A Technology Journey
I have other posts on my site here for more built out installations of VMware VCF. However, while I was researching a build script for a recent nested installation I was building, I came across a post on William Lam’s website about a single host VMware VCF install. This surely piqued my interest and I decided I would give this a go and document all the pieces I have found in my research and own learning.
Continue reading “The Frugal Administrator: A Minimal Nested VMware VCF Lab”While I worked for VMware from March 2019 and up until the Broadcom acquisition in November 2023, and continued on with Broadcom, this post (and website as a whole) is solely for my purposes and in no way represents VMware or Broadcom’s views or best practices. Heck, for all I know, this is accidentally working in my lab. Either way, VMware nor Broadcom are officially backing this post.
It’s odd to me that I have been a part of the virtual world for quite a while now and have just finally come to terms that I really should figure out the basics of VMware NSX. With Broadcom’s shift to pushing VMware VCF, this just makes sense. However, even with a Cisco CCNA certification under my belt for the last seven years and working with networking equipment for the past ten years, VMware NSX continues to confuse me and only recently am I starting to make sense of it.
Hopefully this post will help others out there that are trying to learn VMware NSX and the nuances that go long with it, especially in a nested lab.
Continue reading “Nested VMware NSX”There are a few necessary services that need to be running for a Nested VCF lab. These services include Domain Name System (DNS) and Network Time Protocol (NTP). A few additional services, while not necessary, are very helpful. These services include a file server and a management virtual machine.
Continue reading “Nested VCF Lab: Virtual Machines”The networking component for the nested VCF lab is very important. There are certain things that must be configured for a successful deployment. These settings do not apply in a production scenario where the physical hosts are connected to Top-of-Rack Switches. Doing so could open up a serious security situation.
Continue reading “Nested VCF Lab: Networking”The following post is very long and will contain updates as the technology changes and I figure out better ways to accomplish these tasks. VMware Cloud Foundation, or VCF, requires at least four nodes for the Management Domain. Unfortunately, I do not have hundreds of thousands of dollars for physical hardware to test and learn VCF.
Since this is a nested lab, there are a few things that will need to be set up to make this work. These items, in particular networking, have to be configured in a way to allow the nested virtual machines to communicate. This is not applicable in production where the physical hosts are cabled into Top of Rack switches.
Continue reading “Building a Nested ESXi Lab for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) (updated 2023-Dec)”