VMware Cloud Foundation 

Host Commissioning

Welcome to this demonstration on commissioning hosts in VMware Cloud Foundation. 

Cloud Foundation automates the provisioning and lifecycle of physical infrastructure in the private cloud.  Prior to allocating new servers to workload domains, servers must be added to the Cloud Foundation inventory, a process referred to as Host Commissioning.  Hosts can be commissioned individually, or in bulk. 

In this demonstration we will show the steps to add new servers to the Cloud Foundation inventory using the Individual method and the bulk method.

Adding Hosts Individually

We begin at SDDC Manager Dashboard.  The dashboard shows that we currently have four all-flash hosts.  The existing 4 hosts have been allocated to the Management Domain.  Let’s add three new servers.

• Click [Hosts] under the Inventory menu

The Hosts view shows a summary of the hosts in our configuration.  Here we see the details of the four existing hosts.

• Click [Unassigned Hosts]

The Unassigned Hosts view confirms there are no unassigned hosts.  Let’s add hosts “esxi-5.vcf.sddc.lab,” “esxi-6.vcf.sddc.lab” and “esxi-7.vcf.sddc.lab" to the inventory.

• Click [Commission Hosts]

Prior to adding new servers several prerequisites must be met.  These include, for example, installing ESXi, enabling SSH, and removing existing disk partitions.  The checklist provides a summary of the pre-requisites. 

• Click [Scroll bar]

• Click [Select All] to confirm the prerequisites have been meet.

• Click [Proceed]

At the Host Addition and Validation page we see the “Add New” option is selected by default.  This option is used to add individual hosts. 

• Click [To enter the host details]

Start by entering the fully qualified domain name for host “esxi-5.vcf.sddc.lab.

Cloud Foundation supports vSAN, NFS and Fiber Channel storage.  In this demo we are using vSAN ReadyNodes.  Select vSAN as the storage type.

Specify the network pool that will be used for this host.  Select the prod-networkpool

Finally, we provide the root user credentials for the host.

• Click [Add]

The host is added to the validation list.  We will now repeat these steps to add our second host.

• Click [Scroll bar] to go back to the top

• Click [To enter the host details]

Enter the fully qualified domain name for host “esxi-6.vcf.sddc.lab.

Select vSAN as the storage type.

Select the prod-networkpool

Enter the root user credentials for the host.

• Click [Add]

The second host is added to the validation list.  We will now repeat these steps to add our third host.

• Click [Scroll bar] to go back to the top

• Click [To enter the host details] 

Enter the fully qualified domain name for host “esxi-7.vcf.sddc.lab.

Select vSAN as the storage type.

Select the prod-networkpool

Enter the root user credentials for the host.

• Click [Add]

• Click [Scroll bar] to view all 3 hosts 

Adding Groups of Hosts

When commissioning many hosts at one time, you can use a JSON file in lieu of having to enter the details for each host individually.  Let’s use a JSON file to add five more hosts to our inventory.

To add a group of hosts using a JSON file:

• Click [Import]

With the JSON file in place, we upload it to the SDDC Manager.

• Click [Browse] and navigate to the location of the JSON file.

• Click [The JSON file] 

• Click [Open]

• Click [Upload]

Now all eight hosts esxi-5, esxi-6 and esxi-7 together with esxi-8 to esxi-12 are listed.  The next step is to validate the hosts. 

• Click [the checkbox next to FQDN] to select all hosts

• Click [Confirm Fingerprint] to confirm the host fingerprints

• Click [Scroll bar] to check all the hosts are added

• Click [Scroll bar] back to the top

• Click [Validate All]

The validation confirms the hosts are accessible and that the prerequisites have been met.  If there are any issues an error will be displayed.  Note the green bar indicating that both hosts validated successfully.

• Click [Next]

• Click [Scroll bar] to view all the hosts

We are able to review the list of hosts being commissioned.

• Click [Commission]

The SDDC Manager initiates a workflow to automate the tasks of adding the hosts to the Cloud Foundation Inventory.    The time it will take to complete the workflow will vary based on the number of hosts being added.  Typically, the commissioning hosts workflow takes 2 – 3 minutes to complete for an individual host. It may take longer if adding many hosts. 

• Click the workflow [Commissioning hosts esxi...]

• Click [Expansion Arrow] to see the subtasks that are being performed.  Here we see that all the subtasks have completed successfully.

• Click [Refresh]

• Click [X] to close the tasks pane

• Click [Scroll bar] to view all eight hosts which have now been added into the Inventory.  The new hosts have an “unassigned” state indicating they are available to be used when creating and extending domains.

In this demo we saw how easy it is to add new hosts to the Cloud Foundation inventory.  Once hosts are added they are available for creating and extending domains.

For more Cloud Foundation demos visit the Cloud Foundation Resource Center at vmware.com/go/vcfrc 

For more information on VMware Cloud Foundation, visit our website at vmware.com/go/cloudfoundation.