Infrastructure management design

vCenter Server database

The vCenter Server configuration uses a local, embedded PostgreSQL database that is included with the appliance. The embedded database is used to remove any dependencies on external databases and licensing.

vCenter Server cluster specification

With this design, you can cluster the vSphere ESXi® hosts that are provisioned through the solution. However, before clusters can be created a data center object is created that signifies the location of the vSphere ESXi hosts and the pod within the data center. A cluster is created after the data center object is created. The cluster is deployed with VMware vSphere High Availability (HA) and VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) enabled.

vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler

This design uses vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS) in the initial cluster to place VMs and uses DRS in additional clusters to dynamically migrate VMs to achieve balanced clusters. The automation level is set to fully automated so that initial placement and migration recommendations are run automatically by vSphere. Additionally, the migration threshold is set to moderate so that vCenter applies priority 1, 2, 3 recommendations to achieve at least a decent improvement in the load balance of the cluster.

Power management through the Distributed Power Management feature is not used in this design.

vSphere High Availability

This design uses vSphere High Availability (HA) in the initial cluster and in the additional clusters to detect compute failures and recover VMs that run in a cluster. The vSphere HA feature in this design is configured with both the Host Monitoring and Admission Control options that are enabled in the cluster. Additionally, the initial cluster reserves one node’s resources as spare capacity for the admission control policy.

You are responsible to adjust the admission control policy when the cluster is later expanded or contracted.

By default, the VM restart priority option is set to medium and the Host isolation response option is disabled. Additionally, VM monitoring is disabled and the Datastore Heartbeating feature is configured to include any of the cluster data stores. This approach uses the NAS data stores if they are present.

Enhanced vMotion compatibility

To simplify vMotion compatibility across cluster nodes with potentially differing CPU capabilities, Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) mode is enabled at the highest available level that is supported by the vSphere version. This setting ensures vMotion compatibility across cluster nodes when newer processors arrive within IBM Cloud® inventory. The setting allows for cluster expansion in the future if the original processor is no longer in inventory. An exception to this rule is that EVC mode is not set for a management cluster with Intel® Cascade Lake processors where Cascade Lake EVC is not supported by the vSphere version.

Automation flow

The following flow describes the order of events when you use the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions console to order a VMware instance:

1. Ordering VLANs and subnets for networking from IBM Cloud.
2. Ordering IBM Cloud bare metal servers with vSphere Hypervisor installed.
3. Ordering of Microsoft® Windows® VSI to serve as the Active Directory™ domain controller.
4. Deployment of the Cloud Driver VSI.
5. Validation of the networking and deployed hardware.
6. If applicable, the initial configuration of the single node vSAN.
7. Deployment and configuration of vCenter (with embedded PSC) and NSX.
8. Clustering of remaining ESXi nodes, expansion of vSAN if applicable, and configuration of NSX components (VTEP).
9. Validating the installation and configuration of the environment.
10. Deployment of optional services, such as backup server and storage.
11. Removal of the Cloud Driver VSI.