VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2

5.2 5.1 5.0 4.5
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Add a vSphere Cluster to a Workload Domain Using the SDDC Manager UI

If you want to add capacity to a workload domain, you can use the
SDDC Manager UI
 to add a vSphere cluster.
  • Verify that there are at least three hosts available in the
    SDDC Manager
     inventory. For information on commissioning hosts, see Commission Hosts.
    If the vSphere cluster is using NFS, VMFS on FC, or vVols as principal storage and is using vSphere Lifecycle Manager images as the update method, then only two hosts are required.
    Workload Management
     requires a vSphere cluster with a minimum of three ESXi hosts.
  • Ensure that the hosts you want to add to the vSphere cluster are in an active state.
  • If you choose
    License Now
    , you must have valid license keys for vSphere and vSAN (if applicable) available in the
    SDDC Manager
     inventory. For more information, see Add a Component License Key in the SDDC Manager UI.
  • If you are using DHCP for the NSX Host Overlay Network, a DHCP server must be configured on the NSX Host Overlay VLAN of the management domain. When NSX creates TEPs for the VI workload domain, they are assigned IP addresses from the DHCP server.
VMware Cloud Foundation
 5.2.1 supports both vSphere Lifecycle Manager baseline and vSphere Lifecycle Manager image based clusters in the same workload domain. You can add a cluster that uses either vSphere Lifecycle Manager update method. For
VMware Cloud Foundation
 5.2, the vSphere Lifecycle Manager update method is specified at the workload domain level. When you add a new cluster to a workload domain, it uses the same update method as the other clusters in that workload domain.
If a workload domain has multiple clusters, each cluster can use a different type of principal storage, as long as all hosts within a vSphere cluster use the same type.
You can run multiple add cluster tasks at the same time.
To add a cluster that contains ESXi hosts with two data processing units (DPU), you must configure a custom vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) with the following settings: :
  • A single VDS that uses all four DPU-backed nics
  • Uplinks (uplink1 through uplink4) are mapped to the DPU-backed nics
  • The NSX network operational mode is set to
    Enhanced Datapath - Standard
  • In the NSX uplink profile, uplink-1 and uplink-2 are Active and uplink-3 and uplink-4 are Standby
  1. In the navigation pane, click
    Inventory
    Workload Domains
    .
  2. Click the vertical ellipsis (three dots) next to the workload domain to which you want to add a vSphere cluster and click
    Add Cluster
    .
  3. Select the storage type for the vSphere cluster and click
    Begin
    .
    For
    VMware Cloud Foundation
     5.2, you can only activate vSAN ESA if the workload domain to which you are adding the cluster uses vSphere Lifecycle Manager images.
    vSAN Max requires vSAN ESA.
  4. Enter a name for the vSphere cluster.
  5. For
    VMware Cloud Foundation
     5.2.1, select
    Manage this cluster using vLCM images
     to use vSphere Lifecycle Manager images as the update method.
    If you do not select
    Manage this cluster using vLCM images
    , then the cluster uses vLCM baselines.
    • You must use vSphere Lifecycle Manager images for vSAN ESA and vSAN Max clusters.
    • You must use vSphere Lifecycle Manager images in order to create vSphere clusters with only two hosts and those clusters must use NFS, VMFS on FC, or vVols as principal storage.
    • Network offloading using SmartNICs (DPU-backed hosts) is not supported with vSphere Lifecycle Manager baselines.
  6. Select a cluster image from the drop-down menu.
    The option is only available for clusters that use vSphere Lifecycle Manager images.
    If the cluster image contains a different version of a vendor add-on or component than what is installed on the ESXi hosts you add to the cluster, the hosts will be remediated to use the cluster image during cluster creation.
  7. Click
    Next
    .
  8. If you selected vSAN storage for the vSphere cluster, the vSAN parameters page appears. The vSAN storage options are different for vSAN OSA and vSAN ESA.
    1. For vSAN OSA, select the vSAN Storage Type:
      vSAN HCI
      Provides storage and compute resources.
      Specify the level of availability you want configured for this cluster. The specified Failures To Tolerate (FTT) value determines the number of hosts required in the cluster.
      Select the check box to enable vSAN deduplication and compression.
      Click
      Next
      .
      vSAN Compute Cluster
      Provides compute resources only.
      Click
      Next
       and choose the remote datastore to provide storage to the new cluster.
    2. For vSAN ESA, select the vSAN Storage Type:
      vSAN HCI
      Provides storage and compute resources.
      SDDC Manager
       selects the following settings, which cannot be edited:
      • Storage Type
        : Local vSAN datastore.
      • Storage Policy
        : Auto-policy management.
        Based on the type of cluster and number of hosts, vSAN creates and assigns a default datastore policy for best capacity utilization after the cluster configuration is completed. Policy details can be viewed in the
        vSphere Client
         (
        Policies and Profiles
        VM Storage Policies
        ).
      Click
      Next
      .
      vSAN Max
      Provides storage resources only.
      You can mount a vSAN Max datastore on other vSAN ESA or vSAN computer clusters.
      SDDC Manager
       selects the following settings, which cannot be edited:
      • Storage Type
        : Local vSAN datastore.
      • Storage Policy
        : Auto-policy management.
        Based on the type of cluster and number of hosts, vSAN creates and assigns a default datastore policy for best capacity utilization after the cluster configuration is completed. Policy details can be viewed in the
        vSphere Client
         (
        Policies and Profiles
        VM Storage Policies
        ).
      Click
      Next
      .
  9. If you selected NFS storage for the vSphere cluster, the NFS Storage page appears.
    1. Enter a name for the NFS datastore.
    2. Enter the path to the NFS share.
    3. Enter the IP address of the NFS server.
    4. Click
      Next
      .
  10. If you selected VMFS on FC storage for the vSphere cluster, enter the name of the VMFS on FC datastore and click
    Next
    .
  11. If you selected vVols storage for the vSphere cluster, the vVols storage page appears.
    1. Select a VASA protocol type.
      vVols supports FC, NFS, and iSCSI storage protocol types.
    2. Select a VASA provider name.
    3. Select a storage container.
    4. Select a VASA user.
    5. Enter a datastore name.
    6. Click
      Next
      .
  12. On the Host Selection page, select hosts for the vSphere cluster.
    You can use the toggle button to turn
    Skip failed hosts during cluster creation
     off or on. When this option is off, cluster creation will fail if you select an unhealthy host. When this option is on, cluster creation will succeed if you selected enough healthy hosts to meet the minimum requirements for a new cluster.
    To view DPU-backed hosts, activate the
    Network Offloading
     toggle. Do not activate the toggle if you want to select hosts that are not DPU-backed.
    The toggle is only available if the workload domains uses vLCM images and there are unassigned DPU-backed hosts available.
    If you are using DPU-backed hosts, select the
    DPU Vendor
    .
    All hosts in a cluster must use DPUs from the same vendor.
    When you use the SDDC Manager UI to add a cluster, all hosts must be associated with the same network pool. The VMware Cloud Foundation API supports adding hosts from different network pools to workload domain clusters, as long as those network pools have the same VLAN ID and MTU settings.
    The hosts must be commissioned with the same storage type that you selected for the cluster. For example, select hosts commissioned for vSAN Max storage for a vSAN Max cluster.
    When you have selected the minimum number of hosts required for this cluster, the
    Next
     button is enabled.
  13. Click
    Next
    .
  14. On the Switch Configuration page, select either a preconfigured switch profile to apply to the cluster or select the option to create a custom switch configuration.
    1. When creating a custom switch configuration, specify the Distributed Switch Name, MTU, number of VDS uplinks, and uplink mapping.
    2. Click
      Configure Network Traffic
       and select the network traffic type to configure.
      You must configure all required network traffic types.
      Network Traffic Type
      Configuration
      Management, vMotion, vSAN, Public
      Enter the Distributed PortGroup Name, select the Load Balancing policy, and configure the uplinks. Click
      Save Configuration
      .
      NSX
      Select the Operational Mode (Standard, Enhanced Datapath - Standard, Enhanced Datapath - Performance) and Transport Zone Type(s) (NSX-Overlay, NSX-VLAN).
      For a VI workload domain with DPU-backed hosts, you must select
      Enhanced Datapath - Standard
      .
      For NSX-Overlay:
      • Enter the NSX-Overlay Transport Zone Name.
      • Enter the VLAN ID and select the IP Allocation (DHCP or Static IP Pool).
      For NSX-VLAN:
      • Enter the NSX-VLAN Transport Zone Name.
      Configure the:
      • NSX transport node settings
      • Uplink mapping settings
      • NSX uplink profile settings
      Click
      Save Configuration
      .
    3. Click
      Create Distributed Switch
      .
      You cannot proceed until all mandatory traffic types are configured.
    4. Click
      Next
      .
  15. On the Licenses page, choose a licensing option.
    Option
    Description
    License Now
    Select the vSphere and vSAN (if applicable) license to apply to this cluster.
    License Later
    vSphere and vSAN (if applicable) components are deployed in evaluation mode.
    After the cluster is created, you must switch to licensed mode by:
  16. Click
    Next
    .
  17. On the Review page, review the vSphere cluster details and click
    Finish
    .
    Multiple VMkernels are created to test the vMotion network, which may cause changes in the MAC addresses and IP address relations. If MAC address filtering is enabled on your physical infrastructure, this may cause issues such as vMotion network connectivity validation failure.
    The details page for the workload domain appears with the following message:
    Adding a new cluster is in progress.
     When this process completes, the vSphere cluster appears in the Clusters tab in the details page for the workload domain.
    If
    Skip failed hosts during cluster creation
     is on and one or more of your selected hosts is unhealthy, the cluster creation task still succeeds as long as you have at least the minimum number of healthy hosts. The Tasks panel reports that a host was skipped and includes a link with more details.
    If, after skipping failed hosts, there are not enough heallthy hosts to create a cluster, the task fails.
To add another cluster in parallel, click
Add Cluster
 again and repeat the above steps.

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