Dell VxRail Architecture Overview

VMware vCenter Server requirements

For VxRail stretched clusters with VMware vSAN running with VxRail 7.x or 8.x, use either a VxRail-managed VMware vCenter Server or a customer-managed VMware vCenter Server (recommended).

For the customer-managed VMware vCenter Server, you must provide your own license. See the VxRail and Customer-managed VMware vCenter Server (External vCenter) Interoperability Matrix for the customer-managed VMware vCenter Server available at KB 157682.

Before joining the customer-managed VMware vCenter Server, verify that you have the customer-managed VMware vCenter Server FQDN and the existing customer SSO domain.

To join the customer-managed VMware vCenter Server, perform the following:

• Create or select a data center on the customer-managed VMware vCenter Server for the VxRail cluster to join.
• Specify the name of the cluster created by VxRail in the selected data center. The name of the cluster is part of the VMware VDS name. The name must be unique and not used anywhere in the data center on the customer-managed VMware vCenter Server.
• Verify that the customer DNS server can resolve all ESXi hostnames before deployment.
• Create or reuse a VxRail management user and password for the VxRail cluster on the customer-managed VMware vCenter Server. Create a user with:
  • No permissions.
  • No roles assigned to it.

(Optional) If the administrator account cannot be used, create a VxRail admin user and password for VxRail on the customer-managed VMware vCenter Server.