Prepare ESXi Hosts for VMware Cloud Foundation

Before you can create a new VI workload domain, add a cluster to a workload domain, or add hosts to a cluster, you must prepare the ESXi hosts.

Preparing the ESXi hosts involves installing the correct version of ESXi and performing some basic configuration tasks.

For the supported ESXi version, see the Bill of Materials (BOM) section of the VMware Cloud Foundation Release Notes.

Important: If you are preparing hosts for a VI workload domain where the ESXi hosts have been async patched to a later version of ESXi than the version listed in the BOM, the new hosts must use the later version of ESXi.

Prerequisites

VI workload domains require a minimum of three ESXi hosts.

Note: If you are preparing ESXi hosts for a vSphere cluster using NFS, VMFS on FC, or vVols as principal storage, and the hosts will be added to a VI workload domain using vSphere Lifecycle Manager images as the update method, then only two hosts are required.

To use vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA), your hosts must be ESA-compatible.

Tip: See the vSAN ESA VCG for information about compatible hardware.