If you want to create a VI workload domain with more than one vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) or use ESXi hosts with more than two pNICs, you must use the VMware Cloud Foundation API.

This procedure uses the domainCreationSpec to create a new VI workload domain using the VMware Cloud Foundation API. It focuses on two specific sections of the domainCreationSpec that allow you to create a VI workload domain with more than one vDS or use ESXi hosts with more than two pNICS; hostSpecs and vdsSpecs.

You will need to modify these sections and complete the other sections of the domainCreationSpec that are required for your environment. See the VMware Cloud Foundation API Reference Guide for details on all the sections of the domainCreationSpec. See an example of a complete domainCreationSpec at the end of this procedure.

The examples in the following procedure are based on the following scenario.
Two vSphere Distributed Switches
  • sfo-w01-cl01-vds01
  • sfo-w01-cl01-vds02
Four pNICs
  • vmnic0
  • vmnic1
  • vmnic2
  • vmnic3
pNIC to vDS mapping
  • vmnic0 and vmnic1 to sfo-w01-cl01-vds01
  • vmnic2 and vmnic3 to sfo-w01-cl01-vds02
vDS to traffic type mapping
  • sfo-w01-cl01-vds01: Management and vMotion
  • sfo-w01-cl01-vds02: vSAN, host overlay, and Edge uplinks
Modify the examples based on your VMware Cloud Foundation environment.

Prerequisites

See Prerequisites for a Workload Domain.

Procedure

  1. Get the IDs for the ESXi hosts that you want to add to the VI workload domain.
    1. In the SDDC Manager UI, click Developer Center > API Explorer.
    2. Expand the APIs for managing Hosts section, and click GET /v1/hosts.
    3. Enter UNASSIGNED_USEABLE in the status text box and click Execute.
    4. In the response, locate and copy the ID of each host you want to add to the VI workload domain.
  2. In a text editor, create a JSON specification for the hostSpecs. For example: 
    "hostSpecs" : [ {
        "id" : "0ac30e66-7f65-4477-8331-80c3777c153c",
        "licenseKey": "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX",
        "username" : "root",
        "hostNetworkSpec" : {
          "vmNics" : [ {
            "id" : "vmnic0",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic1",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic2",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds02"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic3",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds02"
          } ]
        }
      },
    For each ESXi host, add a section that includes:
    • id
    • licenseKey
    • userName
    • hostNetworkSpec
    Use the ESXi host IDs from step 1.
  3. In a text editor, create a JSON specification for the vdsSpecs. For example: 
    "vdsSpecs": [
               {
                   "name": "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01",
                   "portGroupSpecs": [
                       {
                           "name": "sfo01-w01-cl01-vds01-pg-mgmt",
                           "transportType": "MANAGEMENT"
                       },
                       {
                           "name": "sfo01-w01-cl01-vds01-pg-vmotion",
                           "transportType": "VMOTION"
                       }
                   ]
               },
               {
                   "name": "sfo-w01-cl01-vds02",
                   "portGroupSpecs": [
                       {
                           "name": "sfo01-w01-cl01-vds02-pg-vsan",
                           "transportType": "VSAN"
                       }
                   ],
                   "isUsedByNsxt": true
               }
    Note: Specify "isUsedByNsxt": true for the vDS to use for host overlay traffic. If you have multiple vSphere Distributed Switches, only one of them can specify "isUsedByNsxt": true.
  4. In the SDDC Manager UI, click Developer Center > API Explorer.
  5. Expand the APIs for managing Domains section, and click POST /v1/domains/validations.
  6. In the Description/Data Type column, click DomainCreationSpec.
    domainCreationSpec validation in the API Explorer
  7. Replace the hostSpecs section with the information from the hostSpecs JSON file.
  8. Replace the vdsSpecs section with the information from the vdsSpecs JSON file.
  9. Update or remove the other sections of the domainCreationSpec as needed, based on the VI workload domain you are creating.
    See an example of a complete domainCreationSpec at the end of this procedure.
  10. Click Execute to validate the domainCreationSpec.
    If validation succeeds, copy the domainCreationSpec content and proceed to the next step. If validation fails, check the errors in the response, update the domainCreationSpec, and validate it again.
  11. Expand the APIs for managing Domains section, and click POST /v1/domains.
  12. Paste the validated domainCreationSpec content and click Execute.
    Use the Tasks panel in the SDDC Manager UI to monitor the VI workload domain creation.

Example

Example of a complete domainCreationSpec 
{
  "domainName" : "sfo-w01",
  "vcenterSpec" : {
    "name" : "sfo-w01-vc01",
    "networkDetailsSpec" : {
      "ipAddress" : "10.0.0.43",
      "dnsName" : "sfo-w01-vc01.vrack.vsphere.local",
      "gateway" : "10.0.0.250",
      "subnetMask" : "255.255.255.0"
    },
    "rootPassword" : "<password>",
    "datacenterName" : "sfo-w01-dc01",
    "vmSize" : "medium",
    "storageSize" : "lstorage"
  },
  "computeSpec" : {
    "clusterSpecs" : [ {
      "name" : "sfo-w01-cl01",
      "hostSpecs" : [ {
        "id" : "0ac30e66-7f65-4477-8331-80c3777c153c",
        "licenseKey": "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX",
        "username" : "root",
        "hostNetworkSpec" : {
          "vmNics" : [ {
            "id" : "vmnic0",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic1",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic2",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds02"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic3",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds02"
          } ]
        }
      }, {
        "id" : "05d1a8df-773a-46bb-8838-dcb5bb3358ea",
        "licenseKey": "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX",
        "username" : "root",
        "hostNetworkSpec" : {
          "vmNics" : [ {
            "id" : "vmnic0",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic1",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic2",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds02"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic3",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds02"
          } ]
        }
      }, {
        "id" : "2b8b770f-265d-4a63-b830-9c98038c81b2",
        "licenseKey": "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX",
        "username" : "root",
        "hostNetworkSpec" : {
          "vmNics" : [ {
            "id" : "vmnic0",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic1",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic2",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds02"
          }, {
            "id" : "vmnic3",
            "vdsName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds02"
          } ]
        }
      } ],
      "datastoreSpec" : {
        "vsanDatastoreSpec" : {
          "failuresToTolerate" : 1,
          "licenseKey" : "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX",
          "datastoreName" : "sfo-w01-cl01-ds-vsan01"
        }
      },
      "networkSpec" : {
        "vdsSpecs" : [ {
          "name" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01",
          "portGroupSpecs" : [ {
            "name" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01-pg-mgmt",
            "transportType" : "MANAGEMENT"
          }, {
            "name" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds01-pg-vmotion",
            "transportType" : "VMOTION"
          }]
        }, {
          "name" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds02",
          "portGroupSpecs" : [ {
            "name" : "sfo-w01-cl01-vds02-pg-vsan",
            "transportType" : "VSAN"
          } ],
          "isUsedByNsxt" : true
        } ],
        "nsxClusterSpec" : {
          "nsxTClusterSpec" : {
            "geneveVlanId" : 2,
            "ipAddressPoolSpec" : {
                "name" : "static-ip-pool-01",
                "subnets" : [ {
                  "ipAddressPoolRanges" : [ {
                    "start" : "10.0.11.50",
                    "end" : "10.0.11.70"
                  }, {
                    "start" : "10.0.11.80",
                    "end" : "10.0.11.150"
                  } ],
                  "cidr" : "10.0.11.0/24",
                  "gateway" : "10.0.11.250"
                } ]
              }
          }
        }
      }
    } ]
  },
  "nsxTSpec" : {
    "nsxManagerSpecs" : [ {
      "name" : "sfo-w01-nsx01a",
      "networkDetailsSpec" : {
        "ipAddress" : "10.0.0.44",
        "dnsName" : "sfo-w01-nsx01a.vrack.vsphere.local",
        "gateway" : "10.0.0.250",
        "subnetMask" : "255.255.255.0"
      }
    }, {
      "name" : "sfo-w01-nsx01b",
      "networkDetailsSpec" : {
        "ipAddress" : "10.0.0.45",
        "dnsName" : "sfo-w01-nsx01b.vrack.vsphere.local",
        "gateway" : "10.0.0.250",
        "subnetMask" : "255.255.255.0"
      }
    }, {
      "name" : "sfo-w01-nsx01c",
      "networkDetailsSpec" : {
        "ipAddress" : "10.0.0.46",
        "dnsName" : "sfo-w01-nsx01c.vrack.vsphere.local",
        "gateway" : "10.0.0.250",
        "subnetMask" : "255.255.255.0"
      }
    } ],
    "vip" : "10.0.0.166",
    "vipFqdn" : "sfo-w01-nsx01.vrack.vsphere.local",
    "licenseKey" : "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX",
    "nsxManagerAdminPassword" : "<password>",
    "formFactor" : "large"
  }
}