Abstract: A method of on-boarding a virtual infrastructure management (VIM) server appliance in which VIM software for locally managing a software-defined data center (SDDC) is installed, to enable the VIM server appliance to be centrally managed through a cloud service includes upgrading the VIM server appliance from a current version to a higher version that supports communication with agents of the cloud service, modifying configurations of the upgraded VIM server appliance according to a prescriptive configuration required by the cloud service, and deploying a gateway appliance for running the agents of the cloud service that communicate with the cloud service and the upgraded VIM server appliance.

Abstract: A host computing system may include a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory may include an auto-discovery module to broadcast a message to a set of management nodes in a data center. The message may include a configuration policy. Further, the auto-discovery module may receive an acknowledgment message from a management node. The acknowledgment message may indicate that the management node supports the configuration policy. Furthermore, the auto-discovery module may establish a trust relationship with the management node in response to receiving the acknowledgment message. Further, the auto-discovery module may enable the host computing system to add to a cluster managed by the management node upon establishing the trust relationship.