Concepts; Netapp Hci Product Overview - NetApp HCI Manual

Concepts

NetApp HCI product overview

NetApp HCI is an enterprise-scale hybrid cloud infrastructure design that combines
storage, compute, networking, and hypervisor—and adds capabilities that span public
and private clouds.
NetApp's disaggregated hybrid cloud infrastructure allows independent scaling of compute and storage,
adapting to workloads with guaranteed performance.
• Meets hybrid multicloud demand
• Scales compute and storage independently
• Simplifies data services orchestration across hybrid multiclouds
Components of NetApp HCI
Here is an overview of the various components of the NetApp HCI environment:
• NetApp HCI provides both storage and compute resources. You use the NetApp Deployment Engine
wizard to deploy NetApp HCI. After successful deployment, compute nodes appear as ESXi hosts and you
can manage them in VMware vSphere Web Client.
• Management services or microservices include the Active IQ collector, QoSSIOC for the vCenter Plug-in,
and mNode service; they are updated frequently as service bundles. As of the Element 11.3 release,
management services are hosted on the management node, allowing for quicker updates of select
software services outside of major releases. The management node (mNode) is a virtual machine that
runs in parallel with one or more Element software-based storage clusters. It is used to upgrade and
provide system services including monitoring and telemetry, manage cluster assets and settings, run
system tests and utilities, and enable NetApp Support access for troubleshooting.
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Learn more about
• NetApp Hybrid Cloud Control enables you to manage NetApp HCI. You can upgrade management
services, expand your system, collect logs, and monitor your installation by using NetApp SolidFire Active
IQ. You log in to NetApp Hybrid Cloud Control by browsing to the IP address of the management node.
• The NetApp Element Plug-in for vCenter Server (VCP) is a web-based tool integrated with the vSphere
user interface (UI). The plug-in is an extension and scalable, user-friendly interface for VMware vSphere
that can manage and monitor storage clusters running NetApp Element software. The plug-in provides an
alternative to the Element UI. You can use the plug-in user interface to discover and configure clusters, and
to manage, monitor, and allocate storage from cluster capacity to configure datastores and virtual
datastores (for virtual volumes). A cluster appears on the network as a single local group that is
represented to hosts and administrators by virtual IP addresses. You can also monitor cluster activity with
real-time reporting, including error and alert messaging for any event that might occur while performing
various operations.
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Learn more about VCP.
• By default, NetApp HCI sends performance and alert statistics to the NetApp SolidFire Active IQ service.
management services releases.