The virtual infrastructure design includes the software components that make up the virtual infrastructure layer for providing software-defined storage, networking and compute.

These components include the software products that provide the virtualization platform hypervisor, virtualization management, storage virtualization, and network virtualization. The VMware products in this layer are vSphere, vSAN, and NSX for vSphere.

Figure 1. Virtual Infrastructure Layer in the SDDC


Virtual Infrastructure Design Overview

The consolidated SDDC virtual infrastructure consists of a single region. This region includes a consolidated cluster which consists of management, edge and compute workloads.

Figure 2. SDDC Logical Design


Consolidated Cluster

The consolidated cluster runs the following services:

  • Virtual machines to manage the SDDC such as vCenter Server, NSX Manager, vRealize Lifecycle Manager, vRealize Log Insight, vRealize Operations Manager, vRealize Automation, and vRealize Business.

  • Required NSX services to enable North-South routing between the SDDC and the external network, and East-West routing inside the SDDC.

  • SDDC tenant virtual machines to support workloads with different Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

Because this cluster supports the entire SDDC, network, and production workloads, provide highly available physical components such as HVAC, power feeds and power supplies.