Create a vVols-based Workload Domain

How-Tos for VMware Solutions
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All of the previous steps come together in this section when we create our Workload Domain as this next procedure will showcase.

To get started, select Workload Domains from under the Inventory menu item and then click on + Workload Domain and VI-Workload Domains.

In the first window that spawns, select vVol from the available Storage Selections and then click on Begin.

Provide a descriptive Virtual Infrastructure and Organization Name. For our vVols-based Workload Domain we will later be using Workload Management, so we select the option to Enable vSphere Lifecycle Manager Baselines rather than using vSphere Lifecycle Manager and then click on Next.

Provide a Cluster Name for the Workload Domain and click on Next.

Input the vCenter FQDN. This should have already been added to your DNS server which can be confirmed when the IP address, subnet mask and gateway all auto-populate when the FQDN is correctly resolved. Provide the vCenter Root Password then click Next.

NSX-T Deployment parameters are provided in more detail below:

  1. Host Overlay (TEP) VLAN needs to be provided. This VLAN should have an available DHCP scope that the ESXi hosts can grab an IP address from. This is a critical piece for Workload Management/vSphere with Kubernetes to function properly and should also be routable to the Edge TEP network on a separate VLAN.
  2. Similar to vCenter, all NSX-T component FQDNs should be added to DNS and when the FQDNs are added the IP addresses associated with them should be automatically resolved.
  3. Provide a stong Admin Password for NSX-T.
  4. Click on Next to proceed.

    The vVol Storage section allow us to specify what array and protocol we wish to associate the Workload Domain vVol datastore to.

  5. Select the iSCSI protocol from the drop-down list.
  6. Select the name of the VASA Provider we entered in the first section of this KB article.
  7. Pick Vvol container as the Storage Container. Note that this is the only container option currently supported.
  8. Pick the FlashArray user account added during VASA registration
  9. Provide a descriptive Datastore Name for the vVol datastore that will be deployed with the Workload Domain
  10. Click the Next button to proceed.

    Hosts that match the vVol storage protocol (iSCSI in our example) will be shown as available to be used with the Workload Domain. Select at minimum 3 hosts and then click Next to proceed.

    Pick the licenses you wish to use for vSphere and NSX-T (page redacted to not show license info).

    Review the object names to be used with the Workload Domain deployment and click Next.

    Review the overall Workload Domain deployment specification and then click Finish to kick off the deployment process.

    Typical deployments can take around an hour to complete. Once the Workload Domain has been built, we can see it within SDDC Manager; we also see that it is indeed using the vVol storage option as shown here:

    Upon logging in to the Workload Domain vCenter instance, we can see that the correct FlashArray has been added as a Storage Provider.

    However, for failover and other performance considerations, we highly recommend registering the 2nd FlashArray controller as a Storage Provider as well. We will outline that procedure in the next section.