ESXi Host Physical Design
The following section discusses the physical design of the ESXi hosts in the environment.
ESXi Host Hardware Specifications
This section details the physical design specifications of the ESXi host. The configuration and assembly process for each system is standardized, with all components installed in the same manner on each host.
Standardizing the entire physical configuration of the ESXi hosts is critical to eliminating variability and providing a more manageable and supportable infrastructure. Consistent PCI card slot location, especially for network controllers, is essential for accurate alignment of physical to virtual I/O resources.
All ESXi host hardware, including CPUs, must be selected following guidance from the vSphere hardware compatibility lists, and the CPUs must be determined to be compatible with the vSphere compatibility guide. Hardware compatibility for ESXi is documented in the hardware compatibility guides, available on the VMware Web site (http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.)
The following table lists the specifications for the ESXi hosts.
Table 9. Physical Server Specification for the Management and Edge Cluster Designs
| Attribute | Specification |
|---|---|
| ESXi version | 6.0 |
| Vendor and model | HP DL380 G9 |
| Processor type | Intel Xeon E5-2687W v3 @ 3.10 GHz |
| Onboard NIC vendor and model | HP FlexFabric 10Gb 2-port 556FLR-SFP+ Adapter |
| Number and type of local drives | 4x Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) |
| System monitoring | unknown |
Table 10. Physical Server Specification for the Compute Cluster Design
| Attribute | Specification |
|---|---|
| ESXi version | 6.0 |
| Vendor and model | HP DL380 G9 |
| Processor type | Intel Xeon E5-2687W v3 @ 3.10 GHz |
| Onboard NIC vendor and model | HP FlexFabric 10Gb 2-port 556FLR-SFP+ Adapter |
| Number and type of local drives | 4x Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) |
| System monitoring | unknown |
ESXi Host Physical Design Decisions
The following table lists the ESXi host physical design decisions made for this architecture design.
Table 11. ESXi Host Physical Design Decisions
| Decision ID | Design Decision | Design Justification | Design Implication |
|---|---|---|---|
| For this design, <Customer> has made the following decisions listed in this table. | |||
| vSphere Auto Deploy will be used with stateful installations for the deployment of the hosts. | vSphere Auto Deploy enables the automation of ESXi Host installations and accelerates the deployment of multiple ESXi installations. Stateful installations provides a more secure deployment as it eliminates the dependency on the vSphere Auto Deploy service and its availability. In addition, stateful installations decrease network utilization instead when using another vSphere Auto Deploy option. | Additional services are required (DHCP/DNS/TFTP Server, IP Helper, Storage). These services will be provided by <Customer> |