Symptoms

While building up a vSAN 2-node cluster, if the vSAN disk format version on the Witness node is lower than the ESXi compute nodes, the VxRail deployment wizard UI fails with the error "Failed to assign storage policy to VM VxRail Manager." Check the vSAN skyline health page. There is an error about the disk format version. 

Cause

Broadcom does not enforce the witness and compute node vSAN disk format to be the same, but if the disk format version on the witness node is lower than the ESXi compute nodes, the deployment fails. The reverse scenario, where the witness node has a higher disk format version than the compute node, will not encounter this issue. The root cause is still under investigation by Broadcom.

Resolution

1. Upgrade the witness node vSAN disk format version to match the compute nodes. 2. Retry cluster deployment.

Support Cases