The requirements specify centralized management components and a 99.99% availability SLA (allowing ~52 minutes of downtime per year) in a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.2 multi-AZ design. In VCF, management components (e.g., SDDC Manager, vCenter, NSX Manager) are typically deployed in a Management Domain, and multi-AZ designs leverage availability zones for resilience. Let’s evaluate each option:

Option A: Implement a stretched L2 VLAN for the infrastructure management components between the AZsA stretched L2 VLAN extends network segments across AZs, potentially supporting centralized management. However, it doesn’t inherently ensure 99.99% availability without additional HA mechanisms (e.g., vSphere HA, NSX clustering). TheVCF 5.2 Architectural Guidenotes that L2 stretching alone lacks failover orchestration and may introduce latency or single points of failure if not paired with a stretched cluster, making it insufficient here.

Option B: Select two distant AZs and configure separate management workload domainsSeparate management workload domains in distant AZs decentralize management components (e.g., separate SDDC Managers, vCenters), violating the requirement for centralization. TheVCF 5.2 Administration Guidestates that multiple management domains increase complexity and don’t inherently meet high availability SLAs without cross-site replication, ruling this out.

Option C: Implement VMware Live Recovery between the selected AZsVMware Live Recovery (part of VMware’s DR portfolio, integrating Site Recovery Manager and vSphere Replication) provides disaster recovery across AZs. It ensures centralized management components (in one AZ) can fail over to a secondary AZ, maintaining an RTO/RPO that supports 99.99% availability when properly configured (e.g., <5-minute failover with replication). TheVCF 5.2 Architectural Guiderecommends Live Recovery for multi-AZ resilience while keeping management centralized, making it a strong fit.

Option D: Implement separate VLANs for the infrastructure management components within each AZSeparate VLANs per AZ enhance network isolation but imply distributed management components across AZs, contradicting the centralized requirement. Even if management is centralized in one AZ, separate VLANs don’t directly improve availability to 99.99% without HA or DR mechanisms, per theVCF 5.2 Networking Guide.

Option E: Select two close proximity AZs and configure a stretched management workload domainA stretched management workload domain spans two close AZs (e.g., <10ms latency) using vSphere HA, vSAN stretched clusters, and NSX federation. This keeps management components centralized (single SDDC Manager, vCenter) while achieving 99.99% availability through synchronous replication and automatic failover. TheVCF 5.2 Architectural Guidehighlights stretched clusters as a best practice for multi-AZ designs, ensuring minimal downtime (e.g., seconds during host/AZ failure), meeting the SLA.

Conclusion:

C: VMware Live Recovery enables centralized management with DR failover, supporting 99.99% availability.

E: A stretched management domain in close AZs ensures centralized, highly available management with near-zero downtime.These decisions align with VCF 5.2 multi-AZ best practices.References:

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 Architectural Guide(docs.vmware.com): Multi-AZ Design and Stretched Clusters.

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 Administration Guide(docs.vmware.com): Management Domain Resilience.

VMware Live Recovery Documentation(docs.vmware.com): DR for VCF Environments.