Recently while playing with VCF, I noticed one annoying thing about NSX-T deployment for workload domain. By default NSX-T managers are deployed in large form factor with 48 GB of memory and all 48 GB reserved.

Also SDDC Manager checks for 144 GB of free memory at custer level where NSX-T managers will be deployed.

For production environments this setup works fine as we have plenty of resources, but for Lab/POC purpose 48 GB per node seems too big in my opinion (I am open to discussion on this)

In this post we will learn how to deploy NSX-T for workload domains with custom size. 

NSX-T deployment form factor can be controlled via /opt/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/config/application-prod.properties file. To use custom form factor, login to sddc manager as root user and edit this file to add below properties:

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VMware Cloud Foundation 3.9.1 was released yesterday and this release brought few changes with it. In this post I will jot down few of the those changes. 

1: Updated BOM: VCF 3.9.1 deploys SDDC with latest release of vSphere 6.7 U3b. It also includes NSX-V 6.4.6 (latest) for management domain. For complete list of updated BOM, please refer to the below screenshot

2: Changes in Cloud Builder UI: VCF 3.9.1 is based on Cloud Builder 2.2.1.0. This release of cloud builder have incorporated few changes in UI. Few of them are listed below:

2A: Workflow Migration from OVA Setting to UI: In older releases of Cloud Builder, SDDC workflow type (vcf, vvd or vxrail) was defined while deploying the OVA. Now this has been moved from the OVA settings into the main UI wizard. 

2B: Easy Navigation Through Workflows: There’s a new progress bar to help you navigate more easily through the workflows.… Read More

One of the cool features that was introduced in VMware Cloud Foundation 3.9 is multi-instance management of VCF. This feature allows you to monitor multiple VCF instances from a single pane of glass. For customers who have SDDC deployed via VCF across regions, it was very difficult task to manage them all from one place. 

To solve this problem, VCF 3.9 introduced concept of Federation.

Federation allows multi VCF instance to connect together for aggregated visibility and ease of management. Customers can now have the ability to view the health of all workloads running across all VCF instances globally. VCF multi-instance enables customers to view their data centers as a single resource pool. The main features of federation are:

• Connects and pairs multiple VCF private cloud instances.
• Provides aggregated and site level visibility of connected VCF instances.
• View and monitor existing utilization, capacity and pending updates of each VCF instances.

… Read More

VMware Cloud Foundation not only deploys SDDC but can be used to automate deployment of vRealize suite components such as vRealize Suite Life Cycle Manager (vRSLCM), vRealize Log Insight, vRealize Operations and vRealize Automation. 

Before you can deploy vROPS/vRA or vRLI, you need to deploy vRSLCM using vCF. vCF can then trigger workflows and send requests via API to vRSLCM for taking care of deployment. 

In this post I will walk through steps of deploying both vRSLCM and vROPS.

To deploy vRSLCM, login to SDDC Manager and navigate to Home> Administration > vRealize Suite > vRealize Suite LifeCycle Manger and click on Deploy. 

Make sure you have met all the prerequisites before starting the deployment. 

Note: vRSLCM installation bundle should have downloaded from repository before performing this step. 

If all the prerequisites are in place, hit Begin button.

Configure network settings and hit Next.

Supply appliance admin/root password and specify the fqdn for vRSLCM. … Read More

When you spin up a brand new SDDC using VMware Cloud Foundation, minimum number of hosts that are needed in Management Domain and VI Domain are 4 & 3 respectively. You can scale up Management domain up to 8 hosts and VI domain to 64 hosts.

Before scaling up the workload domains, we need to commission the host first and add it to vCF inventory. To add new hosts to inventory, we need to create a new network pool or expand the default network pool created during bring-up.

Once network pool has been created, you can start commission of new hosts by navigating to SDDC-Manager > Hosts and click on “Commission Hosts” button

Once the host have been commissioned, it will appear under unassigned hosts with configuration status as Active.

Note: If a host is in error state because of issues encountered during host commission workflow, you need to de-commission host first and fix the issue and commission it back again. … Read More

Recently while playing with vCF 3.7.2 in my lab, I encountered an issue where SDDC Bringup process was halted because of NFS mount problem.

If you are experienced with vCF then you would be knowing that during bringup process, NFS share from the sddc manager vm is mounted as a NFS datastore across the management domain by the name “lcm-bundle-repo”.

On checking the hostd.log on Esxi host I saw following log entries

… Read More

In this post we will learn how to perform online upgrade of VMware Cloud Foundation from version 3.7.2 to 3.8.0. Although upgrade process is fairly simple and straight forward, it needs a bit of planning. 

As a best practice, it is always recommended to read the release notes & known issues in new version of product before performing upgrade. vCF 3.8 known issues are documented here

To perform online upgrade of vCF, your SDDC Manager appliance should have direct connectivity to internet or via a proxy server. 

Upgrade Prerequisites

Below screenshot from vCF documentation list the requirements that you should meet before attempting any upgrade operation.

vCF includes two types of bundles: Upgrade bundles & Install Bundles. To know more about these please read vCF official documentation

Upgrade Steps

To start the upgrade process we need to download the upgrade bundles. If you have configured repository settings and authorized my vmware account under Repository Settings, you will be notified about available updates.… Read More

In last post of this series, we learnt how to deploy a workload domain via SDDC Manager. In this post we will learn how to delete it. 

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Physical/Virtual Infra Preparation

2: DNS and IP Pools Requirements for vCF 

3: Nested Esxi Host Deployment & Configuration

4: Deploying Management Domain aka SDDC Bringup

5: Workload Domain Deployment

To delete a workload domain, login to SDDC Manager and navigate to Inventory > Workload Domains and from Action menu select “Delete Domain“

Type the name of the domain and click on Delete Workload Domain button.

The delete workload domain workflow will be called. Wait for an hour or so for workflow to complete. Typically you will see below tasks getting executed during domain deletion. 

The host status will report as “Need Cleanup”.… Read More

In last post of this series we learnt the process of SDDC bringup aka Management Domain deployment. Also we verified we are able to login to SDDC manager. The management domain is integrated in SDDC manager by default during bringup process.

In this post I will walk through steps of deploying a Virtual Infrastructure Workload Domain. If you are new to vCF and wondering what a workload domain is, then in simpler words its resource cluster where end users will provision their vm’s.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Physical/Virtual Infra Preparation

2: DNS and IP Pools Requirements for vCF 

3: Nested Esxi Host Deployment & Configuration

4: Deploying Management Domain aka SDDC Bringup

All the components that will be managing the VI workload domain are deployed in management domain for e.g vCSA, NSX etc. 

Note: NSX controllers for workload domain are deployed on Esxi hosts that are part of workload domain.… Read More