VMware Data Services Manager Design for Private AI Ready Infrastructure for for VMware Cloud Foundation

VMware Data Services Manager is a unified control plane for managing data services in VMware Cloud Foundation. It simplifies deployment, management, and scaling of databases like Postgres, MySQL for AI applications.

VMware Data Services Manager offers advanced data services integrated with vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation. It supports easy deployment, simplified operations, and life cycle management of databases, such as MySQL and PostgreSQL with self-service features. The platform provides customized Kubernetes access and an API for tailored application needs.

The pgvector extension available in PostgreSQL databases deployed by VMware Data Services Manager facilitates vector database integration for generative AI applications. Integration with VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA enables adoption of RAG pipelines for various use cases like code generation, contact center resolutions, IT automation, and advanced data retrieval.

SPBM-based policies are consumed by infrastructure policies in VMware Data Services Manager. An infrastructure policy includes compute, storage, network, and virtual machine resource details. vSphere administrators use infrastructure policies to allocate vSphere infrastructure resources for provisioning data services with VMware Data Services Manager.

SPBM storage policies must meet data availability and performance requirements. Run the DSM-managed databases on a separate vSAN cluster that could be part of the same VI WLD where the GPU-enabled clusters are to reduce noisy neighbor scenarios and to tailor cluster services and limit operational and maintenance domains.

VMware Data Services Manager Design

Table 1. Design Decisions on VMware Data Services Manager Design for Private AI Ready Infrastructure for VMware Cloud Foundation

Decision ID	Design Decision	Design Justification	Design Implication
AIR-DSM-001	Deploy VMware Data Services Manager in the management domain.	A 1:1 relationship between a VMware Data Services Manager appliance and a vCenter Server instance is required. The vCenter Server instances for the VI workload domans in a VMware Cloud Foundation instance run in the management domain.	You must deploy one VMware Data Services Manager appliance per vCenter Server which impacts the required resources for the management domain and its clusters.
AIR-DSM-002	For production-grade deployments, deploy PostgreSQL databases in HA mode (3 or 5 nodes).	High Availability of Vector Databases, increasing the overall availability of the whole system that depends on the DBs.	Increased resource consumption of the target VI WLD, and increased number used IP Addresses.
AIR-DSM-003	Allocate enough IP addresses for the IP pools of infrastructure policies.	You determine the number of IP addresses reserved for the IP pools according to the requirements and to the high availability topology of the database deployed by using VMware Data Services Manager. For example, a 5-node PostgreSQL cluster requires 7 IP addresses - one for each node, one for for kube_VIP, and one for database load balancing).	You must consider planning and subnet sizing.
AIR-DSM-004	Define VM classes in VMware Data Services Manager that align to your resource requirements.	Consider the use case, types of workloads using the databases, amount of data, Transactions per Second (TPS), and other factors, such as target infrastructure overcommitment if applicable. See Data Services Manager Documentation and Data Modernization with VMware Data Services Manager.	You must consider VMware Data Services Manager planning and design.
AIR-DSM-005	Configure LDAP as Directory Service for VMware Data Services Manager.	LDAP (TLS available if needed) can be configured as the identity provider to import users and assign roles on VMware Data Services Manager.	Increased security operation costs. You must allow port access from VMware Data Services Manager to the LDAP identity source: LDAP - 389 TCP LDAPS - 636 TCP/UDP
AIR-DSM-006	Configure the S3-compatible object store, for example, MinIO, with TLS.	The provider repositories for core VMware Data Services Manager storage, backup, logs and database backups must be enabled with TLS.	Security and complexity is increased. You must manage TLS certificates.
AIR-DSM-007	Create a VMware Tanzu Network account account and use it to configure a refresh token in VMware Data Services Manager.	Database templates and software updates are uploaded to VMware Tanzu Network. In a connected environment, you must configure a Tanzu Network Refresh Token as part of the VMware Data Services Manager setup. In a disconnected environment, you must download the air-gapped environment repository and uploaded it manually to the Provider Repository.	You must perform this operation manually.
AIR-DSM-008	If you plan to run databases managed by VMware Data Services Manager on SAN ESA clusters, create a vSphere SPBM policy that is based on erasure coding.	Provides performance that is equivalent to RAID 1 but with no compromises and with better space efficiency. The available erasure coding, RAID 5 or RAID 6, depends on the size of the all-flash vSAN ESA cluster. Erasure Coding 5 RAID 5 erasure coding requires a minimum of 4 ESXi hosts while RADI 6 erasure coding requires a minimum of 6 ESXi hosts.	Design complexity, cost, and management overhead of the solution are increased. You must perform this operation manually or by using PowerCLI.
AIR-DSM-009	Use RAID 5 or RAID 6 erasure coding as the default vSAN storage policy for databases.	Eliminates the trade-off of performance and deterministic space efficiency. Set FTT=1 for RAID 5 and FTT=2 for RAID 6 according to the number of hosts in the vSAN ESA cluster and your data availability requirements.	Design complexity is increased.