VMware Greenplum on vSphere offers a next-generation virtualized platform for bare metal Greenplum users. It provides Greenplum as a Platform, reducing the cost of maintaining a fleet of running Greenplum Database clusters on bare metal.
This documentation explains best practices on the entire stack, from physical configuration all the way up to the Greenplum Database software layer.
In summary, you will go through the following steps:
Visit Planning VMware vSphere with Greenplum, where you explore the requirements and different hardware configurations available in order to size your Dell EMC VxRail with VMware vSphere environment depending on your Greenplum Database needs. There is a relationship between the number of ESXi hosts and the total Greenplum Database capacity of your cluster; this impacts the number and size of the master hosts and segment hosts that you will deploy. You must ensure that your VMware vSphere environment is able to handle the quantity of resources required, as it will ensure adequate disk storage space, and data processing throughput to meet your end user SLAs.
Follow Prerequisites, Setting Up VMware vSphere Network, Setting Up VMware vSphere DRS and HA, Setting Up VMware vSphere Storage, and Setting Up VMware vSphere Encryption to configure your Dell EMC VxRail with VMware vSphere environment. Based on the recommended topology of Dell EMC VxRail, you will configure the VMware vSphere network and storage, as well as enable and set up VMware vSphere features such as High Availability or Distributed Resource Scheduler. Optionally, you may enable encryption.
When the VMware vSphere environment is set up, use HCIBench to verify network connectivity and evaluate the vSAN performance of your environment.
Once the VMware vSphere environment is verified, deploy a Greenplum Virtual Appliance.
This documentation also provides information regarding single host failure scenarios and host maintenance best practices.
Getting Started
Visit the Architecture page to learn about how VMware Greenplum on vSphere works. Then visit Planning Dell EMC VxRail with Greenplum to start planning and sizing your environment.
