How To Create Datacenter In Vcenter 6

In my last post we finished our VMware VCSA 6.5 installation. Before I teach you how to add an ESXi host to VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 6.5, I will explain the difference between adding a host to a datacenter object and to a cluster object.

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Vladan Seget is an independent consultant, professional blogger, vExpert 2009-2021, VCAP-DCA/DCD and MCSA. He has been working for over 20 years as a system engineer.

The difference is straightforward. Let's say you have a production cluster of two hosts. This simple cluster is running out of memory and CPU resources, and you decide to add an additional host. You would first add the new host to the datacenter object, finish the configuration (networking and storage) and then, after configuring everything fully, you move this host to the cluster.

In our simple example here, we'll add a host that we have deployed and configured in one of our previous posts. This host does not have any special configuration just yet, but we still want to manage this host through our vCenter server and vSphere web client.

Open your vSphere web client and go to Home > Hosts and clusters.

Hosts and clusters view

Then right-click the MainDatacenter object and select Add Host.

Add host

This operation will start a new wizard.

Enter name and location

We are able to use IP addresses as well, but DNS is more convenient and more flexible. The next page invites us to enter a user name (root) and password that we created during the initial installation of the ESXi host.

Root password

Again, you'll have to accept the default security certificate. Just click Yes to continue connecting to the ESXi host. As you can see, our vCenter server appliance is running on that host.

VMs on the host

Next, we have the option to accept the default evaluation license or assign a new license to the host. Note that we can manage licenses through the vCenter user interface (UI) but do not have to worry about that now.

Assign a license

Lockdown mode is a mode which disables the option to log in directly to the host via the HTML5 host client (https://IP_of_host/ui ) or via the old Windows C++ (legacy) client.

Note that this is useful for environments where security really matters and where you want to lock down pretty much everything. In this, you would have only a single management access to the entire VMware infrastructure. Selecting the "strict" option allows only management through the vCenter server.

Lockdown mode

As we have not created any clusters within our datacenter, we don't need to specify where (to which cluster) to add this host.

Finalization

This is the final screen. Again, you can still go back to correct or change things before clicking the Finish button. We'll exit like this.

This is it. We have successfully configured VCSA 6.5 and added our first host. It's a good start.

Final screen

People who do not have much experience with VMware infrastructure or who manage only single hosts might be quite surprised by this (very rich) environment where we talk about datacenters, clusters and so on.

The management is part of VMware vSphere, as their licensing packaging focuses very closely around this. The least expensive "Essential" bundle is one where you can manage three hosts via one vCenter server. It is basically the cost of a single Microsoft Windows Server Essentials license.