How to: Manage VxRail Clusters

Abhishek Shukla
Jun 16, 2020
3 min read

The main component of VxRail HCI system software is VxRail Manager which is primary element for managing the VxRail components.

The user interface of VxRail has been integrated into the vSphere Client since VxRail version 4.7. The original VxRail Manager GUI is no longer available sepearately. The VxRail Manager remains a part of every VxRail configuration, though it no longer provides direct access to the web UI. Rather, the vSphere Client integration is now the sole way to interact and manage a VxRail configuration.

Let's go step by step:

This is vCenter home page and you can see the VxRail Plug-in is already installed.

and can be viewed via "Menu" button.

Click on "VxRail" to get Dashboard

Dasboard page will give you access to view

Whenever new host to be added to VxRail Cluster
System Health
Connect with support teams through chat, open a request and even download additional software, add-on and updates for VxRail Appliance
Configurable section to add to VxRail Community and Knowledge base

A walk-through with VxRail Clusters

The VxRail Cluster is set up while bring-up process for the nodes and the ESXi nodes are added. VxRail cluster is nothing but the cluster of vSAN enabled ESXi hosts. The Management of these hosts will be done by VxRail Manager.

Where to find : (Names can vary according to the set up)

> vCenter home> Menu > Hosts and Clusters > VxRail-Datacenter > VxRail-Virtual-VSAN- Clustrer

Breif about Summary of the cluster:

On the summary page of VxRail VSAN Cluster, you can check below sections by clicking drop down on each section

Related Objects : Data Centers
Cluster Consumers:
1. Resource Pools
2. vApps
3. Total Virtual Machines > How many are powered on and off
Custom Attributes
1. VxRail IP address
2. VxRail thumbprint
3. VxRail Version
VSAN overview : Gives information about VSAN capacity, VSAN health, VSAN performance
vSphere DRS
Tags
Cluster Resources : Number of Hosts with EVC mode information
Update Manager
1. Host Baseline compliance information
2. Host Firmware
3. Pre-check Remidiation state

How to Monitor the Hosts(Nodes) on VxRail

This section will provide the information about the existing appliances (ESXi nodes). Each node will have appliance ID associated

Where to find :

> Monitor > VxRail > Appliances

The basic information about cluster components will include:

Cluster ID
Last Time Stamp
Number of Chassis : total number of hosts whether added to cluster or not
Connected status
Health State
Operational state

You can scroll with the mouse over the nodes, it will be visible as highlighted

and when you click on the host, it will provide further basic information about the host

Also, provides basic operation related to the host management like

host details
shutdown
add disk
remove host from cluster.

How to add new host to the VxRail cluster

The VxRail cluster is not a generic cluster and there is a way to add the new node (ESXi). Lets go through how.

To view the existing hosts, select the VxRail Cluster

> Configure > VxRail > Hosts

To check how many total hosts are available in the chassis

> Monitor > VxRail > Appliances > Number of Chassis

To check how many host (s) is available to add to the cluster

> vcenter home > Menu > VxRail > VxRail Dashboard

New Hosts have been detected (In this example, one host)

When you click on "Add to Cluster" , it will take you to

> VxRail cluster > Configure > VxRail > Add VxRail Hosts

The node is available to be added into the VxRail cluster. Click on "Add host" to add new node and it will take you to the available nodes in the chassis. Select the check box you want to add and hit next

Fill up all the details like

username : administrator@vsphere.local
password : <vCenter login password>
Host IP address : fill up according to your environment
ESXi Credentials : fill up the root and password you want to set with management account
Verify the entries and click Validate