23 | Dell EMC VxRail Appliance Operations Guide
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Managing a VxRail cluster using vCenter
vSphere Web Client is the primary management platform for virtual machines (VMs), ESXi hosts
and vSAN storage in a VxRail environment.
VxRail vCenter options
There are two approaches to deploying vCenter in a VxRail environment. You can use an
existing customer-deployed vCenter where the VxRail is managed as another cluster, or deploy
a dedicated vCenter by VxRail Manager during the VxRail initial setup.
VxRail Manager deployed vCenter
If the VxRail appliance is a standalone environment, then configuring a vCenter instance as part
of system initialization is the easiest approach. When the VxRail system is deployed, vCenter
server and the Platform Service Controller are deployed as a virtual machine. This vCenter is
internal to the VxRail system and can only manage the VxRail cluster on which it is deployed.
The VxRail software package includes the license for this vCenter instance. The license is only
used when VxRail Manager deploys it when the system is initialized. The license is non-
transferable, and cannot be used for any other purpose.
Figure 10. Each VxRail Cluster Managed by VxRail Manager deployed vCenter Server
Customer deployed vCenter
Multiple VxRail and non-VxRail clusters can be managed from an existing customer deployed
vCenter instance, providing a consolidated view of the virtualization environment. The vCenter
Server environment is hosted outside of the VxRail cluster. Each VxRail environment appears
within vCenter Server as a cluster of hosts configured with a vSAN datastore.
The vCenter Server must exist before deploying the VxRail Appliance and requires a separate
customer-provided license. The lifecycle management of the customer-supplied vCenter Server
is performed outside of the VxRail environment.
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