Review your configuration summary and click . Once the deployment task completes, locate the new VM and Power On the appliance. Step 5: Post-Deployment Verification
The VMware vSAN Witness Appliance is a critical component for organizations implementing two-node vSAN clusters or Stretched Clusters. It functions as a neutral third party, maintaining cluster quorum and storing metadata to prevent "split-brain" scenarios without requiring a full ESXI host at the remote site.
For the latest downloads, always refer to the official Broadcom Support Portal . With the witness in place, your vSAN infrastructure is equipped to handle site failures gracefully.
Input network parameters (IP addresses, Subnet Masks, Gateway, and DNS) for both the Management and vSAN networks. 6. Finish and Power On download vsan witness appliance
Stretched clusters require a minimum of 10 Gbps between data sites, but the witness site only requires roughly 2 Mbps to 10 Mbps of bandwidth depending on your component count.
The phrase might seem like a simple file-fetching exercise, but it is the gateway to a resilient, high-availability ROBO solution. Without this small 400 MB OVA, your two-node vSAN cluster cannot achieve automatic failover. With it, you gain enterprise-grade redundancy at a fraction of the cost of a three-node cluster.
Do not store or run the Witness Appliance on the same physical vSAN cluster that it is actively monitoring. If that cluster fails, your witness fails with it. Review your configuration summary and click
: Click on the release version that matches your data nodes (e.g., 8.0, 7.0).
Once downloaded, the deployment is a standard OVF template process: Log in to your vCenter Server.
Dedicated to handling vSAN metadata traffic. This network must have connectivity to the vSAN data node networks. 5. Customize the Template Before finishing, fill out the deployment properties: Set a secure root password for the appliance. It functions as a neutral third party, maintaining
Select the version that matches your existing ESXi/vCenter infrastructure (e.g., vSAN 8.0) 1.2.3.
The vSAN Witness Appliance is a pre-configured virtual machine running an ESXi instance. It is distributed as an Open Virtualization Format (OVF) or Open Virtualization Appliance (OVA) file.
In the vSphere Client, right-click your datacenter or management folder, select Add Host , and enter the management IP of the Witness Appliance.
During deployment, you will be prompted to select a deployment size. Choose the option that matches your cluster scale: Deployment Size Max Two-Node Clusters Max Component Count Compute Requirements Storage Requirements 2 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM 15 GB (Thin) Normal More than 10 2 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM 350 GB (Thin) Large For specialized vSAN Max/ESA 4 vCPUs, 32 GB RAM 700 GB (Thin) Step 4: Step-by-Step Deployment Guide
This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know to locate, download, and deploy the correct vSAN Witness Appliance version for your infrastructure. What is the vSAN Witness Appliance?