---
name: vmwaresolutions-vrw-orderinginstance-witness
title: Witness cluster for Regulated Workloads multizone
description: As of 17 July 2025, new automated installations of Red Hat® OpenShift® for VMware® are no longer available for new or existing deployments of VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Automated instances. You can still use or delete your existing Red Hat OpenShift for VMware automated installations until 16 July 2026. The service will no longer be available from 17 July 2026.
last-updated: 2025-10-24
---

> ## Documentation Index
> The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vmwaresolutions?format=markdown
> The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use these files to discover more information as needed.

# Witness cluster for Regulated Workloads multizone
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-cluster}

As of 17 July 2025, new automated installations of Red Hat® OpenShift® for VMware® are no longer available for new or existing deployments of VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic - Automated instances. You can still use or delete your existing Red Hat OpenShift for VMware automated installations until 16 July 2026. The service will no longer be available from 17 July 2026.
{: deprecated}

New deployments of Regulated Workloads multizone instances are not supported. For existing multizone instances, you can still add and delete clusters, add and delete ESXi servers or NFS storage, and delete add-on services.
{: deprecated}

## Cluster name
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-cluster-name}

The witness cluster name is set to **mcv-_xx_-witness** by default, where _xx_ represents two randomly generated alphabetic characters. You can also specify a new witness cluster name, which must meet the following requirements.

## Witness cluster name requirements
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-cluster-req}

* Only lowercase alphabetic, numeric, and hyphen (-) characters are allowed.
* The witness cluster name must start with a lowercase alphabetic character.
* The witness cluster name must end with a lowercase alphabetic or numeric character.
* The maximum length of the witness cluster name is 10 characters.
* The witness cluster name must be unique within the regulated workload instance.

## CPU model and RAM
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-cluster-compute}

You can choose the following CPU models and a supported RAM size:

| CPU model | Cores     | GHz     | RAM |
|:--------- |:----------|:--------|:--- |
| Dual Intel® Xeon® Silver 4210 (Cascade Lake) | 20 | 2.2 | 128 GB, 192 GB, 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB |
| Dual Intel Xeon Gold 5218 (Cascade Lake) | 32 | 2.3 | 128 GB, 192 GB, 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB |
| Dual Intel Xeon Gold 6248 (Cascade Lake) | 40 | 2.5 | 128 GB, 192 GB, 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB |
| Dual Intel Xeon Platinum 8260 (Cascade Lake) | 48 | 2.4 | 128 GB, 192 GB, 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB |
| Quad Intel Xeon Gold 6248 (Cascade Lake) | 80 | 2.5 | 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB, 3 TB |
| Quad Intel Xeon Platinum 8260 (Cascade Lake) | 96 | 2.4 | 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB, 3 TB |
{: caption="Options for Cascade Lake bare metal servers" caption-side="bottom"}

## Number of bare metal servers
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-cluster-bare-metal}

You can order 3 - 30 servers. All servers have the same configuration.

## vSAN configuration
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-cluster-vsan}

Specify the following settings for the vSAN™ configuration.

### Size for vSAN capacity disks
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-cluster-vsan-disktype}

Select an option for the capacity disks that you need.

### Number of vSAN capacity disks
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-cluster-vsan-diskcount}

Specify the number of capacity disks that you want to add.

## Estimated resources available per cluster
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-cluster-est}

Review the estimated resources available per cluster.

## Networking
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-cluster-net}

Specify the networking type and uplink speed.

### Networking type
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-cluster-net-type}

The networking type is set to **Private network only**.

### Uplink speed
{: #vrw-orderinginstance-witness-uplink}

| Data center | Pod |
| :----------- | :--- |
| SYD04 | 01 |
| SYD05 | 01 |
| TOK02 | 02 |
| TOK04 | 01 |
| TOK05 | 01 |
{: caption="Available locations for 25 Gb uplink speed - Asia Pacific" caption-side="bottom"}
{: tab-title="Asia Pacific"}
{: tab-group="Data centers"}
{: class="simple-tab-table"}

| Data center | Pod |
| :----------- | :--- |
| AMS03 | 01-02 |
| FRA02 | 02 |
| FRA04 | 01 |
| FRA05 | 01 |
| LON04 | 01 |
| LON06 | 01 |
| MAD02 | 01 |
| MAD04 | 01 |
| MAD05 | 01 |
| PAR04 | 01 |
| PAR05 | 01 |
| PAR06 | 01 |
{: caption="Available locations for 25 Gb uplink speed - Europe" caption-side="bottom"}
{: tab-title="Europe"}
{: tab-group="Data centers"}
{: class="simple-tab-table"}

| Data center | Pod |
| :----------- | :--- |
| TOR04 | 01 |
| TOR05 | 01 |
| WDC04 | 05 |
| WDC06 | 01 |
| WDC07 | 01 |
{: caption="Available locations for 25 Gb uplink speed - NA East" caption-side="bottom"}
{: tab-title="NA East"}
{: tab-group="Data centers"}
{: class="simple-tab-table"}

| Data center | Pod |
| :----------- | :--- |
| DAL10 | 03 |
| DAL13 | 02 |
| DAL14 | 01 |
{: caption="Available locations for 25 Gb uplink speed - NA South" caption-side="bottom"}
{: tab-title="NA South"}
{: tab-group="Data centers"}
{: class="simple-tab-table"}

CONTENT:

You must manage the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions components that are created in your IBM Cloud account only in the VMware Solutions console, not the IBM Cloud infrastructure customer portal, or any other means outside of the console. If you change these components outside of the VMware Solutions console, the changes are not synchronized with the console.
{: important}