You can upgrade to VMware Cloud Foundation 3.11 on Dell EMC VxRail from VMware Cloud Foundation 3.10.2.2 on Dell EMC VxRail (sequential upgrade) or from VMware Cloud Foundation 3.7.1 on Dell EMC VxRail (skip-level upgrade). For upgrade information, see VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail Lifecycle Management.
VMware Cloud Foundation 3.11 on Dell EMC VxRail cannot be deployed as a new release.
VMware Cloud Foundation 3.11 on Dell EMC VxRail with VxRail Manager 4.7.541 is supported as a source version for migration to VMware Cloud Foundation 4.x on Dell EMC VxRail.
Design Considerations for Multiple Availability Zones
NSX-T Data Center 3.x changes how the northbound traffic flow can be influenced. If you have the following architecture, you must change the Tier-0 gateway architecture before you upgrade to NSX-T Data Center 3.x:
- An NSX Edge cluster with edge nodes placed in both availability zones (typically two edge nodes pinned to Availability Zone 1 and two edge nodes pinned to Availability Zone 2)
- An Active/Active Tier-0 gateway architecture where the Tier-0 gateway spans edge nodes in both availability zones.
- Deployed in a data center infrastructure that cannot tolerate asymmetrical routing to or from each availability zone, for example, for physical data center firewalls, and other.
Change to a Tier-0 gateway architecture where the Tier-0 gateway is active only in a single availability zone at a time in one of the following ways:
- Recommended: Place an NSX Edge cluster with edge nodes in a single availability zone only (typically Availability Zone 1), that fail over using vSphere HA to Availability Zone 2 on failure. This change requires changes in the data center fabric including stretching of the Uplink and Edge TEP VLANs between the availability zones. See KB 87426 for more information.
- Migrate to an Active/Standby Tier-0 gateway. Follow the NSX-T Data Center 3.x product documentation for changing from an Active/Active to an Active/Standby architecture of the Tier-0 gateway.
Changing from a Three N-VDS to Single N-VDS Edge Node Design
Starting with NSX-T Data Center 2.5, a single N-VDS switch design is available in the NSX Edge node. Changing from three N-VDS instances to a single N-VDS provides network throughput and scalability improvements in NSX-T Data Center. It is recommended for all environments but highly recommended for environments deployed at scale.
The procedure involves the following high-level steps:
- Deploy a new NSX Edge cluster with new edge nodes based on the single N-VDS design.
- Deploy a new Tier-0 gateway and verify connectivity.
- Once tested, you can reconfigure your Tier-1 gateways to utilize the new Tier-0 gateway on the single N-VDS edge cluster.
See KB 87426 for more information.