A VI workload domain is managed by a single vCenter Server instance. You determine the size of this vCenter Server instance and its storage foot print according to the number of ESXi hosts, clusters and the number of virtual machines running on these clusters.

Deployment Type

You allocate a vCenter Server instance for each VI workload domain in VMware Cloud Foundation instance.

Table 1. Design Decisions on the Deployment Model for a VI Workload Domain vCenter Server

Decision ID

Design Decision

Design Justification

Design Implication

VCF-WLD-VCS-CFG-001

For each VI workload domain, deploy a dedicated vCenter Server system in the management domain.

  • Isolates vCenter Server failures to management or customer workloads.

  • Isolates vCenter Server operations between management and business applications.

  • Supports a scalable cluster design where you might reuse the management components as more customer workloads are added to the VM.

  • Simplifies capacity planning for customer 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 providing for explicit separation of maintenance windows:

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

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

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

  • Facilitates quicker troubleshooting and problem resolution.

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

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

None

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 size of your environment. The option that you select determines the number of CPUs and the amount of memory for the appliance. By default, the vCenter Server instance in the VI workload domain is deployed in medium 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 ESXi host or 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 a VI Workload Domain vCenter Server

Decision ID

Design Decision

Design Justification

Design Implication

VCF-WLD-VCS-CFG-002

Deploy a vCenter Server appliance of a medium deployment size or larger.

A vCenter Server appliance of a medium-deployment size is typically sufficient to manage customer workloads that run in a VI workload domain.

If the size of the VI workload domain grows, you might have to increase the size of the vCenter Server appliance.

VCF-WLD-VCS-CFG-003

Deploy the vCenter Server appliance with the default storage size.

The default storage capacity assigned to a medium-sized appliance is sufficient.

None.