Dell VxRail Architecture Overview

VMware vCenter Server

To consume external storage, the cluster requires two or more nodes. Only a customer-managed VMware vCenter Server is supported for VxRail 7.0.400 and earlier. For VxRail 7.0.410 and later, you can deploy VxRail-managed VMware vCenter Server for FC-connected storage arrays. VxRail Manager performs LCM on this VxRail-managed VMware vCenter Server only if you have installed a valid VMware vCenter Server license. For VxRail 8.0.210 and later, VxRail-managed VMware vCenter Server supports IP-based protocols such as NVMeTCP and iSCSI.

VMware vCenter Server is installed with an evaluation license that expires after 60 days. If the VMware vCenter Server evaluation license expires, the following occurs:

• No LCM functionality.
• Manage host is disconnected from the VMware vCenter Server inventory.​
• The VMware ESXi hosts and VM continue to run.
• Some operations stop working.

The VMware vCenter Server instance can be deployed on the cluster either as part of VxRail initial bring up or it can be a customer-managed VMware vCenter Server instance. If the VMware vCenter Server is deployed on the cluster as part of VxRail initial bring-up, assign a customer-managed license after the cluster is built. Upgrades of the VMware vCenter Server instance are supported as part of VxRail LCM.

For a VxRail vSAN Cross-Cluster Capacity Sharing configuration earlier than VxRail 8.0.100, all the clusters that are participating in the storage resource must reside in the same VMware vCenter Server instance. Place the clusters under the same data center instance inside the VMware vCenter Server. Beginning with VxRail 8.0.100, VxRail vSAN Cross-Cluster Capacity Sharing configurations that are built on VMware vSAN OSA can mount a remote VxRail vSAN data store that is on another VMware vCenter Server instance.