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You are here: Home / ESXi / New VMware Community HCL

New VMware Community HCL

03.07.2022 by William Lam // 12 Comments

If you are not using or can not use the official VMware Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) to identify hardware systems and components that are officially supported with a given version of vSphere ESXi, then the experience in finding hardware can be quite daunting for both new and even existing users. Typically, users might start off by searching online or posting in the VMTN Community Forums and although I have attempted to help in this space with my VMware Community Homelab project, which attempts to crowd source working configuration and build-of-materials (BOM) that can assist, it certainly is a big challenge.

Even if you are successful in the initial assessment, there are no guarantees that your hardware configuration will be compatible with future vSphere ESXi releases and the investigative process will likely have to start all over again or simply with trial and error, which can also be frustrating for new users. I have always wanted and I know many of you in the community have also expressed similiar options in having a VMware Community HCL that can be used and maintain by the community.

Today, I am excited to share that we now have a platform that can enable an "unofficial" VMware Community HCL!

A little over 6 months ago, I was introduced to a project that was being worked on to make it easy for customers to manage and keep track of their specific hardware inventory and also the various VMware Solutions that were being used within their organization. This project is now available as a VMware Fling called Solution Designer and here is a quick description of the new service:

The Solution Designer Fling provides a platform to manage custom VMware solutions. Building a custom VMware solution involves many challenging tasks. One of the most difficult is continuous manual verifications: checking the interoperability of multiple VMware products and performing compatible hardware validations. Solution Designer seeks to resolve these issues by automating repetitive manual steps and collecting scattered resources in a single platform.

One really cool feature of the Solution Designer is the ability to create and/or import your specific hardware inventory by running a small collection script. Once an inventory has been created, you can then search on that inventory, but it would only available to you.


I immediately had a💡moment and asked for small feature enhancement, which has been implemented and would enable the community to crowdsource a VMware Community HCL! Users can now specify whether a specific hardware inventory is searchable when it is initially created (under Compatibility tab) or you can always update it at a later point, which was the case for me after the feature was added.


To search for specific hardware server and/or components, simply navigate to the Hardware Inventory tab select the Search Popular Hardware option begin your search. As you can see from the screenshot below, I have already submitted my personal homelab back in October and when searching for the keyword "NUC", we can see two systems appear from my homelab contribution to Solution Designer. Pretty dope if you ask me! 😁


I am super excited to that we now have a platform that is more scalable for capturing and sharing various hardware platforms that have been found to be compatible with vSphere ESXi that can benefit the broader VMware Community.

My ask of the community is to help build up the VMware Community HCL by submitting your hardware inventory to the Solution Designer Fling so that others in our community can benefit!

More from my site

  • Programmatically accessing the Broadcom Compatibility Guide (BCG)
  • Interesting VMware Homelab Kits for 2024
  • Updated Dashboard for VMware Community Homelabs using Dashimo
  • Slick Jonsbo D31 computer case with embedded LCD screen for homelab
  • ESXi on Protectli Vault Pro 6650/6670

Categories // ESXi, Home Lab Tags // hcl, homelab

Comments

  1. *protectedvirtualrol says

    03/07/2022 at 5:03 pm

    Amazing William, really cool tool

    Reply
  2. *protectedRuan says

    03/08/2022 at 7:19 am

    This Will be really Helpful for future Lab Upgrades

    Reply
  3. *protectedRichard Chu says

    03/09/2022 at 1:34 am

    Use Google Chrome Version 99.0.4844.51 (Official Build) (64-bit), the web site will display "Failed to get the user account". But it works on Firefox and Brave.

    Reply
    • *protectedHeejeong says

      03/09/2022 at 11:08 am

      Hello,
      Sorry for the trouble. Could you please clean up your browser caches and cookies and try again?
      Heejeong

      Reply
  4. *protectedDavide Abrigo says

    03/09/2022 at 9:38 am

    Fantastic tool, thanks for sharing! One thing i've noticed in the Interoperability tab, there is no difference between two incompatible components (eg. Cloud Director Availability 4.3 with NSX-V 6.4.13) or two components that don't need a check (eg. Cloud Director Availability and vRops). In both cases no arrow is shown, maybe it would be better to show a red arrow when incompatible?

    Reply
    • *protectedHeejeong says

      03/09/2022 at 9:59 am

      Hi,
      The incompatible components should show red lines. If not, it might be a bug. Could you please let me know the incompatible components that don't have the red lines?
      Thanks!
      Heejeong

      Reply
      • *protectedDavide Abrigo says

        03/10/2022 at 12:44 am

        Hello, i've tried with Cloud Director Availability 4.3 and NSX Data Center for vSphere 6.4.13, there is no arrow between the components.
        If you change NSX to version 6.4.11 they get linked as compatible.
        Thanks for checking!

        Reply
        • *protectedHeejeong says

          03/10/2022 at 11:03 am

          Thanks for more information!
          I just check their interoperability and there are no interoperability data (not supported) https://interopmatrix.vmware.com/Interoperability?col=570,5869&row=783,6954
          That's the reason with no lines. The red lines will be shown when they are incompatible. Please let me know if you need more information.
          Thanks,

          Reply
          • *protectedDavide Abrigo says

            03/11/2022 at 2:33 am

            Got it, I overlooked that slight difference...what do you think about a gray arrow then? 🙂
            Thanks!

          • *protectedHeejeong says

            03/11/2022 at 8:20 am

            Not sure it's a good idea, there will be too many gray lines. 🙂

  5. *protectedMichiel W Breur says

    01/06/2025 at 12:15 pm

    Is this still a thing? All links seem dead?

    Reply
    • William Lam says

      01/06/2025 at 1:13 pm

      Unfortunately because it was SaaS tool, majority of the SaaS tools were decommissioned and this affects this Fling

      Reply

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William is Distinguished Platform Engineering Architect in the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Division at Broadcom. His primary focus is helping customers and partners build, run and operate a modern Private Cloud using the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform.

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