The VCF Management WLD cluster requires a minimum of four hosts on which the infrastructure components used to instantiate and manage the private cloud infrastructure run. For VCF on VxRail, the Management WLD cannot be used to host business workloads. This Management WLD is created during initial system install (or bring-up) using the VCF Cloud Builder tool.

In the Management WLD cluster, vSphere runs with a dedicated vCenter server and a pair of PSCs in the same SSO domain. This cluster, backed by vSAN storage, hosts the SDDC Manager and VxRail Manager VMs, NSX-V, and vRealize Log Insight for Management domain logging. Other components such as vRealize Operations and vRealize Automation are optional. If a Horizon WLD is deployed, the management components will also be deployed in the Mgmt WLD. Because the management cluster contains critical infrastructure, consider implementing a basic level of hardware redundancy for this cluster. The management cluster must have a minimum of four hosts to provide vSAN FTT=1 during maintenance operations.

While the deployment and configuration of the management cluster is fully automated, once it is running, you manage it just like you would any other VxRail cluster using the vSphere HTML5 client.

Figure 2.              Management Domain Components

vCenter design

The management domain vCenter is deployed with an external PSC by using the embedded VxRail cluster deployment process. This vCenter and PSC is then configured as an external vCenter and PSC from the vCenter UI.This conversion is performed for two reasons:

• It establishes a common identity management system that can be linked between vCenters.
• It allows the SDDC Manager LCM process to life cycle all vCenter and PSC components in the solution.

The SDDC Manager deploys the second PSC during the VCF Cloud Builder bring-up process. A replication is established with the first PSC that was deployed when the VxRail cluster was first deployed.

Figure 3.              vCenter Design