Note:

• This tutorial requires access to Oracle Cloud. To sign up for a free account, see Get started with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Free Tier.
• It uses example values for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure credentials, tenancy, and compartments. When completing your lab, substitute these values with ones specific to your cloud environment.

Get Started with Oracle Cloud VMware Solution

Introduction

Oracle Cloud VMware Solution seamlessly integrates VMware’s familiar cloud environment into your existing Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) tenancy. This customer-managed solution provides complete control over your cloud resources using the VMware tools you already know. Leverage Oracle Cloud VMware Solution to effortlessly migrate or extend your VMware-based workloads to the cloud, eliminating the need for application rearchitecting or operational overhauls.

Embark on this comprehensive tutorial to gain a thorough understanding of Oracle Cloud VMware Solution and create a Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) using the OCI Cloud Console. This series will guide you through the following key aspects.

• Essential Prerequisites for SDDC Creation.

• Create a Multi-Cluster Oracle Cloud VMware Solution SDDC.

• Establish Secure Access to Your Oracle Cloud VMware Solution SDDC Resources

Objectives

• Identify the essential prerequisites to create an Oracle Cloud VMware Solution Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC).

• Develop a comprehensive plan for deploying an SDDC using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Cloud Console.

Understand Prerequisites with Comprehensive Breakdown

To understand the prerequisites for creating an Oracle Cloud VMware Solution Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC), let’s break it down into four key areas.

• Service Overview: Gain a quick understanding of the Oracle Cloud VMware Solution service and its capabilities.

• Financial Considerations: Explore pricing models, billing considerations, and SDDC sizing strategies.

• Resource Planning: Plan for the appropriate compute, network, and storage resources required for your SDDC.

• OCI Permissions and Service Limits: Understand the necessary OCI permissions and service limits for SDDC creation.

By carefully considering these prerequisites, you will be well-equipped for a successful Oracle Cloud VMware Solution SDDC deployment.

Service Overview

• Global Reach: Oracle Cloud VMware Solution is available across all OCI regions, ensuring seamless support for your global business needs. Carefully select the OCI region and Availability Domain (AD) that aligns with your specific requirements.

• High Availability: Oracle Cloud VMware Solution employs a distributed architecture, with VMware components spread across different fault domains within the OCI region’s AD, ensuring high availability and resilience. For regions with multiple ADs, Oracle Cloud VMware Solution supports multi-AD SDDC deployments.

• Scalability: Oracle Cloud VMware Solution offers unparalleled scalability, allowing you to easily scale your SDDC up or down and in or out to meet your changing demands without any management overhead.

• Infrastructure Options: Oracle Cloud VMware Solution provides a wide range of infrastructure options to cater to your specific needs.

  • Compute: Choose from a variety of compute shapes powered by Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA processors, including dense, standard, and GPU options. Dense and GPU shapes feature onboard NVMe drives, while standard shapes leverage OCI Block Storage as primary storage.

    Note: The GPU shape is currently limited. Contact an Oracle representative to discuss how to integrate this shape with Oracle Cloud VMware Solution.

  • Network Flexibility: Oracle Cloud VMware Solution seamlessly integrates into your existing Virtual Cloud Network (VCN), providing minimal latency, top-notch security, and simplified management. With a multi-cluster SDDC, you can efficiently control the movement of workloads between clusters, ensuring compliance with licensing audits and optimizing resource utilization.

  • Storage: Oracle Cloud VMware Solution offers a diverse range of storage options, including support for OCI Block storage as primary datastore, vSAN with Dense shapes, and support for OCI File Storage and Object Storage.

• SDDC Types and Limits:

  • Multi-cluster SDDC offers exceptional scalability, supports up to 6 clusters for enhanced performance and flexibility. Refer to the blog to learn more about Multi-cluster SDDC.

  • Single-host SDDCs are confined to a single cluster with a single ESXi host, limiting their applicability to testing and short-term development scenarios. Single-host SDDCs cannot be upgraded to multi-cluster SDDCs and are only available with Dense shape compute.

• Cluster Types and Limits: An SDDC comprises two distinct cluster types, which are the Unified Management Cluster and Workload Clusters. The Unified Management Cluster, which serves as the central hub for VMware management tools and workload VMs, must be established as the first cluster within the SDDC. Additional clusters, designated as Workload Clusters, can be optionally added to cater to specific use cases and enhance scalability. Below is a table summarizing the scalability of clusters.

  Cluster Type	Shape	Minimum Hosts	Maximum Hosts
  Unified Management	Dense	3	64
  	Standard	3	32
  	GPU	3	*
  Workload	Dense	3	64
  	Standard	2	32
  	GPU	1	*

  Note:

  • The GPU shape is currently limited. Contact an Oracle representative to inquire about cluster maximum and availability.
  • If a cluster contains a mix of shapes, the maximum number of hosts in the cluster is the lowest maximum allowed among all the chosen shapes. For example, a cluster with dense and standard hosts has a maximum of 32 hosts because standard shapes have the lower maximum allowed among the two shapes.

  Based on the above information, a single SDDC can scale anywhere from 3 hosts (minimum for Unified Management Cluster) to a maximum of 384 hosts i.e., 64 (maximum hosts per Dense only cluster) * 6 (maximum clusters allowed in an SDDC).

Financial Considerations

• Billing and Pricing models:

  • Billing Commitment Period: Oracle Cloud VMware Solution offers flexible pricing options for customers to choose based on their billing needs. For more information, see Billing Options.

    If you are creating a Proof-of-Concept (POC), it is recommended to start with a shorter billing commitment and change to a longer commitment upon successful POC. Longer commitment terms can be very beneficial as they provide significant commitment-based savings. Oracle Cloud VMware Solution offers single-node SDDC, but these are solely for POC purposes and cannot be converted to a production SDDC.

  • Utilize the Oracle Cloud Cost Estimator and select Native VMware to understand your monthly charges.

• Sizing the SDDC: It is recommended to work with an Oracle Cloud Architect to determine the optimal compute shapes and sizes of the clusters within your SDDC, based on your compute and storage requirements. Sizing performed during the design phase is only to provide an estimate, this needs to be validated and updated based on the learnings from the implementation phase.

  • VMware Management resources: When sizing your Oracle Cloud VMware Solution SDDC, it is required to account for the resources allocated for the VMware management tools. Understand the resources provisioned for VMware management in the following table.

    VM Name	Purpose	CPUs	Provisioned Memory (GB)	Provisioned Storage (GB)
    vcenter	vCenter Server	8	28	914.19
    vCLS-VM 1	vSphere Cluster Services - VM 1	1	0.13	2
    vCLS-VM 2	vSphere Cluster Services - VM 2	1	0.13	2
    vCLS-VM 3	vSphere Cluster Services - VM 3	1	0.13	2
    nsxt-01	NSX Manager Node 1	6	24	300
    nsxt-02	NSX Manager Node 2	6	24	300
    nsxt-03	NSX Manager Node 3	6	24	300
    nsx-edge-01	NSX Edge VM 1	8	32	200
    nsx-edge-02	NSX Edge VM 2	8	32	200
    hcx-01	HCX Manager	4	12	65
    Total		49	176.39	2285.19

• Licensing: Oracle Cloud VMware Solution offers bundled licenses for vCenter, ESXi, NSX, and HCX, and Bring Your Own License (BYOL) is not supported for these products. However, customers can BYOL any other VMware products that are compatible with Oracle Cloud VMware Solution. Licensing for operating systems on workload VMs, as well as any applications or databases migrated to Oracle Cloud VMware Solution, may also support portability. Users should consult with the respective third-party vendors to confirm portability.

Resource planning

• Compute Options: Multi-cluster SDDCs allow you to mix various Compute shapes within the same SDDC to suit your specific needs. For example, you can configure your Unified Management Cluster with a dense shape, utilizing a vSAN datastore for virtual machines (VMs), while another cluster can be a standard shape, using OCI Block storage as a virtual machine file system (VMFS) datastore to expand your VMware environment. This flexibility ensures you can adapt your infrastructure to meet the demands of different workloads.

  Mixed Clusters: Oracle Cloud VMware Solution also supports mixed-shape clusters within the same processor family, offering enhanced flexibility and resource optimization. To deploy a mixed-shape cluster, users can simply add the supported mixed-shape host as part of the Add Host feature during the day-2 operation. Refer to the table below for a comprehensive list of supported mixes.

  Initial shape of the cluster	Shapes available during “Add host”
  BM.DenseIO2.52 (Intel X7)	BM.DenseIO2.52 (Intel X7), BM.Standard3.64 (Intel X9), BM.GPU.A10.4 (Intel X9)
  BM.DenseIO.E4.128 (AMD E4)	BM.DenseIO.E4.128 (AMD E4), BM.Standard.E4.128 (AMD E4)
  BM.GPU.A10.4 (Intel X9)	BM.Standard3.64 (Intel X9), BM.GPU.A10.4 (Intel X9)
  BM.Standard2.52 (Intel X7)	BM.Standard2.52 (Intel X7), BM.Standard3.64 (Intel X9), BM.GPU.A10.4 (Intel X9)
  BM.Standard3.64 (Intel X9)	BM.Standard3.64 (Intel X9), BM.GPU.A10.4 (Intel X9)
  BM.Standard.E4.128 (AMD E4)	BM.Standard.E4.128 (AMD E4)

• Network Planning:

  • Virtual Cloud Network (VCN): Oracle Cloud VMware Solution offers flexibility in deploying an SDDC by allowing users to either create a new virtual cloud network (VCN) or utilize an existing one. When determining the VCN size, consider the number of hosts and clusters, as well as any additional services planned for deployment within the same VCN. While an SDDC can theoretically accommodate up to 6 clusters and 384 hosts, you can initially plan your VCN CIDR to suit your current needs and expand it by adding new CIDR blocks later if necessary. For this tutorial, we will be utilizing an existing VCN with a CIDR block of 10.0.0.0/16.

    

  • SDDC Cluster CIDRs: The size of the Cluster CIDR block depends on the total number of hosts required in the Cluster. However, at least one /24 contiguous CIDR block is mandatory for provisioning a single multi-cluster SDDC. For more information, see Creating an SDDC.

    During the automated provisioning process, the Cluster CIDR block is divided into several network segments, including one private subnet and up to ten virtual LANs (VLANs). These segments ensure proper traffic segregation within the cluster. Therefore, it is crucial to consider potential future growth when selecting a Cluster CIDR, as expanding a VLAN CIDR range after deployment can be challenging.

    Note: The Cluster CIDR block requirements outlined above apply to each individual cluster within an SDDC. Allocate additional sets of CIDR blocks for each cluster, tailored to your unique cluster and host requirements.

  • SDDC Cluster Workload CIDR: This CIDR block is used as the DHCP range by the VMs on the NSX Workload segment. If users do not provide a CIDR range for their workloads, they can create NSX segments manually within NSX Manager after the SDDC deployment is complete. This value must be /30 or larger and must not overlap with the VCN CIDR block.

    Note: By default, all clusters within the SDDC share the same overlay segment, which simplifies management and reduces overhead. This approach utilizes a single set of NSX edge nodes, a tier-0 Gateways, and tier-1 Gateways for all clusters within the SDDC.

  • Connectivity to on-premises or VCN Peering:

    • When planning for CIDR ranges for VCN or Overlay Guest VMs, validate that the CIDR blocks do not overlap with on-premises CIDR or other VCNs in OCI. If the CIDR blocks overlap, you cannot establish peering or configure routes to on-premises.

    • Deployment of Dynamic Routing Gateway (DRG) is not covered in this tutorial series.

    • Configuration of FastConnect or VPN Connect to on-premises is not covered in this tutorial series.

• Storage Options: Oracle Cloud VMware Solution caters to your diverse storage needs with a comprehensive suite of options.

  • vSAN with Dense shapes: Equipped with onboard NVMe storage, these shapes seamlessly integrate with vSAN datastores, enabling storage scaling alongside host scaling.

  • OCI Block Storage: Leveraging OCI Block Storage, Oracle Cloud VMware Solution provides versatile storage options to address diverse workload demands. For standard shapes, OCI Block Storage serves as the primary storage solution, while for dense shapes, it assumes the role of secondary storage. This configuration enables independent storage scaling, effectively decoupling storage resources from CPU and memory considerations. Standard shapes offer a compelling advantage in terms of storage performance optimization. By tailoring OCI Block Storage to meet specific performance requirements, users can achieve performance levels significantly exceeding those achievable with vSAN using Dense shapes.

  • OCI File Storage and OCI Object Storage: These services address your varied file and Object Storage requirements, ensuring comprehensive data management capabilities.

OCI Permissions and Service Limits

• Permissions: The user must have appropriate privileges to deploy bare metal compute instances, and to create or update VCNs.

• SSH Key Pair: Oracle Cloud VMware Solution offers users full root-level privileges to all components of the VMware Solution. To be able to SSH into the ESXi hosts, users are required to create an SSH key pair and store it securely. This is required during the SDDC creation process. For more information, see Create a Key Pair.

• Tenancy Service Limits:

  • Oracle Cloud VMware Solution Service Limits: To deploy an SDDC, your tenancy must have available service limits to deploy the required VMware resources in the chosen AD. Submit a service request to increase the service limits to a minimum of ESXi Host count(3) and SDDC count(1) for the required region.

  • Compute Service Limits: Along with the SDDC and ESXi host count, it is important to make sure appropriate compute service limits are available in the tenancy such as core count and memory count for the required shape category.

  • Storage Service Limits: When deploying a Standard shape, validate that there are enough service limits for the Block Volume service such as Regional Volume Count and Regional Volume Size.

Next Steps

With the prerequisites firmly established, continue to create your Software-Defined Data Center within OCI. For comprehensive guidance, see Create a multi-cluster Oracle Cloud VMware Solution SDDC.

Related Links

• Oracle Cloud VMware Solution

• Supported Shapes for Oracle Cloud VMware Solution

• Oracle Cloud VMware Solution - Billing options

• Oracle Cloud VMware Solution Virtual LANs (VLANs)

• Oracle Cloud Cost Estimator

• OCI Service Limits

Acknowledgments

• Author - Praveen Kumar Pedda Vakkalam (Principal Solutions Architect)

More Learning Resources

Explore other labs on docs.oracle.com/learn or access more free learning content on the Oracle Learning YouTube channel. Additionally, visit education.oracle.com/learning-explorer to become an Oracle Learning Explorer.

For product documentation, visit Oracle Help Center.

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Get Started with Oracle Cloud VMware Solution

F81131-02

December 2023

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