You configure Hybrid Linked Mode to link the vCenter Server instance on your VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC with your on-premises vCenter Single Sign-On domain.

Shared vCenter Single Sign-On Domain

When you link a vCenter Server instance on VMware Cloud on AWS to a workload domain where multiple vCenter Server instances are connected in Enhanced Linked Mode, all those instances are linked to the SDDC on VMware Cloud on AWS.

By using Hybrid Linked Mode, you can:

  • View and manage the inventories of both your on-premises and VMware Cloud on AWS data centers from a single vSphere Client interface by using your on-premises credentials.

  • Migrate workloads between your on-premises and VMware Cloud on AWS data centers.

  • Share tags and tag categories from your on-premises to your VMware Cloud on AWS vCenter Server instance.

Figure 1. Design of a Shared vCenter Single Sign-On Domain

VMware Cloud vCenter Server in Region C (VMC) connects to the existing shared vCenter Single Sign-On domain by using the vCenter Cloud Gateway appliance, which resides in Region A.

vCenter Cloud Gateway

To enable Hybrid Linked Mode, the vCenter Server instance on VMware Cloud on AWS must be able to communicate with all the on-premises vCenter Server instances in Region A and Region B. To exchange authentication and management functions between the VMware Cloud on AWS and the on-premises vCenter Server instances, you deploy a vCenter Cloud Gateway (VCG) appliance. For seamless authentication, you join the VCG appliance to the existing on-premises vCenter Single Sign-On domain. This configuration spans the vCenter Single Sign-On domain between both on-premises and VMware Cloud on AWS vCenter Server instances.

Provide the compute and storage resources for the operation of the vCenter Cloud Gateway appliance.

Table 1. Minimum Hardware Requirements for the vCenter Cloud Gateway Appliance
Hardware Minimum required
CPUs 8
Memory 24 GB
Storage 190 GB
Table 2. Design Decisions on the vCenter Cloud Gateway Deployment
Decision ID Design Decision Design Justification Design Implication

SDDC-VMC-VI-001

Deploy the vCenter Cloud Gateway appliance in the management cluster in Region A.

Managing separate vCenter Single Sign-On domains limits the capabilities of the hybrid cloud.

Additional on-premises resources are required for the appliance.

SDDC-VMC-VI-002

Deploy the vCenter Cloud Gateway on the management VLAN.

The vCenter Cloud Gateway does not support VXLAN.

If an outage occurs, you must deploy the appliance again. You cannot fail it over to the recovery region of the on-premises SDDC.