Skip to main content
Version: 3.5

Install Portworx on VMware vSphere

You can install Portworx Enterprise on a VMware vSphere environment using either a custom Kubernetes manifest or Helm chart, based on your infrastructure requirement. Portworx Enterprise supports clusters running on major cloud service providers and on-premises data centers in both air-gapped and connected environments. The installation process includes preparing the environment, configuring the Kubernetes cluster, and deploying Portworx with a generated specification.

The following diagram gives an overview of the Portworx architecture on vSphere using shared datastores.

  • Portworx runs on each Kubernetes minion/worker.
  • Based on the given spec by the end user, Portworx on each node will create its disk on the configured shared datastores or datastore clusters.
  • Portworx will aggregate all of the disks and form a single storage cluster. End users can carve PVCs (Persistent Volume Claims), PVs (Persistent Volumes) and Snapshots from this storage cluster.
  • Portworx tracks and manages the disks that it creates. In a failure event, if a new VM spins up, Portworx on the new VM will be able to attach to the same disk that was previously created by the node on the failed VM.

![Portworx architecture for TKGI on vSphere using shared datastores or datastore clusters][/img/3-5/pks-vsphere-shared.png)

Prerequisites​

In addition to the System Requirements, ensure that your VMware vSphere cluster meets the following requirements before installing Portworx Enterprise:

  • Use one of the following disk types:
    • eagerzeroedthick
    • lazyzeroedthick
    • thin
  • Allocate a dedicated disk for KVDB (internal or external) on at least three nodes. Each disk must have a unique device name across all KVDB nodes. For more information, see KVDB for Portworx.
  • Any underlying nodes used for Portworx in OCP have Secure Boot disabled.
  • For air-gapped installation, your OpenShift cluster must temporarily have its internal registry reachable externally to the cluster using the procedure here.
  • For air-gapped installation, you must have a Linux host with internet access that has either Podman or Docker installed.
  • For VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition (TKGI), enable Workload Management according to VMware documentation.

Installation Options for Portworx Enterprise on VMware vSphere Clusters​

To install Portworx Enterprise on a VMware vSphere cluster, see the following topics:

Best practices​

Prevent Accidental Deletion: If your virtualization software has a feature to prevent accidental deletion, you should enable it for the VMs hosting PX nodes. While PX is designed to handle the loss of some nodes without issue, losing a significant number of storage nodes due to VM deletion can result in a loss of quorum and an outage. For more information on how to prevent accidental deletion of VM, refer to Maintaining Health of vSphere Cluster Services.

Last updated on