Reference Guide

Solution overview
This chapter presents the following topics:
Topics:
• Introduction
• Solution integration and network architecture
Introduction
Dell EMC Solutions for Azure Stack HCI offers stretched cluster solutions with AX nodes from Dell Technologies. Built using
industry-leading PowerEdge servers, AX nodes offer fully validated HCI nodes for a variety of use cases. A robust set of
configurations and different models allows you to customize your infrastructure for application performance, capacity, or
deployment location requirements.
Stretched clusters and Storage Replica
An Azure Stack HCI stretched cluster solution is a disaster recovery solution that provides an automatic failover capability
to restore production quickly, with little or no manual intervention. Storage Replica, a Windows Server technology, enables
replication of volumes between servers across sites for disaster recovery. For more information, see Storage Replica overview.
A stretched cluster with Azure Stack HCI consists of servers residing at two different locations or sites, with each site having
two or more servers, replicating volumes either in synchronous or asynchronous mode. For more information, see Stretched
clusters overview.
A stretched cluster can be set up as either Active-Active or Active-Passive. In an Active-Active setup, both sites will actively
run VMs or applications; therefore the replication is bidirectional. In an Active-Passive setup, one site is always dormant unless
there is a failure or planned downtime.
Sites can be on the same campus or in different places. Stretched clusters using two sites provides disaster recovery if a site
experiences an outage or failure.
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