vSAN Stretched Cluster Witness Install and Upgrade

Mar 14, 2023 | DellEMC, VMware, vSAN, vSphere, VxRail

Deploy the Witness ESXi OVA at the third site

Note:– The third site for the witness ESXi OVA to be deployed must be outside of the vSAN or VxRail Cluster.

Note:– The Witness ESXi OVA host can be deployed on ESXi host 6.0+(CPU must support 6.7 or later).

Note:– You must decide the sizing parameters of the witness: tiny (10 VMs or fewer), medium (up to 500VMs) or large (more than 500 VMs) as you will have to make this selection during the deployment of the witness OVA

  1. Download the latest VMware Virtual SAN Witness Appliance OVA file. The version of the OVA file must match the version of the ESXi Hosts in the VxRail cluster.
  2. Go to the Download VMware vSphere website
  3. Select the corresponding version from the Select Version: drop-down menu:
  4. Click the Drivers & Tools tab (For VxRail Versions 7.x, select 7.x.)
  5. Expand the VMware vSAN Tools, Plug-ins and Appliances option
  6. Click the Go to Downloads link corresponding to your vCenter Server version to download the VMware Virtual SAN Witness Appliance
  7. On the third site, deploy the witness ESXi OVA using the standard VMware procedure
  8. Select Deploy OVF Template and browse to the witness OVA file you downloaded

9. Give it a name

10. Select the datacenter and review details

11. Agree to the license agreements

11. Choose the configuration size

12. Select the storage

13. Assign the network to the Management Network and the Secondary Network and select the Deployment type

14. Set up the password, under VSAN Traffic select the secondary from the drop-down menu, enter the management network information, and enter the secondary network information (formally known as witnessPg now secondaryPg). Then click Finish

Add the Witness ESXi host to the vCenter Server

 

1. On the vCenter Server that manages the two data sites, create a new data center for the witness.

2. Use the Add Host wizard to add the Witness ESXi host to the Witness datacenter.

Deploy the Witness ESXi OVA at the third site

Note:– The third site for the witness ESXi OVA to be deployed must be outside of the vSAN or VxRail Cluster.

Note:– The Witness ESXi OVA host can be deployed on ESXi host 6.0+(CPU must support 6.7 or later).

Note:– You must decide the sizing parameters of the witness: tiny (10 VMs or fewer), medium (up to 500VMs) or large (more than 500 VMs) as you will have to make this selection during the deployment of the witness OVA

  1. Download the latest VMware Virtual SAN Witness Appliance OVA file. The version of the OVA file must match the version of the ESXi Hosts in the VxRail cluster.
  2. Go to the Download VMware vSphere website
  3. Select the corresponding version from the Select Version: drop-down menu:
  4. Click the Drivers & Tools tab (For VxRail Versions 7.x, select 7.x.)
  5. Expand the VMware vSAN Tools, Plug-ins and Appliances option
  6. Click the Go to Downloads link corresponding to your vCenter Server version to download the VMware Virtual SAN Witness Appliance
  7. On the third site, deploy the witness ESXi OVA using the standard VMware procedure
  8. Select Deploy OVF Template and browse to the witness OVA file you downloaded

9. Give it a name

10. Select the datacenter and review details

11. Agree to the license agreements

11. Choose the configuration size

12. Select the storage

13. Assign the network to the Management Network and the Secondary Network and select the Deployment type

14. Set up the password, under VSAN Traffic select the secondary from the drop-down menu, enter the management network information, and enter the secondary network information (formally known as witnessPg now secondaryPg). Then click Finish

Add the Witness ESXi host to the vCenter Server

 

1. On the vCenter Server that manages the two data sites, create a new data center for the witness.

2. Use the Add Host wizard to add the Witness ESXi host to the Witness datacenter.

Witness Node Upgrade

 

1. Download VxRail 7.0.372 Composite Upgrade Package for 7.0.x from dell.com/support or VMware website Product Patches – VMware Customer Connect and choose ESXi (Embedded and Installable) and your ESXi build (7.x) as well;

2. Extract the .zip file from Composite Upgrade or downloaded ZIP file and upload the ESXi Upgrade .zip to the ESXi Datastore:

3. Use the Host Client (https://esxi-ip/ui) and Datastore Browser to copy the ZIP to the datastore of your host

4. Connect to your ESXi host via SSH and check the installed version

5. Check if host in Maintenance Mode is and if not and place the host in the maintenance mode with the following command:

esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable=true

5. You can use the –dry-run option to preview the results of an installation or upgrade operation. A dry run of the installation or update procedure does not make any changes but reports the VIB-level operations that will be performed if you run the command without the –dry-run option.

esxcli software vib install --dry-run -d /vmfs/volumes/Datastore/DirectoryName/PatchName.zip

7. Install the upgrade with the following command:

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/Datastore/DirectoryName/PatchName.zip

8. As reboot is required now reboot your host with the following command:

reboot -f

9. Check the installed version

vmware -v

10. Disable the maintenance mode:

esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable=false