Dell VxRail 7.0.482 deployment validation with external vCenter fails

I recently had a VxRail deployment with an external vCenter, which drove me crazy. 🙂

In the normal case, if you select “Join existing vCenter Server” under Global Settings (Step 7), the next Cluster Configuration steps should adapt.

This means that under Virtual Network Settings (Step 12), under vCenter Server Network, you only have to choose between Static or Ephemeral Binding.

However, I had the comprehensive view as if I wanted to deploy an embedded vCenter, i.e. with the selection of whether default or custom subnet and the associated informations such as subnet mask, gateway and VLAN ID.

So I instinctively selected Custom and entered the desired data, but the whole thing made me suspicious, said and done and the VxRail Manager complained about the subnet. The error message was as follows:

The IP addresses ['x.x.x.x'; 'x.x.x.x'] should be in the same subnet with the netmask of x.x.x.x. Correct the IP addresses or the netmask.

It is clear that the VxRail Manager and the VxRail Nodes must be in the same subnet, but an external vCenter can also be on the moon. 😀 I could not find an explanation for this, the only logical way would be to leave the vCenter Server subnet to default, however I have never had such a behavior. So I contacted the Dell Support and the engineer was also quite confused, nevertheless we agreed to start the deployment with Default Subnet and the deployment went smoothly.

We still don’t know if this is a bug, but under VxRail 7.0.482 it could be that you are confronted with such a situation. So I thought I should write about it and that’s it from this Blog post. If you have any questions please leave it in the comments below. 🙂