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DELL EMC VXRAIL™ APPLIANCE

GENERAL FAQ

Table of Contents

WHAT’S NEW WITH VXRAIL? 2

VXRAIL ON 14TH GENERATION POWEREDGE SERVERS 3

VXRAIL 4.5 4

VXRAIL 101 5

ORDERING 5

VXRAIL TECHNOLOGY 101 6

MANAGEMENT 7

VMWARE AND VIRTUALIZATION 7

SALES 9

PARTNERS 10

PRICING 11

POSITIONING AND COMPETITION 11

HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE MARKET 12

SUPPORT 12

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WHAT’S NEW WITH VXRAIL? Q: What’s new with VxRail? A Dell EMC and VMware are continuing to help customers accelerate their IT transformations and software- defined data center (SDDC) adoption.

Our VxRail updates address the ability of our HCI solutions to help customers from the edge to core datacenters to the cloud with a strong foundation for the path to a multi-cloud operating model. VxRail is a cloud platform - fully engineered systems for turnkey IaaS solutions and foundational infrastructure for PaaS solutions to run your applications on premises or off premises. Additionally, VxRail is future proofed for next generation VMware Cloud technologies.

Unmatched flexibility at the edge

Greater density at the edge with the VxRail G560 2U/4N appliance built on PowerEdge 14th generation servers. The G560 is upgraded, bringing our latest 14th generation PowerEdge servers to this entry class of VxRail appliances. These new appliances offer greater density in a 2U form factor that outperforms the previous Dell EMC VxRail G Series with up to 1.75X more cores; up to 100% increase in processing power; up to 4X more memory; and up to 3X capacity increase improvement in the boot device.

Innovate and optimize the core

Synchronous releases between VMware vSAN and VxRail ensure customers get the latest VMware updates and fixes as quickly as possible—within 30 days of vSAN updates--to help them continuously innovate at the edge, in the core, and in the cloud, and stay ahead of the curve.

The Dell EMC Networking Fabric Design Center, which now includes VxRail, offers wizard-based network design capabilities for faster time to production, right-sized for the environment, and interoperable in the existing infrastructure.

Enable IT certainty with the Dell EMC Future-Proof Loyalty Program and the Network Fabric Design Center, now both available for the first time on VxRail, designed to protect the customer’s investment and simplify deployment.

Illuminate the path to a multi-cloud operating model

VxRail Marketplace integration for VMware Cloud Assembly - the new software-as-a-service (SaaS) based cloud management solution component of VMware Cloud Services speeds time-to-value in the next VMware Cloud Services release, also being announce by VMware on Aug 27.

Dell EMC build guides and VVD enhancements feature new, enhanced options for customers to easily architect, implement and operate a complete Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) with reduced risk.

Q: Is VxRail included in the Future Proof Loyalty Program? A Yes. Q: Where can I find more information and resources on the Future-Proof Program? A. The following links will provide additional information, suitable for direct, partner or customer audiences.

Future-Proof Inside Dell page: https://inside.dell.com/docs/DOC-285351

Future-Proof Knowledge Center: https://www.dellemc.com/resources/en-us/auth/products/storage/storage-software/Future-Proof-Storage-Loyalty-Program.htm#/search/cPage=1:lr=en-us:numP=1:product=43648-43679-45262:query=:resultPerPage=21:searchScan=null

Future-Proof Program FAQ: https://inside.dell.com/docs/DOC-297280

Customer-facing Future-Proof page: https://www.dellemc.com/en-us/storage/future-proof-data-storage-loyalty-program.htm#scroll=off

Q. Who do I contact if I have additional question regarding VxRail and the Future Proof Program?

A Contact FutureProof@dell.com

Q: What is the Dell EMC Networking Fabric Design Center and what are the benefits for VxRail customers? A The Dell EMC Networking Fabric Design Center, now supporting VxRail, offers wizard-based network design capabilities for faster time to

production, right-sized for the environment, and interoperable in existing infrastructures.

Q: What is VMware Cloud Assembly? A For customers who prefer to consume VMware components from the cloud and reduce their on-premises infrastructure footprint, VMware Cloud

Assembly offers combined deep support for VMware-based private and hybrid clouds including VMware Cloud on AWS with support for native AWS and Azure public clouds. VMware Cloud Assembly, the new software-as-a-service (SaaS) based cloud management solution component of VMware Cloud Services, will feature unique integration with VxRail to speed time-to-value. Once generally available, Dell EMC VxRail will have a synchronized release and be the first and only HCI appliance jointly developed to provide integrations that seamlessly work with VMware Cloud Services.

Q: What are some other innovations Dell EMC has added to VxRail lately? A With the Q1 release, Dell EMC, together with VMware leveraging vSAN and vSphere, boosted VxRail’s performance to support even more

demanding workloads and applications with:

800 GB and 1.6 TB NVMe cache drive options that support enhanced performance from fast-caching technology.

25 GbE NDC and PCIe NICs that deliver up to 25% more onboard networking connectivity and 50% more network expansion options – the most aggregate networking of any HCI appliance on the market.

Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors with high memory configurations that support up 2x more memory (3 TB RAM) using 128 GB LRDIMMs.

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Enhanced security includes new automated hardening scripts and VxRail Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) to harden the storage, virtualization, and networking infrastructure components that VxRail manages.

NVIDIA Tesla P40 GPUs supports up to 3TB server RAM for high-end graphics use cases such as those needed by CAD developers and designers.

VXRAIL ON 14TH GENERATION POWEREDGE SERVERS

Q: What are the advantages of VxRail on 14th Generation PowerEdge servers? A VxRail is designed for today’s mission critical workloads. Built on 14th Generation PowerEdge servers based on Intel® Xeon® Processor Scalable

Family, VxRail offers higher core counts, faster clock frequency, more memory channels, and faster memory. Together with the latest from VMware vSAN, VxRail now delivers more powerful and predictable performance to meet any HCI workload requirement with up to 2X more IOPS and over 2X better response times.

VxRail on 14th Generation PowerEdge will literally have millions more configuration options, delivering the best fit across the widest range of applications. With more processor options, new SATA SSDs, more additional network connectivity options, more GPU expansion, you can more closely match a VxRail to your customers’ requirements. Dell EMC HCI and VxRail are the most flexible, most configurable, most able to match your customers exact workload requirements. No over provisioning here, customers can buy what they need, when they need it.

Q: When did VxRail on 14th Gen PowerEdge servers become available? A VxRail on 14th gen PowerEdge servers were orderable in November 2017. It became generally available in December 2017.

Dell EMC reps can find more information regarding VxRail general lead times at https://inside.dell.com/docs/DOC-243851. Partners, please work with your Dell EMC partner reps to inquire about lead times. Once an order is placed, lead time for that specific order can found using MyOrders.

Q: Where can I find detailed specs on the new models? A Please consult the VxRail on 14th Generation PowerEdge server Specification Sheet that can be found on the VxRail Enablement Center at

http://vxrail.is/everything.

Q: Can customers mix 13th and 14th generation servers in a cluster? A Platforms running VxRail 4.5 software are cluster compatible when upgraded to VxRail software version 4.5.150.

Current cluster (G410/F and/or 13G servers) can be upgraded to 4.5.150 and can continue to add nodes of down rev hardware (G410/F and/or 13G servers).

Current cluster (G410/F and/or 13G servers) can be upgraded to 4.5.150 and add 14th gen nodes. Post-upgrade, only 14th gen nodes can be added.

Current cluster (14G servers) can be upgraded to 4.5.150. Post-upgrade, only 14th gen node can be added

Q: Can customers add 14th Generation servers to an existing cluster? A Yes, but cluster must first be upgraded to 4.5.150. Post-upgrade, only 14th gen nodes can be added.

Q: What version(s) of VxRail software run on 14th Gen PowerEdge servers? A 14th Gen servers with VxRail will require a minimum software version of 4.5. Refer to ESSM for install and upgrade code level information. Initial

factory code will be 4.5.100. VxRail 4.0.x is not supported on 14G hardware.

Q: What is the difference between 13th Gen and 14th Gen PowerEdge servers? A The VxRail technical presentation (tech deck) provides generational comparison slides for between the 13th Gen and 14th Gen for each model

type. Find the tech deck at the VxRail Enablement Center at http://vxrail.is/everything

Q: What power supply options are available on 14th Gen PowerEdge servers? A The 14th Gen PowerEdge server family has higher power supply options. This is necessary to handle the more performant processors. The ability

to utilize the (default) 1100W power supply still exists but may not be recommended depending on the configuration of the P and V series appliances that may be configured with CPUs with power ratings of 165W. Using 1100W power supplies may throttle performance.

Q: What is the difference between the new flash SATA and the SAS SSD drives that are part of the announcement? A The new SATA SSD cards are available in the same sizes as SAS capacity drives and are available for all all-flash PowerEdge nodes. Using SATA

SSD’s for capacity drives can lower the cost of a node by 30%.

Q: Are VxRail on 13th Generation PowerEdge servers still available? A Yes. 13th generation PowerEdge servers are available with VxRail 4.5 software. They are scheduled to go end of sale in May 2018.

Q: Is VxRail available in my country?

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A VxRail on 14th generation PowerEdge servers is available in countries where 13th gen platforms are available today. There is no additional phased roll-out plan. G560 VxRail Appliances are available in tier 1 countries only. Refer to the How to Sell VxRail presentation on the VxRail Enablement Center (http://vxrail.is/everything) for a detailed country roll-out list.

Q: Which models of VxRail support NVMe cache drives? A VxRail G560, as well as the E and P series models will be NVMe capable for both hybrid and all flash configurations for nodes delivered from the

factory with version 4.5.200 or greater. These cache devices are 800GB and 1.6TB in size. Hybrid nodes will also support NVMe using cache drive slots.

Q: Can a customer upgrade to NVMe cache drives? A Only nodes shipped from factory after 4.5.200 factory release on April 10, 2018 can support NVMe.

Q: When will 14th generation PowerEdge support the Intel Scalable ‘M’ processor? A VxRail 4.5.200 offers the support of the high memory processor types, designated by an ‘M’. Seven additional M processors are available across

the E/P/V/S series VxRail appliances.

Q: What is the memory capacity of the new M designated processors? A Each processor can support 1.5TB of memory, double the 768GB supported by the other processor options. The dual M processors support up to

3TB RAM using 128GB LRDIMMs

VXRAIL 4.5 Q: What features are included with VxRail 4.5? A VxRail 4.5 brought many new features to the table including support for vSphere 6.5u1 and vSAN 6.6u1 features. VxRail 4.5 provides simplified

scalability with batch node deployment functionality, enhanced security features via Data at Rest Encryption (DARE), management at scale with REST-based APIs for delivering cluster-wide software upgrades, and much more!

VxRail, v 4.5.200 delivers: further simplification of deployment, management, and serviceability enhancements that include:

Enhanced management experience with VxRail Manager Events now viewable in vCenter, the known familiar VMware tool for day-to-day operational management

Expanded RESTful API capabilities across system (health status, heartbeat, node view), eServices (open SR, link to chat with support, KB articles, community messages), and Support (get logs, add/change/remove support account).

Customer-upgradeable 3-node clusters

For more information on the product set, visit the VxRail Enablement Center at http://vxrail.is/everything

Q: When did VxRail 4.5.200 become available? What about upgrades to VxRail on 14th generation PowerEdge Servers? A Upgrades became orderable and new software (v4.5.200) started shipping with new factory orders on April 10, 2018.

Q: Is there anything related to licensing/ordering that I need to know for 4.5? A VxRail 4.5 is for net new clusters only. It is available on both 13th and 14th generation based servers.

Q: What upgrade path is supported for 4.5? A An upgrade path is now available for 4.5. Please refer to the VxRail Appliance software 4.5.x release notes that can be found at;

https://support.emc.com/products/39970_VxRail-Appliance-Series/Documentation/

Q: Can my customer add a G410/F node to a cluster once they upgrade to 4.5 software? A Yes. After an upgrade to 4.5, it is recommended that no 14th gen based nodes are added. Once a 14th generation server node is added to the

cluster, only 14th generation nodes can be added going forward

Q: With DARE in VxRail 4.5, do VxRail Appliances address customer encryption and compliance needs? A Yes, with VxRail 4.5, vSAN now includes Data at Rest Encryption, or DARE. vSAN’s version of DARE is native to HCI and is set at the cluster level

for broad protection. Alternatively, vSphere Encryption can be used for VM level encryption.

Q: Can customers use both vSAN and vSphere Encryption? A Yes, but it is not recommended. Customers should choose between the two. vSAN is a better option for concerns of media theft, and it allows data

reduction to be applied. vSphere Encryption is a better option for concerns of rogue admin, and does not allow much (if any) data reduction to be applied.

Q: Does VxRail support file storage? A Yes. VxRail supports Dell EMC Isilon SD Edge, software-defined scale out NAS for enterprise edge. It uses the vSAN datastore and scales up to

36TB of file storage capacity. It provides SMB, NFS, HDFS, and OpenStack Swift protocols, and is managed with standard VMware tools.

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VXRAIL 101 Q: What are Dell EMC VxRail Appliances? A VxRail Appliances are a family of a hyper-converged appliances exclusively from Dell EMC and VMware, and are the easiest and fastest way to

stand up and extend a fully virtualized VMware SDDC environment.

Q: What are the benefits of VxRail Appliances? A VxRail Appliances provide a simple, cost-effective hyper-converged solution for a wide variety of applications and workloads. With VxRail

Appliances, IT organizations can start small and easily scale capacity and performance by non-disruptively adding appliances to the cluster without the investment or up-front planning required with traditional infrastructure. VxRail Appliances seamlessly integrate into customers’ existing VMware data centers, workflows, and tools.

Q: How are VxRail Appliances exclusive to VMware and Dell EMC? A VxRail Appliances are jointly developed by Dell EMC and VMware. They leverage VMware vSAN and include propriety automation and Dell EMC

software not available from other vendors.

Q: Is there a demo available for VxRail Appliances? A Yes, see the VxRail enablement center for an interactive demo of VxRail. (http://vxrail.is/everything)

Q: Where do I go for additional resources and questions? A Selling resources are on the VxRail Appliance enablement center (http://vxrail.is/everything). For other information and questions see the VxRail

Appliance InsideDell community (http://bit.ly/EverythingVxRail).

ORDERING Q: When did VxRail 4.5.200 become orderable? A Upgrades to VxRail 4.5.200 became generally available for new customers and factory shipments on April 10, 2018. VxRail 4.5.210 will be

available via Web download post-GA to support upgrades for existing systems and component upgraded (with the exception of SSD/HDD and GPUs).

For internal Dell EMC more information regarding VxRail general lead times, please visit https://inside.dell.com/docs/DOC-243851. For partners, please work with your Dell EMC partner reps to inquire about lead times. Once an order is placed, lead time for that specific order can found using MyOrders.

Q: Is there a sizing tool available for VxRail Appliances? A Yes, see the VxRail enablement center for a sizing tool for Virtual Machines and Virtual Desktop. Is it posted on the VxRail Enablement Center

(http://vxrail.is/everything)

Q: When should I upgrade capacity with additional drives versus adding additional nodes? A Hyper-converged appliances scale best when adding compute and storage together and this should be the primary way of scaling VxRail

Appliances as they add both storage capability and the ability to support additional workloads. Capacity-only upgrades on hybrid configurations can be used to add capacity when there is no need to support additional or expanded working sets.

Q: Is there a best practice for ordering an appliance when the customer plans to later add additional drives? A Yes, configure the appliance with maximum capacity in the cache tier if you plan on upgrading capacity later. This allows you to support expanded

or additional working sets as needed.

Q: Can I order VxRail Appliances without Maintenance? A No, at least one year of maintenance is required when a customer purchases a VxRail appliance.

Q: Are vRealize Automation, vRealize Operations, the EMC Data Protection Suite for VMware or Data Domain Virtual Edition included with VxRail?

A No, these qualified solutions are sold separately from VxRail and customers looking to use them must order them in addition to VxRail Appliances. See the Ordering and Configuration Guide on the enablement center for details.

Q: What is RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines and how do I learn more about it? A RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines (or RP4VM) delivers best-in-class local and remote hypervisor-based replication, continuous data protection for

per-VM recovery to any point in time, and built-in automated disaster recovery orchestration. It replicates VMs (VMDK and RDM) to any type of storage supported by VMware (i.e., FC, FCoE, iSCSI, NAS, and DAS) referenced in the VMware Hardware Compatibility List. For more information see http://www.emc.com/storage/recoverpoint/recoverpoint-for-virtual-machines.htm

Q: How many RecoverPoint for VM licenses are included with VxRail A VxRail Appliances with single node form factors (E, V, P, and S Series) ship with 5 RP4VM licenses per node. 2U4N VxRail Appliances (G Series)

ship with 15 licenses per chassis.

Q: How do I order additional RecoverPoint for VM licenses?

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A Order additional licenses from the standard ordering paths.

Q: Do VxRail Appliances support file storage capabilities? A Yes. VxRail supports Dell EMC Isilon SD Edge for up to 36TB of file storage per instance.

Q: What GPU options are available and supported for VxRail? A V570 and V570F can be ordered with a 0 GPU option. As always, the GPU software and drivers are sold separately and only the NVIDIA Tesla

M10 and M60 will be supported.

VxRail V series models will support a max of 2 Tesla M10 GPU cards and 3 Tesla M60 or P40 GPUs. The P40 GPU can support up to 3TB of memory.

The new NVIDIA Tesla P40 GPU card is available for the V570/F and delivers up to 2X the graphics performance, and supports up to 50% more users. The Tesla P40 is a replacement for the M60 however, the Tesla M10 remains the preferred choice for high VDI density.

Q: Where do I get the NVIDIA software license for the GPU cards that are supported in the VxRail V-Series Appliances? A You need to purchase the license from a NVIDIA partner. Locate and engage one at: Virtualization Partners | NVIDIA GRID | NVIDIA

Q: Can a customer purchase an appliance and add a GPU to it at a later time? A You can add GPU cards to the VxRail V Series models as they are the only VxRail appliances designed to support GPUs. Other models cannot be

upgraded with GPU cards. Also note that GPU support is only available with vSphere Enterprise +.

Q: How do I get additional information about the VxRail Appliance configurations? A See the VxRail Appliance Ordering and Licensing Guide in the VxRail Appliance Enablement Center (http://vxrail.is/everything) for details.

Q: Can I sell networking with VxRail Appliances? A Yes, VxRail Appliances are an opportunity to sell additional network capacity from the customer’s preferred vendor to support the new appliance

connectivity. The Dell Switch S4048 is a great option to sell with VxRail. A detailed planning guide is located here: Dell EMC Switch Configuration Guide for VxRail

VXRAIL TECHNOLOGY 101 Q: How do VxRail Appliances scale? A VxRail Appliances scale linearly from 3 to 64 nodes. Each appliance adds compute, storage, virtualization, and management resources. An

appliance can be joined to a cluster with just one click—and the appliance automatically rebalances resources and workloads across the cluster, creating a single pool of resources.

Q: What is the minimum initial scale point and scaling increments? A The minimum initial VxRail configuration is 3-nodes. VxRail Appliance and customers can order and scale their VxRail Appliances in single-node

increments up to 64 nodes once the 3-node minimum is met. Note: the configuration of the 4th node must match the first three.

Q: Can I sell a 3-node G Series? And then can I add a node to it? A Yes. G Series appliances with 3 nodes will ship with an unpopulated slot. The configuration of the 4th node must match the first three.

Q: What are the pros and cons to a 3-node cluster? A While there is a lower cost of entry, a three-node vSAN cluster configuration had only three physical hosts, and the data and witness components

are distributed across all hosts. Because of this, VxRail will not be able to automatically recover from a single component failure automatically until the failed component is replaced because there isn’t a fourth available host to rebuild from. The cluster will still be resilient enough to withstand a single component failure and continue to operate without data loss but will be running in a “degraded” state and will be open to a possible second component failure that would then cause an outage if the failed component isn’t replaced in time.

If a customer desires the highest levels of resiliency that supports automatic self-healing from a component failure, then a four-node minimum is recommended. This configuration can support a number of failures to tolerate (FTT) = 1 with RAID-1 and RAID-5 configurations. This configuration allows vSAN to self-heal in the event of a single component failure, when RAID-1 is used ONLY. If RAID-5 is used, VSAN self-heal is not supported. A five-node minimum is required to support self-healing using RAID-5. This is because a RAID-5 (3+1) parity stripe size is used which requires a four-node minimum to operate but a five-node minimum for self-healing capability. RAID-6 is not supported on a three-node and four-node configuration. Refer to the VxRail Technical Presentation for further details on failure scenarios

Q: Can I sell a 2-node VxRail? A No. Currently VxRail deployments require a minimum of three nodes.

Q: Is an RPQ required for a deployment with more than 32 nodes? A No. An RPQ is no longer required for clusters that scale beyond 32 nodes.

Q: Can I mix VxRail Appliance models in a cluster? A Yes, customers can mix different VxRail Appliances within a cluster, except where doing so would create highly unbalanced performance. All-Flash

and Hybrid nodes cannot be mixed in the same cluster. VxRail nodes with 1 GbE Ethernet connections cannot be mixed in clusters with other

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VxRail nodes with 10GbE connections. Also, the first four nodes in a cluster must be of the same series type and configuration before being able to mix other series node types in the same cluster.

Q: Can I mix node types in a VxRail G Series Appliance chassis? A No, all of the nodes in the G Series Appliance (in the same chassis) must be of the same VxRail node type/configuration.

Q: What hardware can I upgrade in a VxRail Appliance? A All upgradable components are listed in the VxRail Ordering and Licensing Guide which can be found in the enablement center at

http://vxrail.is/everything.

Q: Is an RPQ required to implement Stretched Clusters with VxRail? A Yes, RPQs are required until we have enough data for validate how the solution works in different environments.

Q: Do VxRail Appliances offer data reduction capabilities? A Yes, VxRail Appliance all-flash configurations offer a full complement of data efficiency services, including deduplication, compression, and erasure

coding.

Q: What is the key benefit of 25GbE? A 25GbE networking provides additional connectivity options and more network bandwidth than previously available.

Q: Can VxRail nodes utilize different base networking speeds in the same cluster? A No. Mixing of 1GbE, 10GbE, and 25GbE is not permitted in the same cluster. Only greenfield clusters can support 25GbE.

Q: What is the minimum number of identical nodes in a cluster? A Starting with 4.5.150 a cluster can start with just 3 identical nodes. Prior to version 4.5.150, four identical nodes are required before adding a non-

matching node. (3 identical nodes are the minimum number of nodes in a cluster.)

Q: How can a customer expand a 3 node, 13th gen cluster? A Beginning with version 4.5.150 VxRail supports a different 4th node. Therefore, a 3-node 13th gen cluster may be expanded with a 14th generation -

based VxRail node. However, all nodes in a G series chassis must be remain homogeneous and be of the same generation of hardware.

Q: What are the Meltdown and Intel Spectre flaws? A These were security vulnerabilities in memory processors which forced a redesign of the operation system kernel. As a result of the Spectre bug

fixes, performance will be impacted.

Q: What version(s) of VxRail include the “Meltdown and Intel Spectre” flaw bug fixes? A The Intel Meltdown and Spectre bug fixes are contained in the 4.5.152, 4.5.210 (available via Web download post GA) and 4.0.402 code releases

MANAGEMENT Q: How do VxRail Appliances simplify deployment and configuration? A VxRail’s automated deployment and configuration accelerates the time from power-on to provisioning virtual machines by eliminating more than

200 manual configuration tasks and workflows, and reducing operator errors.

Q: How are the VxRail Appliances managed? A VxRail Appliances are managed using VxRail Manager software for hardware and appliance maintenance tasks. VxRail Manager incorporates Log

Insight functionality, ESRS and other serviceability capabilities. For day-to-day VM management, customers can manage the VMware stack on VxRail directly from the vSphere Web Client.

Q: Will there be a management interface that ties in all VMware and storage management into one portal across all VxRail Appliance clusters a customer might have?

A An external vCenter allows customers to manage multiple VxRail clusters from within the familiar vCenter interface. Optionally, vRealize Automation allows for management and orchestration of workloads across VxRail clusters. It also provides a unified service catalog that gives consumers an App Store ordering experience to make requests from a personalized collection of application and infrastructure services. All physical appliance management still requires the use on an individual VxRail Manager.

VMWARE AND VIRTUALIZATION Q: What VMware software is included in the VxRail Appliance? A VxRail always includes vSAN Enterprise, vRealize Log Insight, and vCenter Server. We understand that many customers have their own vSphere

licenses, so VxRail utilizes a bring-your-own vSphere license model. This is designed to allow the customer to determine the flexibility of their license functionality as well as lower the total capital cost.

Q: What version of vSAN ships with VxRail Appliances? A VxRail 4.5 models support the vSphere 6.5u1 hypervisor and ship with vSAN 6.6u1. VxRail 4.0 models support vSphere 6.0 hypervisor and ship

with vSAN 6.2.

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Q: Does VxRail include a vSphere license? A No. VxRail is vSphere license independent so customers can bring any eligible vSphere license. This “bring your own” model allows VxRail to

satisfy customer requests to leverage a variety of vSphere licenses they may have already purchased through an ELA or other method. If you need to order vSphere licenses please do so through the customer’s preferred VMware channel partner, from VMware directly or from Dell EMC. See the VMware Licensing FAQ for VxRail on the enablement center (http://bit.ly/SellVxRail) for additional details.

Q: Which vSphere licenses are supported with VxRail? A Several vSphere editions are supported by VxRail, including Enterprise Plus, Enterprise, Standard, ROBO Standard and ROBO Advanced. Also

supported are vSphere licenses that are part of VMware packages, including vCloud Suite, VSOM Enterprise Plus and Horizon. Horizon add-on SKU’s can be purchased when the appliance is dedicated to VDI. Use of any license type save vSphere Enterprise Plus requires at least VxRail 3.5, that became available in June 2016

Q: Does Dell EMC sell vSphere licenses for use with VxRail? A Yes. Dell EMC is an authorized vSphere reseller and licenses are available in the MyQuotes ordering path. See the VxRail Ordering and

Configuration Guide in the enablement center for details.

Q: Can I use VMware Horizon licenses with VxRail? A Yes. As long as the appliances are dedicated to VDI.

Q: Which vSphere license type is recommended? How does the VxRail functionality change based on which vSphere license is applied? A vSphere Enterprise Plus is recommended for VxRail as it dramatically increases administrator productivity with storage automation and

optimization, intelligent resource allocation and automation of maintenance procedures. While vSphere Standard lowers up front licensing costs, it requires more manual administration, user-driven performance tuning and manual planning and rebalancing for maintenance. vSphere Enterprise Plus is also required to support GPU cards in the VxRail V Series appliances.

Q: Can customers use existing VMware vSphere licenses with the VxRail Appliance? A Yes, customers can bring their own eligible VMware vSphere licenses to VxRail Appliances. Eligible customers can reduce VxRail Appliance cost

and leverage existing VMware investments.

Q: How many vSphere licenses does the customer need to provide for every VxRail Appliance? A The number of vSphere CPU licenses required for each VxRail Appliance depends on the number of physical CPUs in the committed VxRail.

Q: Can I use licenses from the VMware Service Provider Cloud Licensing Program with VxRail? A Please refer to the VxRail for vCAN Service Providers Dell EMC Field Enablement Guide for details.

Q: Can customers add VxRail Appliances to an existing vCenter cluster? A Yes, the VxRail Appliance can be configured at installation to be managed by another customer vCenter instance.

Q: Can customers use tools, such as vCenter or PowerCLI to manage the VxRail Appliance? A Yes, one of the core values of VxRail Appliances is that customers can manage a cluster using the VxRail Manager or using all the tools in

vSphere. We give the customer the choice. However, the initial appliance build, scale-out for additional appliances, and software upgrades must be done through the VxRail Manager user interface.

Q: Can I use vRealize or vRealize OPS with VxRail Appliances? A Yes, the appliance integrates into any VMware environment, including those managed by vRealize and vROPS. vRealize and vROPS are not

included in the VxRail Appliance software suite, but can be purchased separately.

Q: Do VxRail Appliances support Microsoft Hyper-V or KVM? A The VxRail Appliance and VMware software are optimized and deeply integrated to make it more efficient and easier to deploy, configure, and

manage in a VMware environment. Other hypervisors are not supported, but the VxRail Appliance supports customer-deployed Microsoft applications, such as Office, Exchange, etc.

Q: Do VxRail Appliances support Citrix XenDesktop? A Yes, VxRail Appliances supports Citrix End-User Computing just as it does any other application running in a virtualized VMware-enabled

environment.

Q: What is the difference between the VxRail Appliance and vSAN Ready Node? A The VMware HCI strategy consists of delivering the best Hyper-Converged Software (HCS) on the broadest set of consumption options. The tightly

integrated HCS software stack includes VMware vSphere, the market-leading hypervisor; vSAN, radically simple, enterprise-class native storage; and Dell vCenter Server, a unified and extensible management solution.

At a very simple level the difference is buy vs. build. VxRail Appliance’s "best and most complete” experience covers the gamut of the “buy” experience - single ordering, purpose-built design, unified support, preconfigured software stack, and automated updates of the VMware HCS components. These make VxRail Appliances the best and fastest consumption option for vSAN.

The vSAN Ready Node program is reference architecture program that offers more choice in hardware configurations, but requires the solution to be configured on site and can involve multiple points of support. vSAN is well suited for customers who need to buy server hardware from other vendors or want configurations above and beyond what VxRail offers.

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SALES

Q: Can heritage EMC and heritage Dell direct sales teams sell VxRail Appliances? Can VMware teams sell VxRail Appliances? A Yes, all sellers are compensated on selling VxRail.

Q: Who is the target customer? A The target enterprise customer profile includes line of business/department owners, application owners, IT directors/generalists, remote office/branch

offices as well as test and development teams. In mid-market and small enterprise accounts, the VxRail Appliance can be deployed as a core data center infrastructure.

Q: What are the use cases for Dell EMC VxRail Appliances? A The VxRail addresses a wide range of use cases. The addition of the PowerEdge portfolio fills some key gaps, including GPU support, high-density

storage needs, and lower cost of entry that competitors have used to their advantage. The VxRail Appliances are ideal for General Purpose IT applications, Enterprise Edge, standard and graphics-intensive VDI, Virtual Environments, Test/Dev, Business Applications (i.e. databases) and departmental workloads.

Q: What training is available? A Sales, Presales, and Competitive training are available on the Education and Development portal (Sales). Other regional training events are

ongoing.

Q: How will I be compensated for VxRail Appliance sales? A Heritage EMC sales will receive full compensation and quota retirement on the full value of the appliance – the hardware and the software. See the

compensation guide on the Sales Resource Center for additional details. VMware reps also receive compensation and quota retirement as well as a significant accelerator on the software portion of the Appliances so leverage your VMware counterparts to help sell VxRail Appliances. Heritage Dell sales also receive compensation and quota retirement on VxRail – see details at: http://intranet.dell.com/dept/hr/Global/Compensation/SalesCompensation/Pages/EnterpriseSolutionsPlans.aspx

Q: What is Cloud Flex for HCI A Our Cloud Flex offering brings a cloud-like consumption model to our Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) portfolio, offering a flexible, risk-free

financial structure that eliminates initial capital costs and spreads payments over time – with no long-term obligation

Q: What are the Cloud Flex for HCI benefits? A Cloud Flex has several major benefits for customers – it eliminates acquisition costs and lets them move to a straightforward OPEX cost structure

with monthly, declining payments. There is no long-term obligation so customers experience the benefits of on-premises HCI but can return the equipment at any time and stop payments. Declining payments over time ensures the monthly rate is competitive with the decreasing price of technology.

Q: Which models of VxRail are supported? Will this expand over time? A Cloud Flex for HCI is currently available for the E, P, V and S Series models. There are no immediate plans to expand to other models.

Q: Where can I find more information on Cloud Flex? A Refer to the Cloud Flex FAQ (https://www.emc.com/auth/rcoll/faq/cloud-flex-faq.docx) on the VxRail Enablement Center (http://vxrail.is/everything)

Q: Do I need to do a proof-of-concept or evaluation with a customer? A Sometimes for large deals, yes. Hyper-converged is a new concept to many customers and they may want to kick the tires with the product in their

labs. Successful sales are very dependent on proof of concepts where the customers test-drive the appliance in their own environment. Clear success criteria should be agreed with the customer upfront to ensure a good engagement.

Q: How do I arrange for a customer proof-of-concept or evaluation? A Follow standard POC orders or Customer Evaluation processes when entering customer evaluation orders in MyQuotes. However the order must

be flagged as “EVAL.” As with normal revenue orders, license activation emails are sent to the end user. Follow the instructions in the Evaluation best practices guide, including making sure that licenses are NOT ACTIVATED until the system is purchased. If the license is activated, the customer will get invoiced for the amount of the quote. Proof of Concept orders must include Professional Services unless the partner is Deployment and Implementation certified.

Q: How can I demonstrate VxRail Appliances to customers? A Dell EMC believe that a hands-on demonstration of a VxRail Appliance is a very powerful sales tool to let our customers understand the level of

simplicity and TCO benefit. Use the Video Demos on the Selling Channel, the full-featured Interactive Demo and VLABs to let customers experience the VxRail Appliance.

Q: How do I transact a VxRail Appliance deal? A VxRail Appliance deals must be transacted through EMC legacy systems (EMC’s SFDC and MyQuotes). Because Dell PowerEdge-based models

will be serviced out of Dell depots, heritage EMC reps will need to co-sell with “legacy” Dell reps, so that the latter can also assign Dell Customer Numbers and validate service coverage in the area where the VxRail will be installed (both are required for PowerEdge based models when entering a quote in MyQuotes). For the process to work, create an opportunity in SFDC, and select the appropriate VxRail model, then connect with your heritage EMC / Dell counterpart via Find a Rep (GAMA) using SFDC. You may need to update your SFDC CRM profile if you have not already. This requirement will be in place for Q4 and into Q1 2017 while the MyQuotes integration takes place with Dell systems.

10 © 2018 DELL, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DELL EMC CONFIDENTIAL

Q: Where do I enter the Dell Customer Number in MyQuotes? A Dell Customer Number (DCN) and service area validation must be captured on “Shipping, Billing & Install” tab in the Shipping Instructions field. See

MyQuotes screenshot below for placement and example of correct entry. For more information, consult the Ordering and Licensing Guide.

Q: Will VMware help me with my deal? A Yes, VMware OEM teams, account teams, and partner managers are paid on this business and are incentivized to help sell the VxRail Appliance.

Q: What sales scenarios should you avoid? A The addition of the PowerEdge servers to the portfolio closed some of the gaps, including GPU support, high-density storage needs, and lower cost

of entry that competitors have used to their advantage. If the customer does not use VMware, engage VMware reps to demonstrate the value of vCenter and vSAN. If the customer is adamant about using other hypervisors, sell other Dell EMC solutions such as VxRack Flex or Dell XC Series for Hyper-V or KVM opportunities.

PARTNERS

Q: How do I register opportunities? A Partners must register opportunities with legacy EMC systems to receive a valid registration. Heritage Dell partners must join the Dell EMC partner

program in order to sell VxRail.

Q: Are VxRail Appliances eligible for Deal Registration? A Yes, the partner should immediately register the deal. A VxRail Appliance can be registered just like any other product via EMC Partner Central in

the initial selling phase to enjoy registration benefits. Deal registration for VxRail Appliances uses the same forms and processes as any other deal registration at EMC.

Q: What are the approval criteria for VxRail Appliance Deal Registration requests? A The EMC Partner Support Center (PSC) handles deal registration requests on a first-come-first-serve basis and inspects each to ensure that

The VxRail Appliance is selected in the Registration Products.

Another channel partner has not already registered the opportunity.

If the request passes all three checkpoints, partners will receive a front-end registration discount list prices. VxRail Appliance deals are not stackable with any other registration discounts (e.g., Incremental, New Account, Tech Refresh).

Q: What is the SLA for deal registration requests? A The Partner Support Center will respond to deal registration requests within one to two business days, depending on the customer market

segment.

Q: How long are registrations and extension requests valid? A Approved registrations will be valid for 120 days. One extension request may be granted for an additional 60 days. This provides Channel Partners

180 days to close a deal.

Q: Who can submit VxRail Appliance registration requests? A The registering partner can be the VxRail Appliance Distributor or the VAR.

Examples of correct entries shown in the “Shipping Instructions” box:

Dell Customer Number (DCN) has been added as shown in “Shipping Instructions” box. Service Area has been validated with Dell sales and comment has been added.

Dell Customer Number (DCN) and service area validation must be captured on “Shipping, Billing & Install”

tab.

11 © 2018 DELL, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DELL EMC CONFIDENTIAL

Q: I have a deal in the public sector where deal registration is not allowed. How do I handle this? A For public tender deals, deal registration is not a requirement. The distributor just needs to state that this is a public tender deal in the pricing

justification section as the reason for not linking to a deal registration. In EMEA, if the deal starts as a normal opportunity and evolves into a public tender deal, the EMEA PSC will void the registration to ensure that all competing partners have the same pricing for the public tender opportunity.

Q: Will Dell EMC Inside Sales Representatives (ISRs) be qualifying VxRail Appliance opportunities and sharing them with partners? A Yes, Inside Sales is prepared to support VxRail Appliance opportunities and share them with channel partners.

Q: Will there be presales support available for VxRail Appliances? A Yes, Dell EMC employee and channel partner presales resources have access to VxRail Appliance training. The VxRail Appliance enablement

team has already created Dell EMC Sales and Presales accreditation modules.

Q: Should partners transact VxRail Appliance deals through DELL EMC Systems? A All partner VxRail Appliance deals must be transacted through legacy EMC Systems (EMC’s SFDC and MyQuotes).

PRICING

Q: How are VxRail Appliances priced? A VxRail Appliances are aggressively priced, lower than competitive offerings with a like-for-like configuration.

Q: Is there a price difference when ordering one VxRail Series model versus another? A No like-for-like node configurations are priced similarly regardless of the form factor with differences amounting for single digit percentages that are

negligible in small deals.

Q: How is a drive upgrade priced? A A drive upgrade is priced at a small premium to the equivalent capacity purchased as part of an initial sale.

Q: How is VxRail relative to other Dell EMC offerings? A VxRail is the lowest cost HCIA from Dell EMC. It is priced to take share from other ‘buy’ options, and priced at a slight premium vs. ‘build’ options.

With the ability to start with 3 nodes, VxRail offers an even lower entry price of approximately $45K. Additionally, new Broadwell processors deliver more value at the same price point as VxRail 3.5.

Q: Is there special pricing available for VxRail Appliances? A Special Pricing on a case-by-case basis is always available. However, VxRail Appliance Special Pricing requests should be EXTREMELY rare and

will be HIGHLY governed, given that the VxRail Appliance is aggressively priced compared to the competition.

Q: What kinds of discounts can I expect on VxRail Appliances? A The VxRail Appliance is in discount class J and the same program rules apply (approval thresholds, partner program discounts, etc.) to the VxRail

Appliance as other class J products.

POSITIONING AND COMPETITION Q: What is the difference between the VxRail Appliance and vSAN Ready Node? A The VMware HCI strategy consists of delivering the best Hyper-Converged Software (HCS) on the broadest set of consumption options. The tightly

integrated HCS software stack includes VMware vSphere, the market-leading hypervisor; vSAN, radically simple, enterprise-class native storage; and Dell vCenter Server, a unified and extensible management solution.

At a very simple level the difference is buy vs. build. VxRail Appliance’s "best and most complete” experience covers the gamut of the “buy” experience - single ordering, purpose-built design, unified support, preconfigured software stack, and automated updates of the VMware HCS components. These make VxRail Appliances the best and fastest consumption option for vSAN.

The vSAN Ready Node program is reference architecture program that offers more choice in hardware configurations, but requires the solution to be configured on site and can involve multiple points of support. vSAN is well suited for customers who need to buy server hardware from other vendors or want configurations above and beyond what VxRail offers.

Q: When do I position a VxRail Appliance, and when do I position a VxRack System? A VxRail Appliances are purpose built for departmental and edge applications as well as small enterprise and mid-market data centers. Ease of

deployment and management are foundational elements for the VxRail Appliance. This simplicity enables you to position it in organizations that may not have deep storage administration expertise but rely more on IT generalists. The VxRail Appliance is built on vSAN software and is the simplest product to deploy for vSphere environments.

Position a VxRack System in the large enterprise data center where a customer wants extreme scalability and flexibility. If a customer is looking for more than 32 nodes to start, then lead with VxRack Systems. A VxRack is an engineered system that enables customers to grow to data-center scale in flexible discrete increments. It is well suited for the rapid growth in next-generation applications and mixed workloads—allowing customers to support a growing number of use cases with built-in resiliency and less stringent availability and performance requirements on infrastructure. VxRack Systems come in two versions: VxRack SDDC is built on VMware’s Cloud Foundation Software and VxRack FLEX is built on Dell EMC ScaleIO.

12 © 2018 DELL, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DELL EMC CONFIDENTIAL

Q: When should I sell VxRail and when should I sell Dell XC Series appliances? A Lead with Dell Technologies IP such as VxRail and VMware unless you cannot convince customer of benefits of VMware and there is a unique use

case requiring an alternative. For non-VMware environments engage VMware sales to help convince customers of the benefits of VMware. If you are unable to do so, then sell Dell XC Series for Hyper-V and KVM and for larger multi-hypervisor environments that may require larger scale, sell VxRack Flex.

If Dell or a Dell partner registers a deal with an XC Series solution continue with that solution. After registering an XC Series deal with Nutanix - if we find the need to subsequently introduce VxRail or another alternative, we need to release the registration

Q: How do I get additional information about positioning VxRail Appliance against the competition? A See the VxRail Appliance battle cards and compete deck for Nutanix NX, HP (and SimpliVity), and Cisco in the VxRail Enablement Center

(http://vxrail.is/everything).

Q: How are VxRail Appliances priced when compared to Nutanix? A For a like-for-like configuration, VxRail Appliance list price is priced significantly lower than Nutanix.

HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE MARKET Q: How are Converged and Hyper-Converged different? A Traditional converged infrastructure is an information technology system that packages multiple components into a single optimized IT solution. It

typically brings together blade-system servers, enterprise storage arrays, storage area networks, IP networking, virtualization, and management software into a single product. VxBlock Systems are an example of traditional converged infrastructure.

Hyper-converged infrastructure is a software-defined architecture with integrated compute, software-defined storage, networking, and virtualization. It enables compute, storage, and networking functions to be decoupled from the underlying infrastructure and run on a common set of physical resources that are based on industry-standard x86 components.

Q: What is the opportunity for hyper-converged systems? A Hyper-converged systems are expected to be the fastest growing segment of CI, representing 24% of the overall market and having a CAGR of

68% by 2019.

Q: Why are customers interested in hyper-converged infrastructure? A Many customers feel it represents a new type of IT infrastructure based on smaller, commodity building-block servers that scale out. Hyper-

converged infrastructure uses local direct-attached storage (DAS) instead of shared storage, which provides a simpler, scalable foundation that leverages software-defined compute and software-defined storage. Other factors include a lower total cost of operation than alternative forms of infrastructure, as well as increased agility since customers can easily add storage and compute resources as needed to meet business demands.

SUPPORT Q: Who provides support for VxRail Appliances? A VxRail offers one-call support for customers, covering hardware and software. Customers who purchase the VxRail Appliance will be supported by

Dell EMC ProSupport.

Q: Will there be a VxRail Appliance Release Certification Matrix? A Dell EMC will not provide a VxRail Appliance Release Certification Matrix. The purpose of RCM is to streamline and de-risk upgrades, which is

significant for integrated systems (Vblock Systems) with separate components. With appliances, all components are certified together as part of the development process. Software updates include all the components of the appliance and are delivered by Dell EMC. This is a significant benefit of hyper-converged infrastructure – they can be applied automatically and non-disruptively. Customers will be instructed to refer to the EMC Simple Support Matrix on the Dell EMC Support portal via their services agreement (https://elabnavigator.emc.com/eln/elnhome).

Q: Will VxRail Appliance customers receive support via the Dell EMC Support portal? A Yes, all VxRail Appliance customers will be directed to the Dell EMC Support portal (https://support.emc.com/).

Q: If the product has both EMC and VMware technology, who is responsible for customer support? A The VMware components in the product are embedded through an OEM agreement and Dell EMC is responsible for support of all components. For

level three support for VMware components, Dell EMC will escalate to VMware but retain ownership of the support relationship.

Q: My customer would rather go directly to VMware for support on their components. Can they do this? A No, the customer is not entitled to support from VMware. They must contact Dell EMC for customer support.