Use Cases

• Determination of use cases planned for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
• Determination of application availability requirements for VCF on VxRail integrated platform

Workload Planning

• Captured performance metrics from applications targeted for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
• Completed sizing exercise with Dell Technologies VCF on VxRail sizing tool
• Converted sizing report into top-level architecture for VCF on VxRail integrated platform

Data Center Requirements

Rack Space

• Calculated data center rack space and power requirements for VCF on VxRail integrated platform
• Enable redundant power sources for each data center rack.

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, if applicable, 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
• If planning to use FC storage to support VI workload, Fibre Channel infrastructure compatible with VxRail

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. This is not required if using static IP addresses for the host overlay networks.
• 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)
• Syslog server (optional)

WAN

• Minimum 10 Mb bandwidth between the central management site and any planned remote workload sites
• Maximum 50-millisecond latency between the central management site and any planned remote workload sites
• WAN redundancy enabled between the central management site and any planned remote workload sites
• Geneve-compatible network between VCF on VxRail management domain instances across regions if NSX-T Federation is planned.

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

Credentials

• Login credentials for Dell-Technologies support site
• Login credentials for VMware support site

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. (This VLAN reservation can be bypassed if opting for manual node discovery.)
• One VLAN with IPv4 unicast for vSAN traffic, unless planning for FC storage
• One VLAN for vSphere vMotion
• One VLAN for NSX-T Host Overlay network
• One VLAN for the first NSX-T edge uplink (for NSX-T edge services)
• One VLAN for the second NSX-T edge uplink (for NSX-T edge services)
• One VLAN for the NSX-T edge overlay network (for NSX-T edge services)
• One VLAN for IDRAC management of the VxRail nodes

• Determine default gateway and subnet mask.
• Reserve four or more 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 four or more 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 four or more IP addresses and a subnet mask for vSAN, unless using external storage for VI workload.
• 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 (for NSX-T edge services).
• Reserve IP addresses for the second NSX-T edge uplink (for NSX-T edge services).
• Reserve IP addresses for the NSX-T edge overlay network (for NSX-T edge services).
• Reserve IP addresses for the NSX-T host overlay network (unless using DHCP).
• If witness is required for stretched cluster, reserve one IP address for the management network and one IP address for the vSAN network.
• If NSX-T Federation is a requirement, reserve IP addresses for the remote TEPs on the edge gateways in each region.

Reserve Hostnames

• Determine parent and child DNS domains.
• Decide on your VxRail host naming scheme. The naming scheme is 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.

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.

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.

Prepare DHCP

• Configure IP address scope for NSX-T host overlay network (unless using static IP addresses).

Prepare Active Directory

• If a use case for Cloud Foundation on VxRail include vRealize Suite to support a future VI workload domain, Active Directory must be deployed in the data center to support this requirement.

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 (for NSX-T edge services).
• 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, unless manually assigning VxRail management IP addresses.
• Configure MLD snooping and MLD querier on the VxRail internal management network, unless manually assigning VxRail management IP addresses.
• 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.

Prepare Routing Services

• Configure Border Gateway Protocol at the Layer 2/3 network boundary.
• Configure BGP peering with NSX-T Tier-0 Gateway (for NSX-T edge services)

External Storage (if applicable)

• Configure LUN or LUNs on FC storage array
• Perform zoning and masking to present LUNs to VxRail nodes