In this option, the three fault domains are at the same location; the VCenter Server, vSAN witness appliance, and the VxRail nodes. An additional ESXi host is required to host the vSAN witness appliance and customer-managed VCenter Server. The vSAN witness appliance and customer-managed VCenter cannot be hosted in the VxRail vSAN 2-node cluster.
Figure 9. Localized VCenter and witness appliance
The following table summarizes the benefits and drawbacks of each of the deployment options:
Table 3. Deployment options considerations
Option | Pros | Cons |
1—Centralized management and witness |
| Network costs for VCenter and witness communications |
2—Centralized management, localized witness | A single UI for the management of multiple 2-node clusters |
|
3—Localized management and witness | Reduced network cost associated with normal operations and witness contingency |
|