Hardware resource management for management appliances running on a shared cluster of hosts

1. A method of reserving hardware resources for management appliances of a software-defined data center (SDDC) that have been deployed onto one or more hosts of a cluster of hosts, said method comprising:

reserving hardware resources of the cluster for a first resource pool and a second resource pool, the hardware resources of the cluster including at least processor resources of the hosts of the cluster and memory resources of the hosts of the cluster; and

assigning the management appliances to the first resource pool and assigning workload virtual machines (VMs) to the second resource pool,

wherein the management appliances share the hardware resources of the cluster with the workload VMs and, based on said reserving and said assigning, the management appliances are allocated at least hardware resources that have been reserved for the first resource pool, and

wherein the management appliances include a virtual infrastructure management (VIM) server appliance in which VIM software for locally managing the SDDC is installed, and the VIM software locally manages the cluster and other clusters of hosts.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the management appliances include a gateway appliance in which agents of cloud services that centrally manage the SDDC, are installed.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein

the hardware resources reserved for the first resource pool satisfy at least the resource requirements of the gateway appliance and two times the resource requirements of the VIM server appliance.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:

reserving the hardware resources of the first resource pool separately for each of the management appliances.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein

one of the cloud services is a cloud service that centrally manages a configuration of the SDDC, including a configuration of the cluster, according to a desired state of the cluster, the desired state of the cluster specifying an amount of hardware resources to be reserved for the first and second resource pools.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein

one of the agents is a configuration agent that retrieves the desired state of the cluster from a cloud control plane and communicates the desired state of the cluster to the VIM server appliance.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

remediating a running state of the cluster according to the desired state of the cluster.

8. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

determining that a running state of the cluster differs from the desired state of the cluster; and

notifying the configuration agent that the running state of the cluster differs from the desired state of the cluster.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein

the VIM software provides a distributed resource scheduling (DRS) service, and the DRS service performs load balancing of the workload VMs in such a manner that the second resource pool is guaranteed hardware resources that have been reserved for the second resource pool.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein

the VIM software further provides a high availability service and the second resource pool is a resource pool for the high availability service, and

the hardware resources reserved for the second resource pool, for the high availability service, satisfy at least the resource requirements of workload VMs for which the high availability service has been enabled.

11. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions to be executed in a computer system to carry out a method of reserving hardware resources for management appliances of a software-defined data center (SDDC) that have been deployed onto one or more hosts of a cluster of hosts, said method comprising:

reserving hardware resources of the cluster for a first resource pool and a second resource pool, the hardware resources of the cluster including at least processor resources of the hosts of the cluster and memory resources of the hosts of the cluster; and

assigning the management appliances to the first resource pool and assigning workload virtual machines (VMs) to the second resource pool,

wherein the management appliances share the hardware resources of the cluster with the workload VMs and, based on said reserving and said assigning, the management appliances are allocated at least hardware resources that have been reserved for the first resource pool, and

wherein the management appliances include a virtual infrastructure management (VIM) server appliance in which VIM software for locally managing the SDDC is installed, and the VIM software locally manages the cluster and other clusters of hosts.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11 , wherein

the management appliances include a gateway appliance in which agents of cloud services that centrally manage the SDDC, are installed, and

the hardware resources reserved for the first resource pool satisfy at least the resource requirements of the gateway appliance and two times the resource requirements of the VIM server appliance.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12 , wherein

one of the cloud services is a cloud service that centrally manages a configuration of the SDDC, including a configuration of the cluster, according to a desired state of the cluster, the desired state of the cluster specifying an amount of hardware resources to be reserved for the first and second resource pools.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 13 , wherein said method further comprises:

remediating a running state of the cluster according to the desired state of the cluster.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 13 , wherein said method further comprises:

determining that a running state of the cluster differs from the desired state of the cluster; and

notifying an agent of the cloud service that centrally manages the configuration of the SDDC that the running state of the cluster differs from the desired state of the cluster.

16. A computer system including a cluster of hosts, on which management appliances of a software-defined data center (SDDC) are deployed, the management appliances including a virtual infrastructure management (VIM) server appliance in which VIM software for locally managing the SDDC is installed and a gateway appliance in which agents of cloud services that centrally manage the SDDC, are installed, wherein the VIM software is programmed to carry out a method of reserving hardware resources for the management appliances, said method comprising:

reserving hardware resources of the cluster for a first resource pool and a second resource pool, the hardware resources of the cluster including at least processor resources of the hosts of the cluster and memory resources of the hosts of the cluster; and

assigning the management appliances to the first resource pool and assigning workload virtual machines (VMs) to the second resource pool,

wherein the management appliances share the hardware resources of the cluster with the workload VMs and, based on said reserving and said assigning, the management appliances are allocated at least hardware resources that have been reserved for the first resource pool, and

wherein the VIM software locally manages the cluster and other clusters of hosts.

17. The computer system of claim 16 , wherein

the VIM software provides a distributed resource scheduling (DRS) service, and the DRS service performs load balancing of the workload VMs in such a manner that the second resource pool is guaranteed hardware resources that have been reserved for the second resource pool.

18. The computer system of claim 17 , wherein

the VIM software further provides a high availability service and the second resource pool is a resource pool for the high availability service, and

the hardware resources of the cluster reserved for the second resource pool, for the high availability service, satisfy at least the resource requirements of workload VMs for which the high availability service has been enabled.