vSAN ESA Deployment: Override HCL Validation for Non-Certified Hardware

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer
• VMware Cloud Foundation

Issue/Introduction

• Using the VCF 9 Installer, previously, managing vSAN ESA clusters, such as creation, expansion, and stretching, required certified vSAN ESA disks.
• This limitation prevented users from evaluating vSAN ESA if their existing disks were not certified. The VCF installer strictly validates disk certification against the local HCL database, which may not recognize certain NVMe firmware/model strings even if the hardware is compatible.
  
  VSAN_ESA_HOST_NOT_HCL_COMPATIBLE error code, or the failure of the 'vSAN ESA Disks Eligibility' subtask.
  
  
• To address ESX Host vSAN HCL Compatibility, a new configurable property allows users to evaluate vSAN ESA features within the SDDC Manager workflow, even when using non-certified SSD disks.
  
  Logs in /var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/domainmanager.log show deviceOnHcl: false for disks.

This configurable property should be used only when the vSAN ESA disks are listed in the HCL JSON but cannot be programmatically verified as supported by the installer.

Environment

• VCF 5.2.2
• VCF 9.0.1
• VCF 9.0.2
• VCF 9.1.x

Cause

The VCF validation workflow strictly verifies storage devices against the local vSAN HCL database. Validation fails if SSD disks are not certified for vSAN ESA.

Resolution

To enable this feature:

VCF Cloud Builder Bringup (5.2.2)

1. SSH into the Cloud Builder as vcf user, then elevate to root with su.
   
   
2. Add the following property: "vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim=true" to /etc/vmware/vcf/bringup/application.properties
   
   
3. Restart the bringup service
   
   systemctl restart vcf-bringup

VCF Installer Bringup (9.0.0.0+)

1. SSH into the VCF Installer as vcf, then elevate to root with su.
   
   
2. Add the following property: "vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim=true" to /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties
   
   
3. Restart the domainmanager service.
   
   systemctl restart domainmanager

Host Commission.

1. SSH into the SDDC manager as vcf and then elevate to root with su.
   
   
2. Add the following property: "vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim=true" to /etc/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/application.properties
   
   
3. Restart the operationsmanager service
   
   systemctl restart operationsmanager

Create Domain/Cluster, Add Host, and Stretch Cluster

1. SSH into the SDDC manager as vcf and then elevate to root with su.
   
   
2. Add the following property: "vsan.esa.sddc.managed.disk.claim=true" to /etc/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/application.properties
   
   
3. Restart the domainmanager service.
   
   systemctl restart domainmanager

Additional Information

HCL compatibility check Failed