Minimal resources for deploying VCF 9.0 in a Lab

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 supports two types of deployment mode for the applicable components (e.g. NSX Manager, VCF Operations, VCF Automation, etc), Simple (Single-node) or High Availability (Three-node).

For Lab/Learning Purposes or Proof-of-Concepts, the Simple VCF deployment will allow users to experience the full capabilities of VCF 9.0, while minimizing the resources required when compared to VCF 5.x where you had to have three NSX Managers as an example.

Since the GA of VCF 9.0, I know many folks have started to prepare their lab environments and I wanted to share the minimal resources that you would need to deploy the initial VCF 9.0 stack also referred to as a VCF Fleet for lab purposes:

Total Required vCPU: 48
Total Required Memory: 194
Total Required Storage: 3.2TB
Total Used Storage: 330GB

One major take away from the table above is the vCPU column, notice the largest vCPU configuration is for VCF Automation (VCFA) which requires a 24 vCPU VM. To be able to deploy the complete VCF 9.0 stack including VCFA, you will need to have a physical ESXi host that is capable of provisioning 24 vCPU VM, that means you MUST have a physical host that has at least 12 Cores / 24 Threads to successfully deploy VCFA.

Note (06/23/25): If you can not meet the 24 vCPU minimum for VCFA, it has been shared by Tomas Fojta, that you can adjust the VCFA VM by manually editing the VM in the vSphere UI and adjust it down to 16 and potentially even 12, YMMV on overall performance and function beyond the initial setup. There are no workarounds or hacks for the memory requirements as these resources will be used by VCFA.

Here are two examples of consumer systems that you may come across:

• The Minisforum MS-A2 (which works fine with ESXi 9.0) comes with 16 Cores / 32 Threads and is capable of running VCFA
• The GMKtec NucBox K11 (which also works fine with ESXi 9.0) comes with 8 Cores / 16 Threads will NOT be capable of running VCFA

Note: I will have a through write-up on the MS-A2 and my own experiences with running VCF 9

For production-grade hardware that is on the Broadcom Compatibility Guide (BCG), this is typically not an issue but for those using consumer grade hardware, many of the previous generation of hardware will typically max out at 8 core / 16 thread and will NOT meet the requirements for deploying the full VCF 9.0 solution.

This is also a good time to think about other capabilities that you would like to explore as part of VCF 9.0 including vSAN ESA, vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS), NSX Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and VCFA to name a few and ensure that you have modern hardware that will allow you to invest in your skils.