After deploying a new VMware Cloud Foundation environment in my lab, I typically apply a set of post-deployment configurations across components such as vCenter and NSX, depending on the specific scenarios I am testing.
I finally found some time to automate these manual tasks, as they were finally getting annoying but not annoying enough at the beginning to automate them immediately 😅
Disable vSphere HA Admission Control
Like many, I want to make the most of my lab resources, which means I am willing to trade off availability for capacity.
Silence vSAN Health Findings
For those using vSAN with hardware that is not on the Broadcom Supportability Guide (BCG), you definitely will want to make sure you silence these health findings, which can block vSphere Supervisor enablement!
Clearing vSAN Alarms
You may also find a number of vSAN Alarms that are triggered as part of the initial configuration, you may also want to clear these.
Acknowledge CEIP in NSX
When you first login to NSX, you will be prompted to acknowledge and specify whether you would like to participate in Customer Experience Improvement Program (CIEP)
Acknowledge VCF operations banner is managing NSX
When you first login to NSX, you will also see a banner at the top that says VCF Operations is managing NSX
Change Backup Frequency for NSX
The backup frequency for NSX is hourly by default, which can certainly increase your storage utilization and for lab purposes, I am okay with every 12 hours
Suppress Alarms for NSX
When I am troubleshooting with a colleague on NSX, one of the things they like to disable/suppress are some of the default alarms due to my setup. For example, NSX will generate an alarm when you do not have three-node deployment, even though you have specify a single node. I typically do not have remote logging enable, so this is another NSX Alarm that can be suppressed, this way when you see alerts in NSX, you can be sure it is something that probably requires your attention.
Here is a PowerCLI script vcf-post-deploy-lab-tweaks.ps1 that I have created (no AI involved) that will automate all the optimizations mentioned above. You can certainly adjust which settings are applied along with your desired values, simply update the endpoints and credentials and run the script as shown in the screenshot below.
Are there other tweaks that you typically need to run post-VCF deployment? If so, feel free to share or if you wish to contribute to the script, submit a pull request!
Thanks for the comment!