Lab 6: Cluster Expansion

This lab walks participants through the steps required to expand a VxRail Appliance.
Scenario: In this exercise you will expand an existing VxRail appliance by adding a fifth
node into the environment. VxRail is designed to be a flexible and scalable
solution. When complete, you will have a VxRail environment that has both
Quanta and Dell nodes in the mixed appliance cluster.
This lab will be conducted by ONE person in each team sharing his/her desktop
while other members of the team observe.
Tasks to be completed in this lab exercise:

Tasks: • Connect to the Dell node to be added through the BMC port
• Power on the system and reset management VLAN
• Connect to the ESXi servers in the existing appliance
• Restart loudmouth service
• Connect to VxRail Manager and verify the Dell node has been discovered
• Follow the procedure to add the node to the existing cluster

Lab 6 Exercise A: [One student per team] Add a node cluster

expansion
Preface: This exercise provides the procedure to follow when adding a node to an existing cluster. This exercise
will be conducted by ONE person in each team sharing his/her desktop while other members of the team
observe.
Step Action
1. Open the SolVe Compute Node Expansion (Add) Procedure
b. Double-click to open
VxRail Appliance_VxRail_Gen2_v4_Compute_Node_Expansion_Procedures - 2.docx
c. The Solve procedure was generated based on the answers to a number of questions.
The activity selected in SolVe was:
Add a New VxRail Gen 3 Compute Node to an Existing VxRail Gen 2 Cluster
and the node type to be added Dell EMC VxRail S470 Hybrid
b. Notice there are similar pre-installations tasks as included for a first VxRail configuration
c. The first few tasks have been treated in this course as pre-installation tasks
ii. The VxRail BMC Interface (or iDRAC) is described in Tasks 6-12 some of which you
already used in a previous lab exercise
d. Adding a VxRail Compute Node to an existing cluster or Task 7 on pages 13-16 is the
core of the expansion procedure
3. Review Preliminary Activity Tasks
a. Scroll down to page 3, VxRail Dell Appliance Installation Procedure
b. Review Pre-installation preparation
i. Step 1 informs you to download the most recent version of the Pre-Installation Checklist
from the SolVe Desktop, the same checklist used earlier
ii. Briefly review the other pre-installation steps
iii. Step 4 references the IP pool size. When first installing the cluster address pools were
defined for 8 nodes, even though only 4 were initially being configured. Therefore, you
will not need to define that information for this expansion node, because you did so
previously.
c. Review the VxRail hardware installation
i. On page 7 notice Task 1 step 2 has a picture of the rear of the S460 node
ii. The Single TOR switch table for 5 nodes lists ports 1-10 which match what has been
verified in a previous network lab step
iii. On page 9 notice Task 5: Front Panel Features
d. Review Configuring iDRAC on pages 10-11

Step Action
4. Review Task 7: Preparation and node addition
a. Page 12, read the IMPORTANT note about only powering on one new node at a time
b. Step 1, has you invoke the VxRail Manager this time with customer set IP address
NOTE: when you conduct this step later in this lab, only one person on your team will be
able to enter commands, while the other students on the team watch
c. Step 2 on page 13 shows where auto-discovery of the expansion node is displayed
d. Step 5 asking about IP information, should display similar to the example on page 14 with No
new IP addresses needed because your pools should have unused nodes
e. Step 6 on page 15 shows that you will need to provide the ESXi and vCenter login info
f. Step 8 on page 16 shows an example of the Expansion in progress dashboard display
g. Optionally leave the procedure open for reference in the following lab steps
5. Connect and Power-on the Dell Expansion Node
a. In the Lab Worksheet, look up the BMC (iDRAC) IP Address for you team’s expansion
node node5
b. Open a Browser tab and browse to the node 5 BMC address
i. Login Username root and Password calvin
ii. Click Submit
c. Check the current Power State
i. Under Server Information on the System Summary page check the Power State
• If ON skip to the next step
• If OFF continue to Power ON the Dell node
d. Under Quick Launch Tasks in the lower right select Power ON / OFF
i. Click OK to proceed with the server control action
6. Click Launch in Virtual Console Preview
a. Click OK to open viewer.jnlp
b. Click Continue in response to any certificate warning
c. Click Run
d. Click Run in response to any untrusted certificate warning
e. If Power ON completed in the previous step, wait for ESXi boot to complete
7. Enable SSH and ESXCLI
a. Type the F2 key
b. Login using Login Name root and Password Passw0rd!
c. Use the down-arrow to select Troubleshooting Options and type the <Enter> key
d. Select Enable ESXi Shell and verify the state is Enabled, if it is not type the <Enter> key
e. Select Enable SSH and verify the state is Enabled, if it is not type the <Enter> key
f. Type <Esc> to exit troubleshooting options
8. Open a command session
a. Type the Alt-F1 key
b. Login as root and Password Passw0rd!
9. Check to see if the Management VLAN is set
a. Enter esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup list
b. If the VLAN IDs of the Management Network and VM Network port groups match your
Mgmt VLAN, skip the next step

Step Action
10. Set the Management VLAN
a. Identify your team Mgmt VLAN from the Lab Worksheet
b. Enter ESXCLI commands substituting your team VxRail cluster VLAN
esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup set -p “Management Network” -v <Mgmt VLAN>
esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup set -p “VM Network” -v <Mgmt VLAN>
11. Verify the Management VLAN settings
a. Enter esxcli network vswitch standard portgroup list
b. You should see the VLAN ID’s you set in the VLAN ID column
12. Restart the loudmouth service
a. Enter /etc/init.d/loudmouth restart
13. Close the console session
14. Start Node Expansion Task
a. In a Firefox browser address tab, enter https://<VxRail Manager IP Address> from the Lab
Worksheet
b. Log in with the user name of administrator@vsphere.local and a password of VMwar3!!
c. From the Dashboard under Expansion it should list the node you just powered on as
available for expansion
d. Click Add Node to proceed with configuring the new node
e. The next steps asks about IP information, there are No new IP addresses needed because
your pools should have unused addresses from the original configuration. This includes IP
address for the ESXi host, vMotion and VSAN
f. Under Credentials fill in the fields with the appropriate information
i. vSphere SSO credentials Username administrator@vsphere.local
ii. vSphere SSO credentials password VMwar3!!
iii. vCenter Server Appliance root password VMwar3!!
iv. vCenter Server PSC root password VMwar3!!
v. ESXi root credentials VMwar3!!
g. Click Next
15. Verify Node DNS Entry
a. Verify DNS entries for the node IP address range.
b. Open a command prompt on the management system and run the nslookup command
against the newly added nodes host name.
c. Do a reverse lookup using the the node’s IP address
d. Return to the VxRail Manager and check the checkbox to confirm the hostname and IP
address have been added to the DNS lookup records
16. Launch the Node Expansion
a. Click Next to start the VxRail Manager Validation process. Here the configuration details are
examined and if they pass, you will see the message and a Build button enabled.
b. Click Build, and after a few moments the configuration detail page will close. In the
Dashboard page you should see an “Expansion in progress” bar display. Watch for the
progress to complete.

Step Action
17. Verify the Node Expansion
a. Navigate to the Health page and click Physical at the top to confirm you see the newly added
Dell node.
b. Open a web browser to the vCenter Server. Navigate to Home > Hosts and Clusters >
Marvin-Datacenter > MARVIN-Virtual-SAN-Cluster. Verify that you now see the additional
node just added to the cluster.

Lab 7: Troubleshooting
This lab practices troubleshooting actions that you would use to resolve deployment and installation errors.
Scenario: This lab reviews node status and error information and gathering log files from
multiple elements of the VxRail appliance. There are two optional labs that
include installing a system patch and performing an appliance reset. These are
considered optional because of time constraints.
Tasks to be completed in this lab exercise:

Tasks: • Review the VxRail master knowledge base article
• Review component errors, events and alerts through the BMC interface
• Gather log files
• Review procedure and apply a system patch to the VxRail software bundle
• Review procedure and perform a Quanta system reset
• Review procedure and perform a Dell node reset

Lab 7 Exercise A: VxRail Master Knowledge Base (KB) Article

Preface: This exercise introduces you to the wealth of information available in the VxRail Master KB article.
Step Action
1. Open the VxRail master knowledge base article web page if you can
a. In a Firefox browser, enter https://support.emc.com/kb/479126
b. If prompted, for the EMC Single Sign On (SSO) enter your Username and Password if you
have one
c. The VxRail: Master KB for VxRail appliance Article Number 000479126 should display
d. You can explore the web page using the next steps, but to ensure everyone has access, this
lab will proceed using a saved copy of the webpage
2. Open the VxRail master knowledge base article saved web page
b. Double-click to open Solution VxRail Master KB for VxRail appliance.mht
i. Click Enable in response to helper prompt
3. Start exploring under Article Content
a. Review the links under Documentation
b. Review the KBAs under 20 most viewed KBAs
i. Notice fourth article down …to collect all VxRail log bundles …
ii. Notice next article How to Manually deploy ESRS/VE …
iii. Skip one line to article Virtual SAN Health Service - VSAN HCL Health …
iv. Notice next article How to configure vRealize Log Insight …
v. Skip one line to article How to troubleshoot the vSAN network
4. Review the List of useful or common commands and List of useful log files
a. Platform independent (ESXi servers or service VMs)
b. ESXi
c. VxRail Manager
d. vCenter
e. VxRail log bundle
5. Review the KBs related to logs and logs collection
a. Notice first How to article related to log bundles need for support calls
b. Notice next two How to articles to get status and generate the mystic log bundle
c. Notice next to Brief introduction to log files articles
6. Review the KBs related to validation
a. Notice the many articles referencing specific error message during initial validation
b. Continue to review the titles to get an idea of the useful KBAs available to help you
troubleshoot validation error
7. Review both KBs related to installation groupings
a. Review KBA titles under KBs related to installation (generic)
b. Review KBA titles under KBs related to installation (by install %)
i. Notice the title allows you to search by install % and match the error message

Step Action
8. Review remaining KBA groupings
a. KBs and documentation related to Networking
b. KBs and documentation related to ESRS
c. KBs related to VxRail Manager / VRM
d. KBs related to Licensing
e. KBs related to appliance reset
f. KBs related to "How To" configurations after build
g. KBs related to the graceful shutdown procedure
h. KBs related to Upgrade
i. KBs related to vCenter
j. KBs related to vSAN
k. KBs related to Value Added software
l. KBs related to Scale out / node replacement
m. KBs related to generic troubleshooting / miscellaneous
n. KBs related to Dial homes
9. Close the web browser page for the saved webpage file

Lab 7 Exercise B: Review Component Errors, Events and Alerts

Preface: This exercise is an opportunity to practice commands you would need for installation troubleshooting.
Step Action
1. Launch and login to the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC)
a. In an Internet Explorer browser window address bar enter the BMC IP Address of your
assigned node from the Lab Worksheet
b. Login with User name admin and Password admin click the Log In button
2. The display opens to the default Dashboard screen
a. Click the HELP link on the right side of the page to display Contextual Help for the
Dashboard
i. View the help information for an overview of the information displayed.
ii. Close the online help window
b. Review the Device Information and Network Information on the left hand side of the
Dashboard
i. What’s the system Firmware Revision?
ii. What’s the system BIOS Version?
iii. What’s the BMC NIC type?
iv. What’s the system MAC Address?
v. What’s the system Host Name?
vi. What’s the V4 Network Mode?
3. From the menu bar on the top of the page, select Server Information and from the pull down,
select the FRU Information option
a. Click the HELP link on the right side of the page to display Contextual Help for the FRU
page
b. Review the Chassis Information on the left hand side of the page
i. What’s the Chassis Type?
c. Review the Board Information on the left hand side of the page
i. Who’s the system Board Manufacturer?
d. Review the Product Information on the left hand side of the page
i. What’s the Product Part Number of the system Board Manufacturer?
e. Back at the top, under Basic Information, change the FRU Device ID from the default 0 to 1
i. What changes on the page?

Step Action
4. From the menu bar on the top of the page, select Server Information and from the pull down,
select the Server Component option
a. Click the HELP link on the right side of the page to display Contextual Help for the Server
Component
b. From the Component Information pull down be sure the value is set to CPU Information
i. What the Number of CPU Socket on the system?
ii. What the CPU Manufacture and Model?
c. From the Component Information pull down change the value to Memory Information
i. How much memory is configured in the system?
ii. What size DIMMs used in the system?
5. From the menu bar on the top of the page, select Server Health and from the pull down, select the
Sensor Readings option
Component
b. From the Sensor Readings use the pull down to select Temperature Sensors
i. What are the thermal readings for CPU0 and CPU1 on the system?
ii. Double-click on Temp_CPU0, what changes?
iii. Does the live read differ from the current reading?
6. From the menu bar on the top of the page, select Server Health and from the pull down, select the
Event Log option
Component
b. Click Download Event Logs, what type of file will be generated?
i. Click Cancel to abort opening a text version of the event log
7. From the menu bar on the top of the page, select Configuration and from the pull down, select the
Network option
Component
b. Review the IPv4 Configuration on the left hand side of the page
c. Review the IPv6 Configuration on the left hand side of the page
d. Review the VLAN Configuration on the left hand side of the page

Step Action
8. From the menu bar on the top of the page, select Configuration and from the pull down, select the
SNMP Community option
Component
b. Review the SNMP Community Settings on the page
i. What is the Read-Only Community String?
ii. What is the Read-Write Community String?
iii. Are Traps enabled?
9. Exit from the BMC interface
a. Click Log Out on the top right and close the Internet Explorer browser window
b. Close the browser tab

Lab 7 Exercise C: Log Collection

Preface: This exercise provides the procedure to gather log files for a VxRail cluster. You will also collect log
files from your ESXi host and vCenter Server system and save them to your desktop.
Step Action
1. View VxRail Manager Log Files
a. In a Firefox browser address tab, enter your team VxRail Manager IP Address from the
Lab Worksheet
2. Navigate to the CONFIG page
a. Click the CONFIG icon on the left
b. Click General at the top of the screen
c. Under Log Collection click Generate New Log Bundle
i. Select the Save File radio button
ii. Click OK to save
d. View the download progress through the blue down arrow on the top right of the interface
e. Click the VxRail_Support_Bundle_YYYY_MM_DD zipped file
3. View the log file
a. Double-click the mystic_manager_data_collection_YYYY-MM-DD zipped file
b. Navigate through the file folder structure to see the kinds of information available
c. Close the Windows Explorer window
d. Close the VxRail Manager browser tab
4. Login to vCenter
a. In a Firefox browser address tab, enter your team vCenter IP Address from the Lab
Worksheet
5. Export VMware Log Files
a. Click the Home icon at the top of the window
b. In the Navigator pane, select vCenter Inventory Lists, vCenter Servers
and then vxrailNN-vcenter.vsb.edu
c. In the Content Area, select the Monitor tab
d. In the Content Area, select the System Logs sub-tab
e. Click Export System Logs
6. Select and save Log Data
a. Check the checkbox for your assigned ESXi host
b. Check the checkbox for Include vCenter Server and vSphere Web Client logs
c. Click Next to advance to the Ready to Complete page
d. Click Generate Log Bundle
e. Wait a few minutes for log bundle generation to complete
f. When log bundle generation completes, click Download Log Bundle
i. Navigate to save the bundle in your desktop VR_DI\Solutions folder
ii. Record the name of the log bundle (a ZIP file):
g. Wait several minutes for this process to complete
h. Once the download completes click Finish

Step Action
7. Open and explore a Log File information
a. Navigate to your desktop VR_DI\Solutions folder
b. Double-click the file named VMware vCenter Support <date time stamp>.zip
c. Select your node’s .tgz file
i. Extract it to the same folder of your choosing
d. Navigate to your desktop VR_DI\Solutions folder
e. Right click on the .tgz file and select 7-Zip and then Open Archive
f. Double-click the .tar file and allow time for the file to extract
g. Double-click the esx-vxrailNN-nodeN.vsb.edu-<date-time-stamp> folder
h. Explore the available information
i. Close the 7-Zip window

Lab 7 Exercise D: [Optional] Applying a VxRail Patch Bundle

Preface: This exercise follows the procedure to upgrade a VxRail. The actual upgrade procedure upgrades
ESXi, vCenter, vSAN and VxRail Manager. ESXi on the nodes is upgraded one at a time so this can take a
couple of hours depending on the size of your cluster. To make faster we have a video of the actual upgrade.
Step Action
1. Open the PDF version of the online knowledge base VxRail upgrade procedure
b. Double-click to open KB_000493554_How_to_upgrade_VxRail_4.0.0_to_4.0.0001.pdf
c. This printable version of this procedure has been saved as a PDF file, to view the online
version of this procedure, visit https://support.emc.com/kb/493554
2. Review KB Article 000493554
a. Notice the title for the specific upgrade from 4.0.0 to a 4.0.0001 patch release
b. Read the Instructions: Preparation
i. Notice the Download file name and location and the checksum verification
ii. Notice the verification step that you are starting from 4.0.0
c. Read the Upgrade instructions
i. Step 1 in VxRail Manager is to upload the downloaded composite package
ii. Step 2 is to click Continue to start upgrading once uploading is completed
iii. Step 3 is to provide required Usernames and Passwords, then click Submit
d. Read the Confirmation instructions
i. Once the upgrade is completed display that the version is now 4.0.200
e. Leave the file open to help you complete this
3. Login to VxRail Manager and verify installed version
a. In an Internet Explorer browser address tab, enter https://<VxRail Manager IP Address>
from the Lab Worksheet
b. Log in with the user name of administrator@vsphere.local and a password of VMwar3!!
c. Select CONFIG on the left side
d. Select System tab if not already selected
e. Click Installed Version 4.0.200 link to pop up components in this version, verify release is
4.0.200
4. At the time this lab was produced there was no patch available for 4.0.200 so watch the video in the
VR_DI\VODS\VxRail_Upgrade_final.wmv. This shows the entire upgrade with the time spent
watching the progress bar compressed.

Lab 7 Exercise E: [One student per team, Optional] Quanta Node

Factory Reset
Preface: This exercise provides the procedure to follow when a failure occurs during node configuration that
requires the system to be returned to its original state. This is a restricted procedure that causes 100% data loss
and should never be run on a production system.
If your team opts to perform this lab, each team member can perform the first steps. However, only one team
member can perform the final steps to run the reset script.
Step Action
1. EACH STUDENT can perform the next few steps, which are related to the reset documentation.
Review the Solve Desktop warnings about the data loss nature of the Factory Reset procedure
a. The generation of this procedure in SolVe Desktop warns of the data loss multiple times
b. The procedure is found under a header
Restricted Procedures - NOT FOR PRODUCTION SYSTEMS! *DATA LOSS*
c. When you Select Your Procedure the radio button title is titled
Factory Reset - DATA LOSS! (Resets the appliance and KEEPS the current version)
d. When you select the radio button, a pop-up appears stating
By continuing to generate this procedure, you acknowledge the fact that this procedure
will result in 100% data loss.
i. You must click OK to dismiss this WARNING - DATA LOSS dialog
2. Open the SolVe Quanta VxRail Factory Reset Procedure
b. Double-click to open VxRail Appliance_VxRail_Nicias_Reset_Procedure - 1.docx
3. Review the procedure preparations
a. Notice under Selections the procedure title begins Factory Reset - DATA LOSS!
b. Review the Contents on page 2
c. Review the VxRail Reset Procedure on page 3 including the Attention: paragraph about
backing up any User VMs to be saved
d. Review the Warnings and Disclaimers on page 4
e. Under Materials Required review the name of the reset bundle, where to find it and the
checksum to ensure its integrity after downloading
f. Review Reset Procedure and Prerequisites
g. Review Preparing for Reset starting on page 5
i. Step 1 again describes downloading the reset bundle and uncompressing cautions
ii. Step 2 describe the reset bundle contents and Python requirements
iii. Step 3 details a cleanup step needed when an external vCenter is in use
iv. Step 4 is optional extra cleanup and can be skipped
v. Steps 5-7 has you obtain and verify the IPv4 Address for each ESXi host node
vi. Step 8 has you obtain and verify the Management VLAN

Step Action
4. Review Running Reset Tasks
a. Scroll down to page 7, Running Reset
b. Review the descriptive instructions and Notes to explain reset command line options
c. Review the Example using Reset on Windows
d. Review After Reset
e. Review Reset Command Options
f. Optionally review Resetting Clusters with Multiple Appliances
g. On page 11 review Reset Failure
5. Review factory reset information that you will apply when conducting the reset
a. The reset package contains the correct version of python. It is installed in the lab at
C:\Python27\python.exe
b. Within the reset bundle there is another .zip file that contains the actual python reset program
which needs to be unzipped in the lab that is available at C:\Temp\reset
c. The reset script is being updated regularly outside of the lab it is essential that you use the
latest one available through SolVe Desktop and support.emc.com
d. The reset script will do a number of things. Review the condensed example of the output
from a successful reset on page 10 and 11 of the SolVe procedure. The reset script will:
i. Delete all VMs
ii. Remove all hosts from the vSAN Cluster
iii. Delete vSAN disk groups
iv. Reset the ESXi network to factory settings
v. Set the ESXi VLAN as specified in the reset command
vi. Set the hosts to maintenance mode and reboot them in parallel
vii. Wait for the hosts to come back up
viii. Deploy factory default unconfigured VxRail Manager, VMware vCenter, VMware
Platform Service Controller and vRealize Log Insight
6. In order to reset the Quanta nodes we will need the addresses on vmk0. These addresses will start
with 169.254 and are the addresses that the node shipped with from the factory. To find the
addresses open vCenter using the IP address on the lab worksheet and the Chrome browser. The
username is administrator@vsphere.local and the password is VMwar3!!
a. Click on Hosts and Clusters
b. Open the Datacenter and cluster
c. Select the first host in the cluster
d. Then select Manage then Networking and VMkernal adapters. You will need the vmk0
adapter’s IP address, it will start with 169.254 . Enter that in the table below
e. Repeat steps c and d for the remaining nodes
Node 1 vmk0 adapter IP address

Step Action
7. ONLY ONE STUDENT in the team should perform the remaining steps of this lab. The other
students can observe through desktop sharing if needed.
Extract the reset bundle

a. Navigate to your desktop VR_DI folder and locate the reset_4.0.200-5234142.zip
compressed bundle
a. Double click on the bundle to open it. Drag the reset folder to C:\v4.0_reset\
8. Open a command prompt and navigate to the folder with the reset command
a. Click Command Prompt on the taskbar
b. Change directory, enter cd C:\v4.0_reset
c. Change directory, enter cd reset*
d. Change directory, enter cd reset
e. List the folder contents, enter dir
f. List the command options, enter reset.pyc -help
g. Optionally, re-review the Reset Command Options on pages 8-9 of the SolVe procedure

Step Action
9. Run the reset command with values from the Lab Worksheet
a. Just to reiterate the command we are running will 100% of the time delete 100% of the
customer data on the VxRail Appliance if you have any doubts about running this command
call support.
b. The reset command you will need to pass to python will look something like
reset.pyc -d --destroyAllVMs --eraseVSANObjects
-f <vmk0 ESXi IP for node 1>
-a <vmk0 ESXi IP for node 2>
--vlan <Mgmt VLAN Id>
--initialIpAddress=<VxRail Manager IP Address>
--initialSubnet=<Subnet mask for VxRail Manager>
--initialGateway=<Gateway for VxRail Manger>
i. The vmk0 ESXi IP addresses were discovered during the management network reset
procedure that the whole team performed earlier. Find the remaining values in the Lab
Worksheet for your team
• Mgmt VLAN
• VxRail Manager IP Address
• VxRail Manager subnet mask 255.255.255.224
• Gateway
c. Substitute the needed values and run the reset.pyc command
d. For Current ESXi Password: enter VMwar3!!
e. Review the WARNINGs and CONFIRM and enter YES
f. Observe the reset progress and notice the lines:
INFO Resetting and rebooting hosts.
INFO Waiting for hosts to finish rebooting to confirm reset...
g. The script will repeatedly query the servers while they reboot. It can take up to 40 minutes,
but once the servers reboot the script will continue the remaining tasks and you can move on
and then come back to check when the rese has finished
h. When the reset has finished using the Chrome web browser navigate to the the IP address for
VxRail Manager and you should see the start screen you saw in lab 4.

Lab 7 Exercise F: [One student per team, Optional] Dell Node

Factory Reset
Preface: This exercise provides the procedure to follow when a failure occurs during node configuration that
requires the system to be returned to its original state. This is a restricted procedure that causes 100% data loss
and should never be run on a production system. It can be optionally performed in the lab environment by one
member of the team while the other team members observe.
Step Action
1. Review the Solve Desktop warnings about the data loss nature of the Factory Reset procedure
a. The generation of this procedure in SolVe Desktop warns of the data loss multiple times
b. The procedure is found under a header
Restricted Procedures - NOT FOR PRODUCTION SYSTEMS! *DATA LOSS*
c. When you Select Your Procedure the radio button title is titled
Factory Reset - DATA LOSS! (Resets the appliance and KEEPS the current version)
d. When you select the radio button, a pop-up appears stating
By continuing to generate this procedure, you acknowledge the fact that this procedure
will result in 100% data loss.
i. You must click OK to dismiss this WARNING - DATA LOSS dialog
2. Open the SolVe Dell VxRail Factory Reset Procedure
b. Double-click VxRail Appliance_VxRail_Nicias_Gen3_RASR_Reset_Procedure - 1.docx
3. Review the procedure preparations
a. Notice under Selections the procedure title begins Factory Reset - DATA LOSS!
b. Review the Contents on page 2
c. Review the VxRail Rapid Appliance Self Recovery (RASR) on page 3
d. Review the Booting RASR from IDSDM on page 4
e. Review RASR Main Menu including menu options when Booting RASR from IDSDM
f. Review Main Menu Workflows section for Factory Reset on page 5
g. Review Gathering RASR Logs on page 6 which you may need to collect information and
send to your instructor if you have problems completing the reset
4. Login to iDRAC and reboot from SD card
a. In the Lab Worksheet, look up the BMC (iDRAC) IP Address for you team’s Dell
expansion node node5
b. Open a Browser tab and browse to the node5 BMC address
i. Login Username root and Password calvin
ii. Click Submit
c. Set next boot to boot from SD card
i. In the hierarchical menu on the left, expand Server and select Setup
ii. For First Boot Device use the drop down menu to select Local SD Card
iii. Click Apply
d. Reboot the system
i. In the hierarchical menu under Server select Power / Thermal
ii. For Power Control use the drop down menu to select Reset System (warm boot)
iii. Click Apply to start the reboot
iv. Click Yes to continue with the reboot

Step Action
5. Click Launch in Virtual Console Preview to open console
a. Click OK to open viewer.jnlp
b. Click Continue in response to any certificate warning
c. Click Run
d. Click Run in response to any untrusted certificate warning
e. the RASR Main Menu should be displayed
6. Now follow the procedure from the SolVe Desktop for resetting the Dell node
a. Start with the RASR Main Menu and select 1. Factory Reset by typing 1 <Enter>
b. Review the warning message and continue typing Y <Enter>
c. Observe the reset progress
d. Wait for RASR Completed message
e. Be advised this procedure should take about 40 minutes to perform
f. When prompted to return to the main menu, decline by typing N <Enter>
g. When prompted to reboot the system, confirm by typing Y <Enter>
h. The system will first reboot from the SATADOM, which contains the ESXi hypervisor, to
complete the installation of the VxRail payload. During this process ESXi will reboot
multiple times.
i. The factory reset is complete once the ESXi screen Installation Status reports “Successfully
Completed”.

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VxRail Appliance Deployment and

Dell EMC Education Services 1

EMC, EMC² AccessAnywhere Access Logix, AdvantEdge, AlphaStor, AppSync ApplicationXtender,

Dell EMC Education Services 2

Rev # File Name Date

Dell EMC Education Services 3

VxRail Deployment and Implementation Lab Contents

Lab Guide ............................................................................................................................................. 1

Dell EMC Education Services 4

Lab 2: Setting the Management VLAN

Student Lab Notes:

Dell EMC Education Services 5

Lab 2 Exercise A: Connecting to the VDC

VDC User name: ______________

VDC Password: ______________

2. Important lab conventions

Dell EMC Education Services 6

Dell EMC Education Services 7

Lab 2 Exercise B: Setting the Node Management VLAN

Dell EMC Education Services 8

Dell EMC Education Services 9

Lab 2 Exercise C: Team Collaboration Testing

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Lab 3: Customer Environment Validation

Scenario: This lab exercise is designed to reinforce the pre-installation checklist

Tasks for this lab include:

Dell EMC Education Services 11

Lab 3 Exercise A: Pre-Installation Site Checklist

Dell EMC Education Services 12

Dell EMC Education Services 13

Dell EMC Education Services 14

Lab 3 Exercise B: Validate Customer Network Environment

Dell EMC Education Services 15

Dell EMC Education Services 16

Dell EMC Education Services 17

Lab 3 Exercise C: Generate Configuration JSON Files

Dell EMC Education Services 18

Dell EMC Education Services 19

Lab 4: VxRail Appliance Initialization

Tasks for this lab include:

Dell EMC Education Services 20

Lab 4 Exercise A: VxRail Appliance Initialization SolVe Procedures

Dell EMC Education Services 21

Dell EMC Education Services 22

Dell EMC Education Services 23

Lab 4 Exercise B: [One student per team] VxRail Appliance Initial

Dell EMC Education Services 24

Dell EMC Education Services 25

Dell EMC Education Services 26

Dell EMC Education Services 27

Lab 5: Post Deployment Tasks

Tasks: Tasks for this lab:

Dell EMC Education Services 28

Lab 5 Exercise A: Verify Cluster using VxRail Manager

Dell EMC Education Services 29

Dell EMC Education Services 30

Lab 5 Exercise B: [One student per team] Verify Cluster using

Dell EMC Education Services 31

Dell EMC Education Services 32

Lab 6: Cluster Expansion

Tasks to be completed in this lab exercise:

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Lab 6 Exercise A: [One student per team] Add a node cluster

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