The VI WLD can consist of one or more VxRail clusters. The VxRail cluster is the building block for the VI WLD. The clusters in the VI WLD can start with three hosts but 4 hosts is recommended to maintain FTT=1 during maintenance operations. This can be selected when adding the first cluster to the WLD. The vCenter and the NSX-T Managers for each VI WLD are deployed into the Mgmt WLD.

When the first cluster is added to the first VI WLD, the NSX-T Managers (3 in a cluster) are deployed to the Mgmt WLD. Subsequent NSX-T based VI WLDs can either use the existing NSX-T and existing NSX-T Managers, or a new NSX-T instance with three new NSX-T Managers can be deployed.

Typically, the first cluster can be considered a compute-and-edge cluster as it contains both NSX and compute components. NSX Edge nodes can be deployed to this first cluster. The second and subsequent clusters in a VI WLD can be considered compute-only clusters as they do not need to host any NSX Edge nodes.

You can dedicate a cluster just for the Edge node components if either dedicated compute or bandwidth is required for the Edge node cluster.

Figure 4.              VI WLD Component Layout with NSX-T everywhere

The VI WLD vCenter is deployed by the SDDC Manager when creating a VI WLD. It is deployed in the Mgmt WLD as shown in Figure 4. During deployment, it is added to the existing SSO domain, allowing a single pane of glass to manage both the management and VI WLD vCenters.