Hybrid Linked Mode links your VMware Cloud on Dell EMC vCenter Server instance with an on-premises vCenter Single Sign-On domain. You can configure the Hybrid Linked Mode between VMware Cloud on Dell EMC SDDC and on-premises SDDC either directly or through vCenter Cloud Gateway to manage both the SDDCs in a single user interface. This can also be used to support VM migration across these SDDCs.
Before you can use Hybrid Linked Mode with VMware Cloud on Dell EMC, you must configure your on-premises vCenter to enable single sign-on. For more information, see vSphere Authentication with vCenter Single Sign-On.
If you link your cloud vCenter Server to a domain that contains multiple vCenter Server instances linked using Enhanced Linked Mode, all those instances are linked to your VMware Cloud on Dell EMC SDDC.
Using Hybrid Linked Mode, you can:
- View and manage the inventories of both your on-premises and VMware Cloud on Dell EMC SDDC from a single vSphere Client interface, accessed using Single Sign On (SSO) credentials.
- Migrate workloads between your on-premises data center and VMware Cloud on Dell EMC SDDC.
- Share tags and tag categories from your vCenter Server instance to your VMware Cloud on Dell EMC SDDC.
Hybrid Linked Mode supports on-premises vCenter Server systems running 6.7 and later with either embedded or external Platform Services Controller (both Windows and vCenter Server Appliance). vCenter Server systems with external Platform Services Controller instances linked in Enhanced Linked Mode are also supported up to the scale limits documented in vSphere 6.7 Configuration Maximums.
You have two options for configuring Hybrid Linked Mode. You can use only one of these options at a time.
- You can install the vCenter Cloud Gateway Appliance and use it to link from your on-premises data center to the VMware Cloud on Dell EMC SDDC. In this case, SSO users and groups are mapped from your on-premises environment to the SDDC and you do not need to add an identity source to the SDDC LDAP domain.
- You can link your VMware Cloud on Dell EMC to your on-premises vCenter Server. In this case, you must add an identity source to the SDDC LDAP domain.
