Use Cases |
- Determination of use cases planned for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
- Determination of application availability requirements for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
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Workload Planning |
- Captured performance metrics from applications targeted for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
- Completed sizing exercise with Dell-EMC VCF on VxRail sizing tool
- Converted sizing report into top-level architecture for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
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Data Center Requirements |
Rack Space |
- Calculated data center rack space and power requirements for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
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Data Center Infrastructure |
- Ethernet switch ports compatible with VxRail node ports
- Sufficient open ports for VxRail nodes
- Jumbo frames enabled on data center network
- Ethernet switches supporting VCF on VxRail integrated platform support Unicast and Multicast
- Ethernet switches supporting VCF on VxRail integrated platform support Border Gateway Protocol
- Ethernet switches supporting VCF on VxRail integrated platform support hardware-based VTEP
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Data Center Services |
- Domain Name Services (DNS) deployed in data center planned for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
- Network Time Protocol (NTP) services deployed in data center planned for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
- Active Directory (A-D) configured in data center planned for VCF on VxRail integrated platform (required for certain use cases)
- Dynamic Host Configuration protocol (DHCP) services configured in data center planned for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
- SFTP server for backups for NSX-T and SDDC Manager instances configured in data center planned for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
- Certificate generation utility (required for certain use cases)
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Licensing |
Licenses |
- vCenter Server Standard
- ESXi Enterprise Plus (Management and VI Workload Domains)
- ESXi Enterprise Plus for Kubernetes (VI Workload Domains for Kubernetes)
- vSAN Advanced or higher
- NSX-T Data Center
- vRealize Suite (minimum 2019)
- SDDC Manager
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Credentials |
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- Login credentials for Dell-Technologies support site
- Login credentials for VMware support site
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VCF on VxRail Configuration Settings |
Reserve VLANs |
- One external management VLAN for VxRail Manager, vCenter Server, ESXi, SDDC Manager and other components deployed in management workload domain requiring external access
- One internal management VLAN with IPV6 multicast for VxRail node auto-discovery and device management. The default is 3939.
- One VLAN with IPv4 unicast for vSAN traffic
- One VLAN for vSphere vMotion
- One VLAN for NSX-T Host Overlay network
- One VLAN for the first NSX-T Edge Uplink (if AVN is a requirement)
- One VLAN for the second NSX-T Edge Uplink (if AVN is a requirement)
- One VLAN for the NSX-T Edge Overlay network (if AVN is a requirement)
- One VLAN for IDRAC management of the VxRail nodes
- If you are enabling witness traffic separation, reserve one VLAN for the VxRail witness traffic separation network.
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Reserve IP Addresses |
- Determine default gateway and subnet mask.
- Reserve four or more contiguous IP addresses for VxRail nodes for each VxRail cluster
- Reserve one IP address for vCenter Server
- Reserve one IP address for VxRail Manager.
- Decide whether you want to use the default TCP-IP stack for vMotion, or a separate IP addressing scheme for the dedicated vMotion TCP-IP stack.
- Reserve three or more contiguous IP addresses and a subnet mask for vSphere vMotion.
- Select the gateway for either the default TCP-IP stack, or the dedicated vMotion TCP-IP stack.
- Reserve three or more contiguous IP addresses and a subnet mask for vSAN
- Reserve IP address for SDDC Manager
- Reserve IP addresses for NSX-T Management VIP and appliance nodes
- Reserve IP addresses for the first NSX-T Edge Uplink (if AVN is a requirement)
- Reserve IP addresses for the second NSX-T Edge Uplink (if AVN is a requirement)
- Reserve IP addresses for the NSX-T Edge Overlay network (if AVN is a requirement)
- If witness is required for stretched cluster, reserve one IP address for the management network and one IP address for the vSAN network
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Reserve Hostnames |
- Determine parent and child DNS domains
- Decide on your VxRail host naming scheme. The naming scheme will be applied to all VxRail hosts.
- Reserve hostname for vCenter Server
- Reserve hostname for VxRail Manager
- Reserve hostname for SDDC Manger
- Reserve hostnames for NSX-T Management VIP and appliance nodes
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Passwords |
- Determine password structure following VMware password policy
- Select passwords for VxRail management components
- Select passwords for NSX-T Data Center
- Select passwords for SDDC Manager
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Prepare Data Center Services |
Prepare DNS |
- Configure forward and reverse DNS records for VxRail Manager
- Configure forward and reverse DNS records for vCenter Server
- Configure forward and reverse DNS records for all VxRail nodes
- Configure forward and reverse DNS records for SDDC Manager
- Configure forward and reverse DNS records for NSX-T Management Cluster
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Prepare DHCP |
- Configure IP address scope for NSX-T host overlay network
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Prepare Active Directory |
- If a use case for Cloud Foundation on VxRail include vRealize products to support a future VI workload domain, Active Directory needs to be deployed in the data center to support this requirement.
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Prepare Leaf Switches |
- Configure at least 1600 MTU (9000 preferred)
- Configure the required VLANs on the top-of-rack switches
- Configure Layer 3 settings on VxRail external management network VLAN
- Configure Layer 3 settings on NSX-T host overlay network
- Configure Layer 3 settings on NSX-T edge overlay network (if AVN is a requirement)
- Configure the switch ports to be directly connected to the VxRail nodes as Layer 2 trunk ports
- Configure unicast on the vSAN network
- Configure multicast on the VxRail internal management network
- Configure MLD snooping and MLD querier on the VxRail internal management network
- Configure Spanning Tree on the switch ports supporting VxRail nodes as edge ports, or in ‘portfast’ mode
- Configure inter-switch links on switches below the Layer 2/3 boundary
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Prepare Routing Services |
- Configure Border Gateway Protocol at the Layer 2/3 network boundary
- Configure BGP peering with NSX-T Tier-0 Gateway (if AVN is a requirement)
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