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Primary cluster

Primary cluster

Cluster name

By default, the primary cluster name is set to vrw-xx-management.

You can also specify a cluster name that meets the following requirements:

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

Cluster type

You can start with a smaller footprint by deploying a consolidated management and workload cluster, or you can deploy a management cluster and a separate cluster for workloads.

  • Management-optimized cluster supports separate management and workload clusters.

    If you don't want workloads to run on the primary cluster, select this option. With this option, you get a 2-CPU Intel® Cascade Lake processor with 20 cores, 2.2 GHz, and 192 GB RAM per bare metal server. You must include a separate cluster for workloads. Under Additional cluster for workloads, complete the settings to customize the bare metal hardware based on your workload capacity requirements.

  • Customizable consolidated cluster supports a range of CPU and RAM options to optimize capacity for both management and workload clusters.

    You can choose a Cascade Lake CPU model and a RAM size according to your needs. This option brings down the entry price point by enabling workloads to run alongside VMware® management components in the same cluster. You can start with only 6 hosts instead of 10. This option is helpful for proof of concepts (POCs) or if you want to start small and grow over time.

CPU model

Select Sapphire Rapids or Cascade Lake.

Sapphire Rapids

For Sapphire Rapids servers, choose one of the following CPU models and a supported RAM size:

Option for Sapphire Rapids bare metal servers
CPU model Cores GHz Storage type RAM options
Dual Intel Xeon Platinum 6416H 36 2.2 Up to 16 drives 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB
Dual Intel Xeon Platinum 8474C 96 2.1/3.1 Up to 16 drives 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB

Sapphire Rapids servers are not supported for BYOL users.

Cascade Lake

For Cascade Lake servers, choose from the following CPU models and supported RAM sizes:

Options for Cascade Lake bare metal servers
CPU model Cores GHz Storage type RAM options
Dual Intel Xeon Silver 4210 20 2.2 Up to 12 drives 128 GB, 192 GB, 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB
Dual Intel Xeon Gold 5218 32 2.3 Up to 12 drives 128 GB, 192 GB, 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB
Dual Intel Xeon Gold 6248 40 2.5 Up to 12 drives 128 GB, 192 GB, 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB
Dual Intel Xeon Platinum 8260 48 2.4 Up to 12 drives 128 GB, 192 GB, 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB
Quad Intel Xeon Gold 6248 80 2.5 Up to 24 drives 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB, 3 TB
Quad Intel Xeon Platinum 8260 96 2.4 Up to 24 drives 384 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB, 3 TB

RAM

Various RAM sizes are available depending on the CPU model.

Number of bare metal servers

For vSAN™ OSA storage, you can order 4-59 servers. For vSAN ESA storage, you can order 3-59 servers. All servers have the same configuration.

vSAN configuration

Review the following settings for vSAN storage.

Storage architecture

The storage architecture can be either vSAN ESA (Express Storage Architecture) for instances with vSphere 8 or vSAN OSA (Original Storage Architecture) for instances with vSphere 7 and 8.

  • For Sapphire Rapids servers, both vSAN ESA and vSAN OSA are available. For Cascade Lake servers, only vSAN OSA is available.
  • vSAN ESA requires a minimum of 3 bare metal servers. vSAN OSA requires a minimum of 4 bare metal servers.
  • For both vSAN ESA and vSAN OSA, you can select the size and number of vSAN capacity disks. For vSAN OSA, the size and number of vSAN cache disks are selected by default.
  • For vSAN ESA, the Enable vSAN compression option is available. For vSAN OSA, the Enable vSAN deduplication and compression option is available.
  • vSAN ESA is selected by default with the 25 Gb uplink speed. If you select the 10 Gb uplink speed, the vSAN storage architecture is changed to vSAN OSA, because vSAN ESA is not compatible with the 10 Gb uplink speed.

Size for vSAN capacity disks

Select an option for the capacity disks that you need.

Number of vSAN capacity disks

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

Size for vSAN cache disks

Review the Size for vSAN cache disks value.

Number of vSAN cache disks

Review the Number of vSAN cache disks value.

Summary

Review the vSAN details based on your selected configuration.

Estimated resources available per cluster

Review the estimated resources available per cluster.

Networking

Specify the networking type and uplink speed.

Networking type

The networking type is set to Private network only by default.