Determining the Network Topology for HyperScale X Appliance Setup

Determining the network topology is a crucial first step that can affect nearly every part of the HyperScale X Appliance deployment in your environment.

HyperScale software leverages several technologies that are critically dependent on a fast and stable network connection. Due to that, there are guidelines on how the network should be configured to ensure that the appliance is stable and meets the performance expectations.

Important

Several pre-defined topologies have been validated and built into the HyperScale software. These validated topologies are explained below.

If the network topology in your environment is not listed here, or if you are not sure of the topology that is required for your environment, contact your Commvault representative for assistance.

Cisco Fabric Extenders (FEX for short) are not conducive to storage based solutions, and therefore it is not recommended to connect any HSX nodes to a Cisco FEX. If they are connected to a FEX, stability and performance issues can arise.

Answering the following questions will help to determine a recommended topology:

Do you require network redundancy?
Do you have a dedicated non-routable backup network?
Do you require the appliance to be connected to multiple vLANs?

Use the following selection guide to determine the topology required for your environment:

Require Network Redundancy	Have dedicated non-routable backup network	Require multiple VLANs connected to the appliance	Recommended Topology
No	No	No	Basic topology
No	Yes	No	Basic topology with management network

Yes	No	No	Bonded topology
Yes	Yes	No	Bonded topology with management network

No	No	Yes	VLAN topology
No	Yes	Yes	VLAN topology with management network

Yes	No	Yes	Bonded VLAN topology
Yes	Yes	Yes	Bonded VLAN topology with management network

Considerations

For proper operations, the HyperScale X Appliance nodes require connectivity to the following networks:

Data protection network, which transfers data to and from the clients being protected and connect to the CommServe server. This will require a minimum of at least one dedicated 10 GbE network connection.
Storage pool network, which is a dedicated private network, used for communication and replication between the HyperScale nodes. This will require a minimum of at least one dedicated 10 GbE network connection.
Optional Management network which is used only when the data protection interfaces are non-routable, and an alternative interface must be used for management.

Consider the following while determining your network topology:

All HyperScale X Appliance nodes in a single storage pool, must reside in the same location. Spanning multiple locations over a WAN is not supported.
All nodes must share the same network configuration.
HyperScale X Appliance nodes within a single pool are not required to be connected to the same switch. However, steps should be taken to minimize latency and ensure sufficient bandwidth is available for uplinks. Additional latency or bandwidth restriction can result in reduced performance, and in extreme cases, instability.

Consider the following when planning for large-scale deployments:

When sizing inter-switch links, assume that each HyperScale X Appliance node will require a minimum of 20 GBPS bandwidth.
Multiple racks/rows/availability zones are supported if all the nodes reside within the same IP subnets for the networking needed to install the nodes. Inter-node traffic for HyperScale X Appliance nodes traversing a Layer-3 router or firewall is not supported.