Deployment Guide

16 Dell EMC Networking Fibre Channel Deployment with S4148U-ON in F_port Mode | version 1.0
4.4 VMware preparation
4.4.1 VMware ESXi download and installation
Install VMware ESXi 6.5 U1 or later on each PowerEdge server. Dell EMC recommends using the latest Dell
EMC customized ESXi .iso image available on support.dell.com
. The correct drivers for the PowerEdge
server hardware are built into this image. This image is used to install ESXi via CD/DVD, a USB flash drive, or
by mounting the .iso image through the PowerEdge server’s iDRAC interface.
Each ESXi host has one 1GbE BASE-T interface connected to the OOB management network for
communication with the vCenter Server.
4.4.2 Install and configure VMware vCenter Server 6.5 U1
For information on the installation and configuration of vCenter Server, refer to vSphere Installation and
Setup. In this deployment, the vCenter Server communicates with ESXi hosts via the OOB management
network, and it may be located on any host accessible over this network.
4.4.3 Add ESXi hosts to vCenter Server
The vSphere Web Client is a service running on vCenter Server. In the vSphere Web Client, a data center
object named Datacenter is created for this deployment, and the two ESXi hosts are added to it.
A cluster named Rack1 is created and added to the datacenter object, and the two R640 hosts are added to
the cluster. When complete, the vSphere Web Client Hosts and Clusters tab in the Navigator pane appears
as shown in Figure 13.
Datacenter and cluster created with ESXi hosts