VMware Data Services Manager requires access to a vCenter Server system, ESXi hosts, and one or more clusters. Requirement of resource pools is optional. Each host running VMware Data Services Manager must meet certain hardware and software requirements.

Supported Platforms

Refer to the Release Notes for information about the server platforms, browsers, and data services supported by this release of VMware Data Services Manager.

Supported Versions of vSphere Components

VMware Data Services Manager is supported on VMware vSphere 7.x and later. The following table lists information about the components of vSphere required and the versions supported.
Component Supported Versions

vCenter Server

 7.0.3i and later
ESXi 7.0 and later
VMFS 5 and 6
PostgreSQL 12.17, 13.13, 14.10, and 15.5
MySQL 8.0.29, 8.0.31, 8.0.32, 8.0.34

Disk Space, Memory, and CPU Requirements

The type of environment in which it will run, and the volume of services that it will manage, will determine the amount of resources that are configured for a Provider VM. The default configuration for the VM follows:

VM Environment Memory CPU Storage
Provider VM Default configuration 16 GB 8 vCPU 736 GB (thin provisioning)

The provisioning user specifies the amount of memory and CPU resources for any database that they deploy.

vSphere Storage Requirements

VMware Data Services Manager has no specific storage requirement for its deployments. The vSphere administrator can choose to configure the number and types of datastores. A VMware Data Services Manager deployment uses the datastores available.

Object Storage Requirements

VMware Data Services Manager requires an S3-compatible storage solution.

The recommended size of the S3-compatible storage depends on the size of data backups and retention policy.

Before you deploy VMware Data Services Manager, configure and deploy S3-compatible storage and create the following buckets:

  • A bucket for Provider Logs
  • A bucket for Provider Backups
  • Database backup storage

These endpoints must be resolvable by the DNS server specified at the time of Provider VM deployment.

Naming Convention of Object Storage Buckets

Ensure that you use the following naming conventions for the object storage buckets:

  • Bucket names should be between 3 and 63 characters long.
  • Bucket names should not contain upper-case letters.
  • Bucket names should not contain underscores (_).
  • Bucket names should not end with a dash (-).
  • Bucket names should not contain dashes next to periods (for example, my-.bucket.com and my.-bucket are invalid).
  • Bucket names should not contain periods.

Configuring Identity and Access Management (IAM) Policies for S3 Storage

For the Provider VM to be able to access S3-compatible storage, you need to configure Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies at the S3 storage provider end.

The following is an example of the policies that must be defined.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:ListBucket",
        "s3:GetBucketLocation",
        "s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::S3_BUCKET_NAME"
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "s3:PutObject",
        "s3:GetObject",
        "s3:DeleteObject",
        "s3:ListMultipartUploadParts",
        "s3:AbortMultipartUpload"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::S3_BUCKET_NAME/*"
    }
  ]
}

For more information, refer to the documentation for your cloud providers. For example, Identity and access management in Amazon S3.

Network Configuration Requirements

Secure, reliable operation of VMware Data Services Manager depends on a secure, reliable network.

VDS and N-VDS port groups that should be available to host components of VMware Data Services Manager are:

  • Management network connected to:
    • S3-compatible object storage (optional)
    • Provider VM through NIC 1 (eth 0) for management and data access purposes
    • Databases through NIC 1 (eth 0) for data access purposes

The choice of port group type depends on the appliance to which it is connected:

  • A Provider VM's Management network can connect to a Standard, DVS, or N-VDS port group.
  • Database workload VM's network can be connected to DVS port group.

The IP address for Management network for Provider VM is static and configured manually.

Note: Do not configure the Provider VM (Management network) and Database VM (Management network and Database network) networks on 172.17.0.0/16.

Network Time Service

You must use the NTP network time service to synchronize the clocks of all VMware Data Services Manager deployed VMs.

Provider

The Provider VM requires one network for UI or management traffic:

VMware Data Services Manager refers to the network that NIC 1 (eth 0) connects to as the Management Network. This network is used for the VMware Data Services Manager user interface and API calls. The VMware Data Services Manager console runs on this network, and it requires a static IP address.

The Management Network is configured when you deploy the Provider VM, and cannot be changed after deployment.

Database

A database requires:

  • A single network for both management traffic and database traffic.

  • Access to an external network for database backup storage.

Database Network Addressing

VMware Data Services Manager assigns the IP address of a database that is provisioned using the configured IP pool.

Network Security Requirements

The following ports are opened for incoming/outgoing traffic during Provider VM deployment:

Protocol Port Number NIC
ICMP
TCP (SSH) 22 eth0
TCP (https) 443 eth0

The following ports are opened for incoming and outgoing traffic during database deployment:

Protocol Port Number NIC
ICMP
TCP (SSH) 22 eth0
TCP (https) 443 eth0
TCP (MySQL) 3306 eth0

Network Requirements Summary

External Network Requirements:

Connection From Connection To Protocol Port Number
DSM Provider/Appliance NTP Server UDP 123
DSM Provider/Appliance Domain Name System (DNS) TCP 53
UDP 53
DSM Provider/Appliance vCenter Server TCP 443
DSM Provider/Appliance ESXi hosts TCP 443
DSM Provider/Appliance S3-compatible Provider storage TCP 9000
DSM Provider/Appliance Active Directory TCP 3269
LDAP Server TCP 636
DSM Provider/Appliance Aria Operations for Logs/SysLog Server TCP 514
DSM Provider/Appliance Database TCP 6443
TCP 3306
TCP 22
DSM Provider (optional) Aria Automation TCP 443
Database Database TCP 2379
TCP 2380
TCP 6443
TCP 10349
TCP 10351
UDP 10351
UDP 6081
Database S3-compatible Provider storage TCP 9000
Database vCenter Server TCP 443
Database NTP Server UDP 123
Database Domain Name Server (DNS) TCP 53
UDP 53
Database Aria Operations for Logs/SysLog Server TCP 514
Database DSM Provider TCP 443
Database Active Directory TCP 3269
LDAP Server TCP 636
Users DSM Provider TCP 443
Database Client Database (PostgreSQL) TCP 5432