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Automating VCF Automation (VCFA) Configuration using VCFA Terraform Provider

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I recently rebuilt my VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) lab environment to run the latest VCF 9.0.1 release. While most of the deployment and configuration has been fully automated, I was dreading the VMware Cloud Foundation Automation (VCFA) setup, mainly as the initial configuration can be a bit involved.


Having some experience with configuring VCFA manually, I wanted to take the opportunity to automate as much of the setup as I could, so the next that I need to rebuild, it is not an issue for me, which is typically the case as I like to automate everything!

My automation approach was going to be leveraging the newly published Terraform Provider for VCFA, this was on my todo list but I finally got a chance to play with it over the weekend in my lab.

I was blown away at how the automation was at configuring VCFA, the same manual tasks could  easily 20min+ and using the TP4VCFA, it was done in under 30 seconds! 🤯

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VCF Software Depot Structure Deep Dive for Install & Upgrade

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Before deploying a VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) or VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 environment, the VCF Installer must download the required VCF software binaries and metadata from either an online or offline depot, which can also support air-gapped environments.

One of the lesser-known enhancements in VCF 9.0 is the re-architecture of the VCF software depot into a new unified depot, which consolidates all VCF component binaries and metadata into a consistent, centralized structure.

While it is not necessary to fully grasp the structure of the new unified VCF Software Depot to deploy VCF, I’ve seen some confusion among users about which software binaries are required, both for the initial VCF Fleet deployment, VCF Fleet post-deployment installations and VCF Fleet upgrades. To help make these concepts concrete as well as help users create their offline depot, I will be sharing the specific VCF Download Tool (VCFDT) commands along with the files that are automatically downloaded for each scenario.

Perquisites:

Note: In my example, I have the following configured:

  1. flt-depot.rainpole.io is the FQDN of my offline depot, which is running on Ubuntu 24.04 (please ensure you are using supported operating system as noted above)
  2. BSP Download Token is stored in a file called /root/token which will be used by VCFDT
  3. Environmental variable is also configured called TOKEN which will also contain the same value of the BSP Download Token which will be used by UMDS
  4. At least 96GB of storage is required for all downloads and will be stored in the /depot directory

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My VCF 9 Lab Mini-Rack

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Over the past few months, I have been documenting my journey in running VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 in a lab environment, deploying a minimal setup while unlocking the full capabilities of the VCF Platform from fleet management, enabling modern workloads to running my own private AI Agents to just name a few!

Like many others, I had to review my physical hardware capabilities across compute, storage, and networking, which ultimately meant a new investment because my 10-year old Supermicro E200-8D could no longer keep up. 😅

For those interested in my VCF 9.0 build-of-materials (BOM), please refer to HERE and HERE for more information.

About a month back, I came across this YouTube video showcasing a super cool build fitting several Minisforums MS-01 (not the latest AMD MS-A2) into a mini-rack (10") form factor from DeskPi.

I really wish I had not seen this video 🤣... but since then, I have been researching and acquiring various parts to build my very own mini-rack for my VCF 9 setup!


Note: The power consumption is ~245w based on my workload usage/deployment.

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