Deploying a vSAN 8.0 Witness Appliance for Stretched and Two-Node Clusters

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

VMware vSAN stretched clusters and two-node clusters require a witness host.
Instead of dedicating a physical ESXi host, administrators can deploy a preconfigured vSAN Witness Appliance.
This article outlines the steps to download, deploy, and configure the vSAN Witness Appliance.

Environment

VMware vSAN 8

Cause

Not applicable for a deployment or configuration guide.

Resolution

 

1. Download the vSAN Witness Appliance OVA from the Broadcom Support Portal. Ensure that the correct appliance version is downloaded to match your cluster architecture (vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) or Original Storage Architecture (OSA)).
2. Deploy the OVA to a host or cluster using the vSphere Client. The witness appliance must be deployed to a datastore separate from the vSAN stretched cluster datastore.
3. Power on the witness appliance and open the virtual machine console to access the Direct Console User Interface (DCUI).
4. Configure the Management Network via the DCUI if needed:

• Press F2 to customize the system and navigate to the Network Adapters page. Verify at least one vmnic is selected for transport.
• Navigate to IPv4 Configuration, change the setting to static, and enter the IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway.
• Navigate to DNS Configuration and enter the primary DNS server, alternate DNS server, and Hostname.

5. Set up the vSAN Network on the Witness Appliance:

• Right-click the witness appliance virtual machine in the vSphere Client and select Edit Settings.
• On the Virtual Hardware tab, expand the second Network adapter.
• Select the dedicated vSAN port group from the drop-down menu and click OK.

6. Add the newly deployed vSAN Witness Appliance to the vCenter Server inventory as a standalone ESXi host.
7. Configure the vSAN VMkernel interface on the host to ensure witness traffic can communicate with the data sites.
8. Follow the "Manually Configure vSAN Stretched Cluster" to config Fault Domains and Witness host:
   https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsan/vsan/8-0/planning-and-deployment/working-with-virtual-san-stretched-cluster/configuring-vsan-stretched-cluster.html