In Part 11 of the How To Setup VMware 8 Home Lab series we learnt to setup the VMware vCenter Appliance. In this twelfth part of the series we will learn to create VMware Inventory objects such as Datacenter, Clusters and add the ESXi servers to vCenter Server.
Connecting To The vCenter Server
Enter the URL for the vCenter Server in web browser (https://vcenter01.virtshinobi.local/ui) and enter the Single Sign On Administrator account credentials to login to the vCenter Server.
Create Datacenters
A virtual datacenter is the top level container and needs to be created first. It contains all the inventory objects required to complete a fully functional environment for operating virtual machines including clusters, resource pools, virtual machines etc. You can create multiple datacenters to organize sets of environments. For example, you might create a datacenter for each organizational unit in your enterprise or create some datacenters for high performance environments and others for less demanding virtual machines.
Note: Inventory objects can interact within a datacenter, but interaction across datacenters is limited. For example, you can hot migrate (vMotion) virtual machines from one host to another host in the same datacenter, but not from a host in one datacenter to a host in a different datacenter.
In the vSphere Web Client, right click the vCenter Server (vcenter01.virtshinobi.local) and select New Datacenter.
Enter the name for the datacenter (for example, Datacenter-01) and click OK.
Create Clusters
The next object we create inside the datacenter is the cluster. A cluster is a group of hosts. When a host is added to a cluster, the host’s resources become part of the cluster’s resources. The cluster manages the resources of all hosts within it. Clusters enable the vSphere High Availability (HA) and vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) solutions.
To create a cluster, right click the datacenter create earlier Datacenter-01, and select New Cluster.
Name the cluster as Cluster-01. We will not be enabling vSphere HA, DRS or vSAN features right now. I will be covering them in subsequent articles dedicated to each of these feature.
Select the checkbox for Manage all hosts in the cluster with the single image. With this option all hosts in the cluster inherit the same image, removing variability between the hosts. It also brings features like hardware compatibility checking, cluster-wide remediation and easier upgrades. Requires hosts running ESXi 7.0 and above and replaces baselines. Once this option is enabled, baselines cannot be used in the cluster.
Next Select Import image from a new host.
Also select the checkbox against Manage configurations at a cluster level.
Managing the configuration at the cluster level using vSphere Configuration Profiles, ensures that all hosts in the cluster have the same settings, and eliminates the need for configuring the hosts manually.
vSphere Configuration Profiles replaces Host profile. Once this option is enabled Host profiles cannot be attached to the cluster or any of its hosts. Enabling vSphere Configuration Profiles requires hosts to be at ESXi 8.0 or above.
Click Next to continue.
Enter the IP address for the ESXi host (ex, 10.100.1.23) and the root username and password. Click FIND HOST.
Click Yes to accept the self signed certificate security warning.
You will see the details of the image on the select ESXi host. Select the check box for Also move selected host to cluster to add the ESXi host to the cluster and click Next.
Review the details and click Finish to create the cluster cluster-01 and add ESXi host esxi01 to it.
Monitor the task where vCenter extracts the image from the ESXi hosts selected. Cluster is created and then the ESXi host is added to the cluster.
Add The Second ESXi Host To the Cluster
We will now add the second ESXi host to the cluster. Right click the cluster Cluster-01 and select Add Host.
Enter the IP address for the ESXi host (ex, 10.100.1.24) and the root username and password. Click ADD HOST.
Click Next to continue.
Select the host 10.100.1.24 and click OK to accept the self signed certificate security warning.
On the host summary page click Next to continue.
We have already imported the ESXi image when we created the cluster and added ESXi host esxi01 to it. Leave the option to Don’t import an image selected and click Next to continue.
On the review page click Finish to add the ESXi host to the cluster.
We can see the second ESXi host is also added to the cluster now.
