About Deployment of a Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain in the First Region

The Deployment of a Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain in the First Region documentation provides step-by-step instructions for installing and configuring the virtual infrastructure (VI) workload domain based on VMware Validated Design.

The Deployment of a Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain in the First Region documentation does not contain step-by-step instructions for performing all required post-configuration tasks because their nature often depends on the requirements of your organization.

Intended Audience

The Deployment of a Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain in the First Region documentation is intended for cloud architects, infrastructure administrators, and cloud administrators who are familiar with and want to use VMware software to deploy in a short time and manage a software-defined data center (SDDC) that meets the requirements for capacity, scalability, backup and restore, and extensibility for disaster recovery support.

Supported VMware Cloud Foundation Version

Deployment of a Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain in the First Region is compatible with VMware Cloud Foundation 4.2.

Required VMware Software

Deployment of a Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain in the First Region is compliant and validated with certain product versions. See VMware Validated Design Release Notes.

Before You Apply This Guidance

The sequence of the documentation of this design follows the stages for implementing and maintaining an SDDC.

To deploy a virtual infrastructure workload domain by following the prescriptive path of VMware Validated Design, your environment must have a certain configuration. For information on the deployment workflow of the SDDC components, see Deployment of VMware Validated Design in Introducing VMware Validated Design.

Table 1. Required SDDC Components
Workload Domain	Management Component	Deployment Method
Management domain	ESXi hosts	Manual deployment
	vCenter Server	Automated deployment by using Cloud Builder
	NSX-T Manager and NSX-T Edge nodes with a region-specific and cross-region virtual network segments	Automated deployment by using Cloud Builder
	vSAN as principal storage	Automated deployment by using Cloud Builder
	NFS as supplemental storage	Manual deployment
	SDDC Manager	Automated deployment by using Cloud Builder
	Region-specific Workspace ONE Access instance connected to NSX-T	Manual deployment

To apply Deployment of a Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain in the First Region, you must:

Complete the Planning and Preparation Workbook with your deployment options included.
Deploy a single-region SDDC management domain. See Deployment of the Management Domain in the First Region.
Optionally, read Architecture and Design for a Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain.

See Documentation Map for VMware Validated Design.

The same requirement applies if you are following the VMware Cloud Foundation documentation to deploy a virtual infrastructure workload domain. See the VMware Cloud Foundation documentation.

Using VMware Cloud Foundation for Deployment of the Workload Domain in the First Region

VMware Validated Design uses SDDC Manager in VMware Cloud Foundation for automated deployment and life cycle of the components for the workload domains.

VMware Validated Design follows an example naming convention. The naming provides uniqueness of the objects across the SDDC. You can identify managed objects directly if you use many components that are linked together, for example, multiple vCenter Server systems working in Enhanced Linking Mode. For information on the naming convention, see Planning and Preparation Workbook.

Table 2. Automated and Manual Deployment and Configuration for the Workload Domain
Operation Type	By Using SDDC Manager Automation	Manual Configuration
Preparation for deployment	-	Install and configure ESXi on the physical servers.
Deployment	Deploy the workload domain. Create an NSX-T Edge cluster.	Create a network pool and commission ESXi hosts for the workload domain.
Post-deployment configuration	Replace certificates for the SDDC components of the workload domain.	Join the management domain vCenter Server and ESXi hosts to Active Directory. Configure Active Directory as an identity management provider for the workload domain. Configure the vSAN gateway as vSphere HA isolation address. Group components of the workload domain in folders. Integrate NSX-T Data Center instance for the workload domain with the region-specific Workspace ONE Access instance.
Implementation of Availability Zone 2	Configure vSAN stretched cluster for Availability Zone 2.	Deploy and configure the vSAN witness host. Install and configure ESXi hosts for Availability Zone 2. Create a network pool and commission ESXi hosts for Availability Zone 2. Configure vSphere availability for the workload domain. Add components of the workload domain to the primary availability zone VM group. Reconfigure the NSX-T Data Center instance to provide failover of the components of the workload domain.

Update History

This Deployment of a Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain in the First Region is updated with each release of the product or when necessary.


Revision	Description
04 JUN 2021	Updated the Configure vSAN Stretched Cluster for Availability Zone 2 for the Workload Domain in Region A procedure.
15 APR 2021	Fixed the size of the NSX-T Edge nodes to large in the JSON specification in the Create an NSX-T Edge Cluster by using SDDC Manager for the Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain in Region A procedure.
09 FEB 2021	Initial release.