Workaround for VMware Cloud Builder 10GbE pre-check in VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.0 is now generally available for customers to upgrade and I had a chance to play with it in my homelab before it was released.

One change that I had noticed in the new version of the VMware Cloud Builder for VCF 5.0 compared to VCF 4.5 is the introduction of a new 10GbE pre-check to ensure that your physical ESXi hosts met the minimum networking requirement. For a production deployment, this pre-check makes a ton of sense but for a homelab/development environment where you may not have 10GbE connectivity, this is certainly not ideal, especially as this was possible with VCF 4.5.

With VCF 5.0, this new pre-check is considered an error and will prevent you from continuing the VCF deployment as you can see from the error message below.

Fortunately, I was able to find an easy workaround to the issue that would still allow users to deploy the latest VCF 5.0 without 10GbE networking! 😀

The failed pre-check is considered an error when using the VMware Cloud Builder UI, but when using the VMware Cloud Builder API, it is simply a warning and will allow the installation to proceed.

The following PowerShell snippet can be used (replace the values from within your environment) that will deploy VCF 5.0 using the VMware Cloud Builder API and providing the same VCF JSON deployment spec that you would use with the VMware Cloud Builder UI.

$cloudBuilderIP = "192.168.30.190"
$cloudBuilderUser = "admin"
$cloudBuilderPass = "VMware123!"
$mgmtDomainJson = "vcf50-management-domain-example.json"

#### DO NOT EDIT BEYOND HERE ####

$inputJson = Get-Content -Raw $mgmtDomainJson

$pwd = ConvertTo-SecureString $cloudBuilderPass -AsPlainText -Force
$cred = New-Object Management.Automation.PSCredential ($cloudBuilderUser,$pwd)

$bringupAPIParms = @{
    Uri         = "https://${cloudBuilderIP}/v1/sddcs"
    Method      = 'POST'
    Body        = $inputJson
    ContentType = 'application/json'
    Credential = $cred
}

$bringupAPIReturn = Invoke-RestMethod @bringupAPIParms -SkipCertificateCheck

Write-Host "Open browser to the VMware Cloud Builder UI to monitor deployment progress ...

Once the VCF deployment has been accepted using the VMware Cloud Builder API, then you can open a browser to the VMware Cloud UI and continue to monitor the progress of your deployment as if you had used the UI to initiate the deployment.

Note: If you are using the VCF Deployment Workbook XLXS and need to convert that into JSON format, please see this blog post HERE or you can check out the VMware Cloud Foundation Configuration File Generator Fling