How to Create vCenter Cluster with VMWare Workstation (Part 1): Lab Design

Read this guide to learn how to create a vCenter cluster with VMWare Workstation Pro 17 VMs as VMWare ESXi hosts. To make this an easy read, I have divided the guides into 5 parts.

This first part explains the lab setup.

Overview

VMWare Workstation Pro 17 supports nested virtualization which allows you to turn a VM into VMWare ESXi hosts. I’m using this feature in this article to build a vCenter Cluster using two virtual machines.

The setup described in this article is for lab or test purposes. It is not recommended to install VMWare ESXi hosts on VMWare Workstation in a production environment.

I’m building this lab as part of my lab for my article series on migrating VMWare VMs to Hyper-V using System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM).

If you intend to follow the steps in this 8-part series, use the steps below to plan your lab setup.

Step 1: Plan the Lab Hardware Configuration

To help you set up this lab, my VMWare Workstation Pro 17 is installed in a Windows 11 HP Envy x360 Convertible laptop with these specs:

The table below outlines the VMWare Workstation VM specs and their functions.

*IPMvCSA is NOT a VMWare Workstation VM but a vCenter appliance. We will create this when we install vCenter Appliance 8 in part 5 of this guide.

The VMWare Workstation Pro PC (Windows 11 on HP ENVY x360 Convertible) is named IPMpVMW2. The two NICs on the ESXi Host VMs will be Teamed.

Later, I’ll configure the Windows iSCSI Server to use the 1 TB drive in the VMWare Workstation host as an iSCSI storage. This will be used as the Datastore for the VMWare ESXi hosts.

If the computer you’re installing VMWare Workstation Pro (IPMpVMW2) does not have a second 1 TB hard drive, use an external USB drive. However, it is important to mention that the disk should be at least 1 TB if you intend to use the setup in this guide.

Step 2: Plan the Lab Network Configuration

Finally, the table below details the network configurations for the hosts.

The default gateway is the IP address of my router while the DNS server is a Windows Server 2019 VM hosted on another laptop.

Step 3: Create Partitions on the iSCSI Disk

1. Log in to the computer you will be installing the VMWare Workstation Pro.
2. Then, right-click the Windows Start menu and select Disk Management.

3. If the disk is offline, right-click it and select Online.

Deleting the partition (or volume) on a disk wipes all data. Before you perform step 4, copy all data on the disk to another location.

4. After that, delete all existing partitions by right-clicking the partition and selecting Delete Volume.

After deleting the volumes/partition, you’ll create two volumes. The first volume (300 GB) will be used to save VMs in part 2 of this guide. Meanwhile, the second volume (uses the remaining space on the disk) will be used to create iSCSI LUMs to be used by the ESXi hots.

5. Right-click the “Unallocated space” on the disk and select New Simple Volume.

6. On the first page of the wizard, click Next. Then, on the Specify Volume Size page, enter 620000 (620 GB) on the Simple volume size field.

I’m using 620 GB to ensure I have enough space on the volume. This is because when you create a volume, some of the space is retained by the Operating System.

7. Then, on the Assign Drive Letter or Path page, select Do not assign a drive letter or path.

We’re not assigning a drive letter to this partition because in part 4, we would attach this volume (partition) to the iSCSI VM and use the disk to create a Windows Server 2022 iSCSI target.

8. On the Format Partition page, select “Do not format this volume.” Once again, we do not need to partition the volume for reasons I explained earlier.

9. Finally, review your selections and click Finish to create the volume.
10. Right-click the free space again, and create another volume.

11. This time, use up the remaining drive space (333852 MB, in my example) to create the volume.

Assign the volume a drive letter and format it. You may also give the volume a label for ease of identification – I gave mine “VMStorage.”

When you finish, you should have two partitions (volumes). The first one (slightly above 600 GB should be raw while the second should be assigned a drive letter and formatted.

Before you move on to the next section, create a folder called “VMWare” – you’ll save all downloaded app installation files to this folder as we progress in this series.

Step 4: Install VMWare Workstation Pro 17

In this last part, you’ll download VMWare Workstation 17.0 Pro and install it on the computer you’re using for this lab setup. I’ll install mine on an HP Envy x360 Convertible laptop running Windows 11.

Here are the steps. I did not include screenshots because the installation is pretty straightforward.

1. Create a free Broadcom account and sign in. If you’re not aware, Broadcom now owns VMWare!
2. Then, click the VMware Workstation Pro Download link – it will load in your Broadcom account page.
3. Expand VMWare Workstation 17.0 Pro for Personal use (Windows) and click the link to the latest version.
4. On the next page, accept the license agreement and click the download link
5. Save the exe file in the “VMWare Workstation” folder
6. Double-click the downloaded exe file to start the installation
7. Click Next (accept defaults) for the rest of the installation.

Now that we have sorted out the lap setup and configurations, let’s proceed to part two of this guide – creating the VMWare Workstation VMs.

Read part 2: Download ESXi ISO (link opens in a new browser tab).