Add a Cluster to a Workload Domain with NSX for vSphere

By using the VMware Cloud Foundation API, you can create an example cluster of hosts, each having four physical NICs. You can distribute these NICs to multiple vSphere Distributed Switch instances.

For traffic separation, two vSphere Distributed Switches handle the traffic in the example cluster - one for system traffic and overlay traffic and one for external traffic. You assign a pair of physical NICs to each switch.

Table 1. Example Workload Domain Cluster Specification

Component	Value
SDDC Manager FQDN	sddc-manager.vrack.vsphere.local
Number of hosts	3
Number of physical NICs per host	4
vSphere Distributed Switch instances	w01-c02-vds01 w01-c02-vds02
vmnic per vSphere Distributed Switch configuration	vmnic0, vmnic 1 - w01-c02-vds01 vmnic2, vmnic 3 - w01-c02-vds02
Distributed port groups	w01-c02-vds01 w01-c02-vds01-management w01-c02-vds01-vmotion w01-c02-vds01-vsan w01-c02-vds02 w01-c02-vds01-ext
NIC teaming policy	Route based on physical NIC load (default one)
vSphere Distributed Switch for VXLAN	w01-c02-vds01
Storage type	vSAN

Procedure

1. Send a query for unassigned hosts to SDDC Manager by using this request.

   GET https://sddc-manager.vrack.vsphere.local/v1/hosts?status=UNASSIGNED_USEABLE HTTP/1.1
   Authorization:Basic admin REST API admin password

2. In the response, locate the fqdn parameter for the target hosts.
3. Write down the GUID of each host object for the cluster from the id field.
4. Send a query for workload domains to SDDC Manager by using this request.

   GET https://sddc-manager.vrack.vsphere.local/inventory/domains HTTP/1.1
   Authorization: Basic admin REST API admin password

5. In the response, locate the name parameter for the target workload domain
6. Write down the GUID of the workload domain from the id property.
7. Prepare a cluster specification in JSON format according to the requirements of your environment and send it for validation to SDDC Manager.
   Most of the parameters are self-explanatory.

   Parameter	Value
   domainId	GUID from Step 6.
   computeSpec.clusterSpecs.hostSpecs.id	GUIDs from Step 3.
   computeSpec.clusterSpecs.hostSpecs.hostNetworkSpec.vmNics.id	Physical NIC to use, for example, vmnic0.

   POST https://sddc-manager.vrack.vsphere.local/v1/domains/validations/creations HTTP/1.1
   Authorization:Basic admin REST API admin password
   Content-Type:application/json
   {
     "nsxVClusterSpec": {
       "vdsNameForVxlanConfig": "w01-c02-vds02",
       "vlanId": 0
     },
     "hostSpecs": {
       "hostSystemSpec": [
         {
           "license": "AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA",
           "id": "c2398611-23cd-4b94-b2e3-9d84848b73cb",
           "vmnicToVdsNameMap": {
                "vmnic0": "w01-c02-vds01",
                "vmnic1": "w01-c02-vds01",
                "vmnic2": "w01-c02-vds02",
                "vmnic3": "w01-c02-vds02"
               }
         },
         {
           "license": "AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA",
           "id": "8dbe7dcb-f409-4ccd-984b-711e70e9e767",
           "vmnicToVdsNameMap": {
                "vmnic0": "w01-c02-vds01",
                "vmnic1": "w01-c02-vds01",
                "vmnic2": "w01-c02-vds02",
                "vmnic3": "w01-c02-vds02"
               }
         },
         {
           "license": "AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA",
           "id": "e9ba66e0-4670-4973-bdb1-bc05702ca91a",
           "vmnicToVdsNameMap": {
                "vmnic0": "w01-c02-vds01",
                "vmnic1": "w01-c02-vds01",
                "vmnic2": "w01-c02-vds02",
                "vmnic3": "w01-c02-vds02"
               }
         }
       ]
     },
     "clusterName": "c02",
     "highAvailabilitySpec": {
       "enabled": true
     },
     "domainId": "983840c1-fa13-4edd-b3cb-907a95c29652",
     "datastoreSpec": {
       "vsanDatastoreSpec": {
         "license": "BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB-BBBBB",
         "ftt": 1,
         "name": "w01-c02-vsan01"
       }
     },
     "vdsSpec": [
       {
         "name": "w01-c02-vds01",
         "portGroupSpec": [
           {
             "name": "w01-c02-vds01-management",
             "transportType": "MANAGEMENT"
           },
           {
             "name": "w01-c02-vds01-vmotion",
             "transportType": "VMOTION"
           },
           {
             "name": "w01-c02-vds01-vsan",
             "transportType": "VSAN"
           } 
         ] 
       },
       {
          "name": "w01-c02-vds02",
          "portGroupSpec": [
           {
             "name": "w01-c02-vds02-ext",
             "transportType": "PUBLIC"
           }
           ]
       }
     ]
   }
   

8. By using the JSON specification, add the cluster to the workload domain in VMware Cloud Foundation by sending this request.
   POST https://sddc-manager.vrack.vsphere.local/v1/clusters HTTP/1.1
   Authorization: Basic admin REST API admin password
   Content-Type: application/json

9. If the task fails, retry running it from the user interface of SDDC Manager.