The management domain is managed by a single vCenter Server instance. You determine the size of this vCenter Server and its storage foot print according to the number of ESXi hosts in the management domain clusters and the number of virtual machines you plan to run on these clusters.

Deployment Type

You allocate vCenter Server appliances according to the requirements for workload isolation, scalability, and resilience to failures.

Table 1. Design Decisions on the Deployment Model for the Management Domain vCenter Server

Decision ID

Design Decision

Design Justification

Design Implication

VCF-MGMT-VCS-CFG-001

Deploy a dedicated vCenter Server appliance for the management domain of the VMware Cloud Foundation instance.

  • Isolates vCenter Server failures to management or tenant workloads.

  • Isolates vCenter Server operations between management and tenants.

  • Supports a scalable cluster design where you can reuse the management components as more tenant workloads are added to the SDDC.

  • Simplifies capacity planning for tenant workloads because you do not consider management workloads for the VI workload domain vCenter Server.

  • Improves the ability to upgrade the vSphere environment and related components by enabling for explicit separation of maintenance windows:

    • Management workloads remain available while you are upgrading the tenant workloads

    • Tenant workloads remain available while you are upgrading the management nodes

  • Supports clear separation of roles and responsibilities to ensure that only administrators with granted authorization can control the management workloads.

  • Facilitates quicker troubleshooting and problem resolution.

  • Simplifies disaster recovery operations by supporting a clear separation between recovery of the management components and tenant workloads.

  • Provides isolation of potential network issues by introducing network separation of the clusters in the SDDC.

Requires a separate license for the vCenter Server instance in the management domain.

Sizing Compute and Storage Resources

When you deploy the vCenter Server appliance, you select to deploy the appliance with a size that is suitable for the scale of your environment. The option that you select determines the number of CPUs and the amount of memory of the appliance. By default, the vCenter Server appliance in the management domain is deployed in small size.

Table 2. Compute Resource Specifications of vCenter Server

vCenter Server Appliance Size

Management Capacity

Number of vCPUs

Memory

Tiny

Up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines

2

12 GB

Small

Up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines

4

19 GB

Medium

Up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machines

8

28 GB

Large

Up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines

16

37 GB

X-Large

Up to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual machines

24

56 GB
When you deploy the vCenter Server appliance, the cluster on which you deploy the appliance must meet minimum storage requirements. You determine the required storage not only according to the size of the environment and the storage size, but also according to the disk provisioning mode.
Table 3. Storage Resource Specifications of vCenter Server

Appliance Size

Management Capacity

Default Storage Size

Large Storage Size

X-Large Storage Size

Tiny

Up to 10 hosts or 100 virtual machines

579 GB

1992 GB

4279 GB

Small

Up to 100 hosts or 1,000 virtual machines

694 GB

2046 GB

4304 GB

Medium

Up to 400 hosts or 4,000 virtual machines

908 GB

2140 GB

4468 GB

Large

Up to 1,000 hosts or 10,000 virtual machines

1358 GB

1958 GB

4518 GB

X-Large

Up to 2,000 hosts or 35,000 virtual machines

2283 GB

2383 GB

4620 GB
Table 4. Design Decisions on Sizing the Management Domain vCenter Server

Decision ID

Design Decision

Design Justification

Design Implication

VCF-MGMT-VCS-CFG-002

Deploy an appliance for the management domain vCenter Server of a small deployment size.

A vCenter Server appliance of a small-deployment size is sufficient for managing the anticipated number of ESXi hosts and virtual machines in the management domain of the VMware Cloud Foundation instance.

If the size of the management environment increases, you might have to increase the vCenter Server appliance size.

VCF-MGMT-VCS-CFG-003

Deploy the appliance of the management domain vCenter Server with the default storage size.

The default storage capacity that is assigned to a small-size appliance is sufficient to manage the management appliances that are required for the VMware Cloud Foundation instance.

None.