Solution architecture

(VMware Greenplum on Dell PowerFlex)

Feb 2022

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 Table Of Contents

Overview
Logical architecture
Network architecture
Greenplum architecture

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Solution architecture
Overview

This section provides an overview of the components that are involved in this
solution from a physical and logical perspective. For this document, the Greenplum
solution is deployed on Dell PowerFlex rack. Initially, PowerFlex with a
disaggregated architecture (two-layer) system is deployed with Compute Only (CO)
nodes running ESXi hypervisor for compute and network, and Storage Only (SO)
nodes with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.9. After the PowerFlex is installed and
validated, Greenplum is installed on top of PowerFlex.

Logical architecture

The following figure illustrates the logical view of the Greenplum on PowerFlex with
ten storage only (SO) nodes and 12 compute only (CO) nodes. The Greenplum is
deployed on the CO nodes with one instance of master and ten segments.

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Figure 2. Logical architecture of Greenplum on PowerFlex

Each of the SO node is fully populated with ten 7.68 TB SAS SSD drives. From
PowerFlex storage layout perspective, a single PowerFlex cluster with two protection
domains is used. Since each of the PowerFlex node is fully populated with ten disks,
these 100 disks are used to create four storage pools from which the various
volumes are created. The 12 CO nodes which are the ESXi hosts has the SDC
component that makes the ESXi data stores available from the PowerFlex volumes.
Once the data stores become available, Greenplum VMs are created in the VCenter
with a single master and ten segments.

For more information about the detailed configuration of the SO nodes, CO nodes,

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and Greenplum master and segment VMs, see Greenplum configuration.

Network architecture

The following figure shows the two-layer network architecture that is based on
PowerFlex best practices:

Two Z9100 switches are configured with VLT to provide fault tolerance and
enable connectivity with other switches.
Three dual port 25 Gb Mellanox NICs on each server provide 6 x 25 Gb
ports.
On compute nodes, 2 x 25 Gb ports are NIC teamed to provide high
availability. Another 2x25 Gb ports for Greenplum interconnect.
Dedicated VLAN is configured to provide connectivity with the customer
network, similar VLAN is dedicated vmotion, and VLAN 105 is dedicated to
Hypervisor (ESXi) management.

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Figure 3. PowerFlex network architecture

Greenplum architecture

After PowerFlex is installed, Greenplum database is configured by creating VMs on

the compute nodes. As shown in the following figure, each ESXi host holds a single
VM with five primary and five mirror segments. Greenplum master is configured on
one of the ESXi hosts with no master mirror being configured. The configuration
details of master and segments are mentioned in the node configuration section of
the Appendix. Greenplum interconnect uses a standard Ethernet switching fabric in
this case its a 2x25 Gb switch. Half of the primary segments are using protection

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domain 01 and the other half are using protection domain 02. Their corresponding
mirrors are using the opposite protection domains. These mirrors act as an additional
level of data protection; in case an entire protection domain goes down in PowerFlex.

Figure 4. Greenplum logical architecture

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