Part 3: Deploying VCF
In the previous parts of this series, I discussed the architecture of the environment and we went through the configuration of pfSense. Now it’s time to get our SDDC deployed in our home lab, using VLC to drive VMware Cloud Foundation.
Continue reading Building a VCF lab with pfSense (Part 3)Part 2: Configuring pfSense
In the last article, I explained the environment that we would work towards building out. Now that we have the plan down, let’s get started by getting pfSense configured.
Continue reading Building a VCF lab with pfSense (Part 2)Part 1: Defining the Architecture
Building a lab running VCF is made easy through the use of the VCF Lab Constructor (VLC). When run in the ‘automated’ mode, VLC will build out a nested environment and deploy VCF in it. It even abstracts a lot of the networking setup to make it as easy as possible. But what if you want to build out the network manually? In this series of posts, I’ll walk you through doing exactly that!
Continue reading Building a VCF lab with pfSense (Part 1)Yes! It’s possible, I’ve done it.. twice, just to make sure :). At the risk of being redundant @Kyle Gleed was instrumental in driving K8’s in VCF consolidate and has a blog post and paper here, @Tom Stephens posted a great blog on Minimalistic VCF 4.0 deployments with Kubernetes, but I’m lazy and like to make things even easier. That is what I am to cover here, There are a lot of steps, and tons of screenshots making this blog post quite lengthy, my apologies.. I’ll learn to split these up!
Continue reading Install VCF, Workload Management and Tanzu Kubernetes Cluster in an afternoonNo doubt, you’ve heard about the recent release of VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0 and its support for Kubernetes (K8s). Although you would like to play with the product, the resource requirements seem greater than the resources you have available. Today, I’m going to talk about how you can get a VCF 4.0 environment up and running with the least amount of resources…
Continue reading Minimalistic VCF 4.0 Deployments with KubernetesIt seems like a good time to have an update post on Multi-NIC “stuff” in VCF 4.0. Before we get to the creation of the cluster, I think it’s important to go over one of the biggest networking changes in VCF 4.0/vSphere 7.0. With vSphere 7.0 came the introduction of the vSphere Distributed Switch 7.0 and with that, some welcome changes that I haven’t really seen mentioned anywhere.
With the release of VCF 3.9.1, new VCF deployments require Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) be configured and functioning prior to initiating the VCF deployment. Using BGP simplifies the management of routes to the Application Virtual Networks (AVNs) deployed by VCF.
VMware Lab Constructor (VLC) provides an option to automatically configure the deployed Cloud Builder appliance to provide BGP services. But what if you want to provide your own infrastructure for your home lab? In this case, you have to provide BGP services within your environment. One method to do this is to use a software-based router, such as VyOS. Today, I’ll walk through how to configure VyOS to provide these services in your home lab.
Continue reading VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) with VyOS
The expansion pack feature in VLC can be used for a few things;
1) Building nested hosts
2) Expanding your nested VCF implementation!
3) Testing the limits of your hardware <- You know you want to!
In this post we’re going to talk about Building Nested Hosts and I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out how to do the other two things on your own, or I’ll write a blog article on it! Make sure you follow the implementation guide for VLC with regards to PowerCLI and OVFtool versions and settings.
Continue reading VLC- Expansion Pack – VCF 3.9.1If you’ve been following the VLC-Build it for me posts you should have VRSLCM up and running. As promised this exercise will be quite a bit shorter due to the work we put in getting VRSLCM built. vRealize Operations gives a view into operations management of both applications and infrastructure and, in the context of VCF, as you grow your solution help you plan, scale, and easily connect new Workload domains and their resources to be included in vROps pervue.
Continue reading VLC-Build it for me, vRealize Operations deployment – VCF 3.9.1After getting your external access up and running, I’m sure your ready to start deploying some additional solutions! Let’s start with the vRealize suite and that all begins with downloading and deploying VRSLCM – (vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager). Go ahead and get that queued up and downloading, it’s about 3GB in size and it should be available under the Repository -> Bundles page, click the Download Now button next to the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager bundle.
Continue reading VLC-Build it for me, VRSLCM deployment– VCF 3.9.1