Using UCP Expansion for UCP hyperconverged (HC) virtualized solution on a new cluster

Supported configurations

Unsupported configurations

Basic Information

1. In a web browser, log on to UCP Advisor.
2. Click Settings > UCP Expansion.
   
   
   
   
3. For Select Solution Type, select UCP HC VMware virtualization.
4. For the Search By option:
   • Select IPv4 Address if UCP Advisor and the compute nodes are in different subnets, and then for the IPv4 Address Range, enter the IPv4 address range for the compute nodes that you want to discover.
   • Select IPv6 Address if UCP Advisor and the compute nodes are in the same subnet. You can also select this option to discover the compute nodes on a remote network by providing the external gateway VM IPv4 address.
     Note: You can onboard the discovered compute nodes to only those UCP systems that have the same external gateway VM IPv4 address configured or the Spare Pool.
5. For the UCP Advisor Gateway IPv4 address, select the IPv4 address of the UCP Advisor VM or select the external gateway VM IPv4 address from the list.

   Select Enter new IP Address to manually enter the gateway IPv4 address that you want to use for UCP Expansion configuration.

6. (Optional) Enter the BMC username and password. The BMC credentials must be the same for all the compute nodes that you want to configure.
7. (Optional) Enter the ESXi username and password. The ESXi credentials must be the same for all the compute nodes that you want to configure.
8. Click Next.
9. Enter the vCenter information:

   vCenter Address

   Enter the vCenter IPv4 or the FQDN address.

   The vCenter version must be either at the same or higher level of operating system as the compute nodes that you want to add. You cannot add compute nodes that are at a higher level of operating system than the version used by vCenter.

   Username and Password

   Enter the vCenter username and password.

10. Click Next to begin autodiscovery of the available and supported compute nodes. his might take several minutes according to the number of nodes.

Node Autodiscovery

1. Select the compute nodes that you want to add to the cluster.
   Note:

   • You must select a minimum of three nodes for a vSAN cluster configuration.
   • You must select compute nodes that are of the same model type. For example, you can select any number of DS120 nodes; however, you cannot select a combination of DS120 nodes and DS220 nodes in a single operation.
   • Verify that the selected compute nodes have an operating system installed.
   • Compute nodes that are already assigned to a UCP system are not discovered during autodiscovery.
   • The compute nodes that you want to configure are not part of the vCenter.
   
   
   
   
   
   Note: If the compute nodes are listed with SOL errors, reset the BMC/iLO and clear any active IPMI sessions from the BMC/iLO console.
2. Select one of the following options:
   • Click Configure New Cluster to create a new cluster and add the selected nodes to the new cluster.
   • Click Configure Devices to skip the vCenter cluster configuration and configure IPv4, BMC, and ESXi on the selected nodes, and then onboard them to a UCP system or Spare Pool.
   • Click Rediscover if all the compute nodes are not discovered or if the nodes are displayed with a warning message. Rectify the warning, and then rediscover the nodes.
   • Click Back to restart the UCP Expansion configuration.

IPv4 Assignment

1. Select an option to assign IPv4 for the BMC.
   • Select the Server power on/up order option, enter Continue, and then click Submit to assign a sequence of IPv4 addresses to the selected compute nodes.
     Note: The compute nodes are first powered off. You must physically power on the compute nodes in a bottom-up sequence in the physical rack for the IPv4 assignment to succeed.
     
     
     
     
     

     
     

     
     
     
   • Select Manually Assign to manually assign IPv4 addresses for the selected compute nodes.

BMC Configuration

You can skip this step if the BMC is already configured on all the selected compute nodes.

1. Click Configure BMC.
   
   
   
   
2. Enter the following network settings. When done, click Next, review the summary, and then click Configure.

   IPv4 Address Range

   Enter the IPv4 address range for the selected compute nodes. You can also enter individual IPv4 addresses separated by a comma.

   Default Gateway

   Enter the default gateway address for the BMC.

   Subnet Mask

   Enter the subnet mask IPv4 address for the BMC.

   VLAN ID

   (Optional) Enter the VLAN ID for the BMC.

   Note: You must enter the VLAN ID if you have configured it. If you enter an incorrect VLAN ID, the BMC will not be configured.

   NTP

   (Optional) Enter the NTP server IPv4 address for the BMC.

   BMC Admin User New Password

   Enter the BMC admin user password.

   BMC Admin User Confirm Password

   Confirm the BMC admin user password.

3. Click Next to continue, or click Quit to skip the next steps and complete UCP expansion.
   Note: If BMC configuration fails, restart UCP Expansion. You cannot skip BMC configuration at this stage of UCP Expansion.

ESXi Configuration

You can skip this step if ESXi is already configured on all the selected compute nodes and if all the compute nodes are reachable.

1. Click Configure ESXi.
   
   
   
   
2. Enter the following ESXi settings. When done, click Next, review the summary, and then click Configure.

   IPv4 Address Range

   Enter the IPv4 address range for the selected compute nodes. You can also enter individual IPv4 addresses separated by a comma.

   Default Gateway

   Enter the default gateway address for the ESXi server.

   Subnet Mask

   Enter the subnet mask IPv4 address for the ESXi server.

   NTP

   (Optional) Enter the NTP server IPv4 address for the ESXi server.

   DNS

   Enter the DNS IPv4 address.

   VLAN ID

   Enter the VLAN ID for the ESXi server.

   Note: You must enter the VLAN ID if you have configured it. If you enter an incorrect VLAN ID, the ESXi will not be configured.

   ESXi New Password

   Enter a new ESXi password for the root user.

   ESXi Confirm Password

   Confirm the ESXi root user password.

3. Click Next to continue, or click Quit to skip the next steps and complete UCP expansion.
   Note: If ESXi configuration fails, restart UCP Expansion. You cannot skip ESXi configuration at this stage of UCP Expansion.

vCenter Cluster Configuration

1. Enter the following vCenter settings:
   • Datacenter Details

     Datacenter Name

     Enter a name for the new datacenter.

     Cluster Name

     Enter a name for the new cluster.

     vSphere DRS

     Enable the Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) option.

     vSphere HA

     Enable the High Availability (HA) option.

   • Distributed Switch Configuration

     VDS Name

     Enter a name for the dvSwitch.

     Max MTU

     Enter the maximum MTU value for the dvSwitch.

   • Management Portgroup Configuration

     Portgroup Name

     Enter the management port group name.

     VLAN ID

     Enter the VLAN ID for the management port group.

     Note: You must enter the VLAN ID if you have configured it. If you enter an incorrect VLAN ID, the management portgroup will not be configured.

   • vMotion Portgroup Configuration

     Portgroup Name

     Enter a name for the vMotion port group.

     IPv4 Address Range

     Enter the IPv4 address range for the selected compute nodes. You can also enter individual IPv4 addresses separated by a comma.

     Default Gateway

     Enter the default gateway IPv4 address for the vMotion port group.

     Subnet Mask

     Enter the subnet mask IPv4 address for the vMotion port group.

     VLAN ID

     Enter the VLAN ID for the vMotion port group.

     Note: You must enter the VLAN ID if you have configured it. If you enter an incorrect VLAN ID, the vMotion portgroup will not be configured.

     Max MTU

     Enter the maximum MTU value for the vMotion port group.

   • vSAN Portgroup Configuration

     Portgroup Name

     Enter a name for the vSAN port group.

     IPv4 Address Range

     Enter the IPv4 address for the vSAN port group for all the selected compute nodes.

     Default Gateway

     Enter the default gateway IPv4 address for the vSAN port group.

     Subnet Mask

     Enter the subnet mask IPv4 address for the vSAN port group.

     VLAN ID

     Enter the VLAN ID for the vSAN port group.

     Note: You must enter the VLAN ID if you have configured it. If you enter an incorrect VLAN ID, the vSAN portgroup will not be configured.

   • License Key

     ESXi License Key

     (Optional) Enter the ESXi license key.

2. Click Next, review the settings, and then click Submit to configure vCenter cluster.
   
   
   
   
3. Click Next to continue, or click Quit to skip the next steps and to complete UCP expansion without onboarding the compute devices.

Onboard Compute Devices

1. Onboard the discovered compute nodes.
   
   
   
   
   • Click Onboard Devices, select the UCP system where you want to onboard the compute nodes, and then click Onboard.
     Note: You can onboard the compute nodes to a UCP system or to the Spare Pool.
     
     
     
     
     

     Click Finish to complete the UCP expansion.

     
     
     
     
     
     Note: If onboarding fails for a compute node, verify that the BMC and the ESXi for that compute node is reachable, and then retry onboarding.
   • Click Skip to skip onboarding the compute nodes and complete UCP expansion.
   • Click Export as CSV to download the compute node details as a CSV file. You can later use this file to onboard the compute nodes to your UCP systems.

Complete UCP Expansion

After completing the UCP expansion:

• Click UCP Expansion Log to download the log report and troubleshoot any issues.
  Note: You can also view the UCP expansion logs in the day0 folder of the UCP Advisor log bundle.
• Click UCP Expansion Report to download the UCP expansion configuration report.