Note: If you plan to use the VxRail vCenter server, you can skip this section. These action items are only applicable if you plan to use a customer-supplied vCenter server in your data center for VxRail.

Certain prerequisites must be completed before VxRail initial implementation if you use a customer-supplied vCenter as the VxRail cluster management platform. During the VxRail initialization process, it connects to your customer-supplied vCenter to perform necessary validation steps. Then it performs configuration steps to deploy the VxRail cluster on your vCenter instance.

• Determine if your customer-supplied vCenter server is compatible with your VxRail version. 

• See the Knowledge Base article, VxRail: VxRail and External vCenter Interoperability Matrix, on the Dell VxRail Support site, for the latest support matrix.

• Enter the FQDN of your selected, compatible customer-supplied vCenter server in Appendix A: VxRail Network Configuration Table.

  Network configuration table row 38

  Enter the FQDN of the customer-supplied vCenter Server.

• Determine whether your customer-supplied vCenter server has an embedded or external platform services controller. If the platform services controller is external to your customer-supplied vCenter, enter the platform services controller FQDN in Appendix A: VxRail Network Configuration Table.

  Network configuration table row 37

  Enter the FQDN of the customer-supplied platform services controller (PSC). Leave this row blank if the PSC is embedded in the customer-supplied vCenter server.

• Decide on the single sign-on (SSO) domain that is configured on the customer-supplied vCenter that you want to use to enable connectivity for VxRail. Then, enter the domain in Appendix A: VxRail Network Configuration Table.

  Network configuration table row 39

  Enter the single sign-on (SSO) domain for the customer-supplied vCenter server. An example is vsphere.local.

• The VxRail initialization process requires login credentials to your customer-supplied vCenter. The credentials must have the privileges to perform the necessary configuration work for VxRail. You have two choices:

• Provide vCenter login credentials with administrator privileges.
• Create a new set of credentials in your vCenter for this purpose. Two new roles are created and assigned to this user by your Dell Technologies delivery services.

• A set of credentials must be created in the customer-supplied vCenter for VxRail management with no permissions and no assigned roles. These credentials are assigned a role with limited privileges during the VxRail initialization process. Then they are assigned to VxRail to enable connectivity to the customer-supplied vCenter after initialization completes.

• If this cluster is the first VxRail cluster on the customer-supplied vCenter, enter the credentials that you create in the customer-supplied vCenter.
• If you already have an account for a previous VxRail cluster in the customer-supplied vCenter, enter those credentials.

• The VxRail initialization process deploys the VxRail cluster under an existing data center in the customer-supplied vCenter. Create a new data center or select an existing Data center on the customer-supplied vCenter.

• Specify the name of the cluster that the VxRail initialization process creates in the selected data center. This name must be unique, and not used anywhere in the data center on the customer-supplied vCenter