vCenter installation on a Dell VRTX

[bkaplun]

Hello,

Probably a simple question with a simple answer here.

I have a Dell VRTX with two M630 blades. I have ESXi 6.5 installed on both blades and shared storage in the VRTX chassis ready to be presented to the ESX hosts. However, Dell recommends that the VRTX shared storage not be presented to multiple blades until the systems running on those blades have been properly clustered. This means that I'd ideally get vCenter running and my ESX hosts clustered prior to configuring shared storage - but I want my vCenter server running as a VM on shared storage to take advantage of the associated benefits. So naturally, the question is -

Where do I install vCenter and in what order should I do things? Should I create the vCenter VM using local storage on one of the ESX hosts, cluster the hosts, present the VRTX shared storage to the hosts, and then move the VM from local storage to shared storage? Or how should I approach this?

Thanks.

[rcporto]

You can present your storage area to both hosts without problem, even without create the cluster of ESXi hosts through the vCenter, since the VMFS it self is a clustered file system.

[mikejroberts · Accepted solution]

I just built my VRTX, which also has two M630 blades.  I presented the shared storage to one host and then built my vCenter VM (on the shared storage) then I presented it to the other host.  There were no problems and I doubt you would have any problems either way you do it.

[bkaplun]

Thanks guys - got things up and running.

[Yochanan7]

Regarding a VRTX system and Vsphere 7 should I use "manage all hosts with a single image" option?