With unique critical requirements for workloads within power substations, special attention is provided to the testing of the original applications and host operating systems. This section offers high-level details of VMware’s laboratory setup, specific equipment that is used, and general performance parameters (within hardware BIOS settings, vSphere VM configurations, and internal to Linux operating systems).
Test Environment Overview
Two physically separate labs were used for testing and solution development, allowing for a vSAN 2-node stretched cluster to be implemented across sites (see Lab 1 and Lab 2 in Lab 1 and Lab 2 Network Diagram). Any workloads requiring highly accurate time synchronization are positioned in Lab 1, which featured a Precision Time Protocol (PTP) grandmaster.
Lab 1 – Edge server hosts:
Two Advantech ECU-579 servers deployed in a vSAN 2-node stretched cluster for ESX 7.0.3 testing.
Two Dell PowerEdge XR12 servers deployed in a vSAN 2-node stretched cluster for ESX 7.0.3 testing.
Grandmaster Precision Time Protocol (PTP) clock - Meinberg 1000.
Arista 7050sx3 switch.
Lab 2 – Infrastructure servers for vCenters, vSAN witness hosts, and domain controller:
One Dell PowerEdge R630 Server with a vSAN Appliance installed acting as the vSAN Witness host for ESXi 7.0.3 testing.
One Dell PowerEdge R630 Server supporting vCenter 7.0.3 and a domain controller.
