Server Plus Case Study: Seven-Node HPE DL380 Gen10 HA Cluster with More Than 5TB of Memory

The customer needed to run many virtual machines, enterprise applications, and high-load workloads. Increasing the specification of one server was not the actual objective. The environment needed enough reserve capacity to keep critical services running when one device required maintenance or suffered a hardware failure.

Server Plus therefore allocated the budget across compute nodes, the core network, and the security perimeter. Tested refurbished enterprise equipment was used to establish redundancy from Server HA and Network HA through Firewall HA.

The compute layer consists of seven HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 servers. Each node is configured with two Intel Xeon Gold 6248 processors, 768GB of memory, and eight 1.92TB Enterprise SSDs, providing memory-dense compute and enterprise flash storage.

The cluster contains 5,376GB of memory in total, exceeding 5TB. Actual usable compute and storage capacity still depends on the hypervisor, reserved cluster capacity, RAID, data-protection policy, and workload allocation; raw hardware totals should not be treated as usable capacity.

Seven nodes share the workloads so that the remaining nodes can take over virtual machines and applications when one server has a hardware failure or enters scheduled maintenance. The actual fault tolerance depends on reserved cluster resources, failover policy, storage architecture, and application design. Before production, the six remaining nodes must be verified to have enough capacity for critical workloads.

High availability is not complete simply because more servers are installed. Node consistency, firmware, drivers, network adapters, storage paths, time synchronization, management networking, and failover testing all determine whether the cluster can take over correctly during an incident.

The core network uses Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180YC switches with vPC for switch and link redundancy. Servers can connect to both Nexus switches through a Port Channel, reducing the risk that one switch, one uplink, or a maintenance operation interrupts network access.

vPC improves Layer 2 link availability, but peer-link, peer-keepalive, VLAN consistency, LACP, STP boundaries, upstream routing, and failure domains still require correct design. Switch restart, link failure, and single-side maintenance scenarios must be tested after configuration.

External services and inter-zone traffic are protected by a Fortinet FortiGate FG-200G HA pair. The dual-appliance design prevents one firewall from becoming a single point of failure while providing policy enforcement, network segmentation, and perimeter security controls.

Firewall HA also requires validation of session synchronization, interface monitoring, HA heartbeat, routing, switch connectivity, and upstream circuits. A successful appliance failover does not guarantee that every application is unaffected; important services must be tested with real traffic to measure failover time and connection impact.

The value of refurbished equipment is not limited to a lower unit price. The same budget can fund more compute nodes, reserve capacity, core switches, firewalls, network adapters, optics, and maintenance resources. For an organization that needs HA, architectural completeness is often more important than the peak performance of one latest-generation server.

Refurbished deployment still needs clear testing and delivery standards. Server Plus verifies physical condition, hardware health, firmware, memory, storage, interfaces, power supplies, compatibility, and burn-in results, then explains warranty and delivery terms for the actual items supplied.

Server Plus supplies more than servers and components. We help customers confirm that the selected equipment can form a complete, deployable system. Capacity planning, model selection, network and firewall design, installation, testing, cutover, and maintenance should all be based on real workloads and failure scenarios.