VMware vSphere overview
VMware vSphere® is a streamlined and optimized ordering platform for VMware®. With this platform, you can build your own IBM®-hosted VMware environment by customizing and ordering the VMware-compatible hardware based on your selected VMware components.
The IBM Cloud® for VMware Solutions console filters the hardware automatically, based on the VMware components that you select. For example, when you create a new all-flash VMware vSAN™ cluster, only the hardware that is validated against the VMware Compatibility Guide is presented.
VMware vSphere does not automate the installation, configuration, and bring-up of the optional VMware components. The platform allows maximum of flexibility to design and build your hosted VMware environment while you incorporate VMware-compatible hardware.
Use this offering to create a new instance of VMware ESXi™ servers or scale out an existing instance of ESXi servers in an IBM Cloud data center. Depending on the VMware components that you select, you can start with just one ESXi server and then scale the instance later as needed.
Technical specifications for VMware vSphere
Review the components for VMware vSphere instances.
The availability and pricing of standardized hardware configurations might vary based on the IBM Cloud data center that is selected for deployment.
VMware components
Select licenses for the following VMware components:
- VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus 7.0u3
- The following VMware components are optional:
- VMware vCenter Server® Standard
- VMware NSX® (Data Center SP Base, Data Center SP Professional, Data Center SP Advanced, or Data Center SP Enterprise Plus)
- VMware vSAN (Advanced or Enterprise)
- VMware Site Recovery Manager
- VMware Aria® Automation™ Enterprise
- VMware Aria® Operations™ Enterprise
- VMware Aria Operations™ for Logs
Bare metal server
The options available depend on whether you selected the VMware vSAN component.
You can order one or more IBM Cloud bare metal servers with one of the following configurations:
- Cascade Lake - 4-CPU Intel® Cascade Lake generation servers (Quad Intel Xeon® 6200/8200 series) or 2-CPU Intel® Cascade Lake generation servers (Dual Intel Xeon® 4200/5200/6200/8200 series) with your selected RAM size.
- SAP-certified Cascade Lake - 2-CPU Intel Cascade Lake generation servers (Dual Intel Xeon 5200/6200/8200 series).
Additionally, the following disk and networking specifications apply:
- 10 Gbps dual public and private network uplinks
- One RAID disk controller
Networking
- One VLAN (Virtual LAN) public VLAN and two private VLANs
- (Optional) An HA-pair of FortiGate® Physical Appliance devices
Storage
User-customized storage for vSAN configuration when the VMware vSAN component is selected:
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Storage disk options - 960 GB SSD, 1.9 TB SSD, 3.8 TB SSD, or 7.68 TB SSD.
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Disk quantity options - 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10. Additionally, two cache disks of 960 GB are also ordered per host.
3.8 TB SSD (Solid-State Disk) drives are supported when they are made available in a data center.
Technical specifications for VMware vSphere expansion nodes
Each VMware vSphere instance expansion node deploys and incurs charges for the following components in your IBM Cloud infrastructure customer portal account.
Hardware for expansion nodes
One IBM Cloud bare metal server with the hardware configuration presented in Technical specifications for VMware vSphere.
Networking for expansion nodes
One IBM Cloud bare metal server with the networking configuration presented in Technical specifications for VMware vSphere.
VMware components for expansion nodes
- One IBM Cloud bare metal server with VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus 7.0 or 6.7u3 for V4.7 and earlier.
- Optional VMware components presented in Technical specifications for VMware vSphere.
You must manage the ESXi servers, optional VMware components, and extra hardware that is ordered and delivered to your IBM Cloud account only from the IBM Cloud infrastructure customer portal. After you create a new instance in the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions console, you can return to the console, and add capacity to the new instance. For more information, see Adding ESXi servers to VMware vSphere instances.