The Deployment of the Management Domain in the First Region documentation provides step-by-step instructions for installing and configuring the management domain based on VMware Validated Design, using the VMware Cloud Builder virtual appliance to automate the implementation.

The Deployment of the Management 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 the Management 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 the Management Domain in the First Region is compatible with VMware Cloud Foundation 4.2.

Required VMware Software

The Deployment of the Management Domain in the First Region documentation 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 the management 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.

To apply Deployment of Management Domain in the First Region, you must:

  • Complete the Planning and Preparation Workbook with your deployment options included.

  • Optionally, read Architecture and Design for the Management 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 Management Domain in the First Region

VMware Validated Design uses VMware Cloud Builder in VMware Cloud Foundation for automated deployment of the SDDC components for the management domain. You also use SDDC Manager in VMware Cloud Foundation for configuration and life cycle management of the SDDC components.

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 1. Automated and Manual Deployment and Configuration for the Management Domain
Operation Type By Using Automation Manual Configuration
Preparation for deployment -
  • Install and configure ESXi on the physical servers.
  • Prepare the Certificate Authority to enable SDDC Manager for certificate management.
  • Deploy VMware Cloud Builder.
Deployment Deploy the management domain by using VMware Cloud Builder. -
Post-deployment configuration Replace certificates in the SDDC by using SDDC Manager.
  • Join the management domain vCenter Server and ESXi hosts to Active Directory.
  • Configure the vSAN gateway as vSphere HA isolation address.
  • Configure Active Directory as an identity management provider for the SDDC.
  • Configure repository settings and federation for SDDC Manager.
  • Configure backups for NSX-T Data Center to an external SFTP server.
  • Implement the region-specific Workspace ONE Access instance.
Implementation of Availability Zone 2 Configure vSAN stretched cluster for Availability Zone 2 by using SDDC Manager.
  • 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 management domain.
  • Add components of the management domain to the primary availability zone VM group.
  • Reconfigure the NSX-T Data Center instance to provide failover of the components of the management domain.