Creating a VMware Engine private cloud
A private cloud is an isolated VMware stack that consists of ESXi hosts, vCenter, vSAN, NSX-T, and HCX. You manage private clouds through the Google Cloud VMware Engine portal. When you create a private cloud, you get a single vSphere cluster and all the management VMs that are created in that cluster.
VMware Engine deploys management components in the network that you select for vSphere/vSAN subnets. The network IP address range is divided into different subnets during the deployment.
Before you begin
The steps in this document assume that you first do the following:
- Allocate a unique IP address range for vSphere/vSAN subnets of the private
cloud you want to create.
- Minimum CIDR range prefix: /24
- Maximum CIDR range prefix: /21
- If you want global address resolution using Cloud DNS, then enable the Cloud DNS API and complete Cloud DNS setup before you create your private cloud.
The vSphere/vSAN subnet address space must not overlap with any network that will communicate with the private cloud, such as on-premises networks and Google Cloud Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) networks. For more information about vSphere or vSAN subnets, see VLANs and subnets on VMware Engine.
Create a private cloud
- Access the Google Cloud VMware Engine portal
- On the Resources page, click Create private cloud.
- Select a location for your private cloud.
- Select the number of nodes for the private cloud. For production workloads, create your private cloud with at least 3 nodes. VMware Engine deletes private clouds that contain only 1 node after 60 days.
- Optional: Click the Customize Cores toggle if you want to reduce the number of available cores for each node in the management cluster. For details, see Custom core counts.
- Enter a CIDR range for the VMware management network. For information about restrictions on this range, see the Before you begin section.
- Enter a CIDR range for the HCX deployment network, which is used for deploying HCX components. Make sure that the CIDR range doesn't overlap with any of your on-premises or cloud subnets. The CIDR range must be /27 or higher.
- Select Review and Create.
- Review the settings. To change any settings, click Back.
- Click Create to begin provisioning the private cloud.
As VMware Engine creates your new private cloud, it deploys a number of VMware components and divides the provided IP address range into subnets. Private cloud creation can take 30 minutes to 2 hours. After the provisioning is complete, you receive an email.