vCenter Group creation in VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) environment

Products

• VMware vSphere Foundation

Issue/Introduction

With vCenter 9.0, ELM, which allows unified view and administration of multiple vCenter instances, is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. This Article provides the steps to recreate the existing Enhance Linked Mode (ELM) and create vCenter Group in vSphere Foundation (VVF) environment.

Environment

VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF)  9.x

Resolution

1. Take vCenter Powered off snapshots - Refer Snapshot Best practices for vCenter Server Virtual Machines
2. Follow the Break ELM steps outlined here - Deactivate Enhanced Link Mode from vCenter Using the cmsso-util break-elm Utililty
3. Configure Identity Providers on all the vCenters which are going to be part of vCenter Group.
   Note: IDP user permissions are not shared between vCenter systems and must be configured on each vCenter individually.
   Identity Providers and Protocols Supported for VCF Single Sign-On: Identity Providers and Protocols Supported for VCF Single Sign-On
4. Link vCenters in VCF Ops - Linking vCenter instances in VCF Operations

Additional Information

What is vCenter Enhanced Linked Mode