For a customer in The Netherlands, I started work on building a 64-node Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform. This environment is to be stretched across 2 datacenters with 32 nodes on each location. This is quite a large build so I am getting help from my PQR colleague Mattijs Talen. The setup is as following:
DC1
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- Front-End Cluster: 17x NX-3170-G6
- Backend Cluster: 12x NX-8155-G6
- DMZ Cluster: 3x NX-1175S-G6
DC2
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- Front-End Cluster: 17x NX-3170-G6
- Backend Cluster: 12x NX-8155-G6
- DMZ Cluster: 3x NX-1175S-G6
All above-listed Nutanix clusters are to be deployed with AOS 5.10.7. The Front-End clusters will be running AHV as Hypervisor whereas the Backend and DMZ clusters will have VMware ESXi 6.7U2. All clusters will be managed via Nutanix Prism Central 5.11.1.
Citrix XenDesktop is going to manage both Front-End clusters from a VDI perspective using a 50-50 equal distribution across both clusters. From my perspective, I will only be deploying both these clusters before handing these over to my other colleague Zu-Xiang Chang who will take care of the Citrix side of things.
The Backend and DMZ clusters will be setup by a Metro Availability Protection Domain between DC1 and DC2 ensuring no data loss in case of a datacenter failure (RPO = 0). A Nutanix Witness will be deployed on a 3rd location that will function as automatic data center failure handler. Within VMware vSphere, the setup is going to be a Stretched HA cluster for Backend and another one for DMZ. I will create an Active-Standby Data Protection Domain from DC1 to DC2 and also the other way around ensuring the resources on both locations can be used.
This first day started in DC1 where Mattijs already completed the hardware rack & stack work. I picked up by installing the necessary Nutanix (AOS/AHV) and VMware ESXi software on all nodes. This process is done by using the Nutanix Foundation tool, which is installed on my trusty MacBook. We used 2 temporary flat L2 switches (16-port & 24-to connect everything together allowing me to Foundation the largest 17-node Front-End cluster in one go. It does create a big (temporary) mess of cables. Not all work in DC1 was completed today, so work is to continue again tomorrow.
I will share more posts showing the progress of this very cool Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform build.