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Quick Tip - How to deploy NSX Advanced Load Balancer (NSX-ALB) with a single Service Engine

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I saw an interesting question today from Robert Kloosterhuis in the private vExpert App Modernization Slack Channel who working with vSphere with Tanzu using NSX Advanced Load Balancer (NSX-ALB) and wanted to know if it was possible to deploy NSX-ALB with just a single Service Engine (SE)?

The default behavior of NSX-ALB is to deploy two SE for availability purpose but for testing and/or homelab usage, it could certainly help with resources and time to spin up an environment using NSX-ALB. I was also curious if this was possible and reached out to NSX-ALB Engineering team and within a few minutes, I got a response that not only was this possible to do but pretty easy to configure.

To modify this default behavior, we need to update the Service Engine group prior to SE VMs being deployed. To do so, login to NSX-ALB UI and under Infrastructure->Service Engine Group and then click on the Advanced tab and change the default Buffer Service Engines value of 1 to 0 which will will have NSX-ALB deploy just a single SE VM rather than the default two.


To confirm that our NSX-ALB have been configured correctly, I have enabled vSphere with Tanzu using NSX-ALB and as you can see from the screenshot below, only a single SE VM has been deployed rather than the default behavior of two SE.

ESXi on SimplyNUC Ruby and Topaz

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Ruby and Topaz is the latest in SimplyNUC's custom lineup of NUC-like systems which they started to build and sell a couple of years ago. The Ruby platform is based on the AMD Ryzen 4000 Series and the Topaz platform is based on Intel 11th Gen Tiger Lake Series.

Given the current global chip shortage that may last a couple more years, it may take some time before everyone can get their hands on either of these platforms, but I have slowly been seeing new inquiries about these platforms as folks are starting to receive their units. Of course, the most popular inquiry that I have received is whether these systems can be used with ESXi? 😀

Topaz

Since Topaz uses the same Intel 11th Gen Tiger Lake CPU, it works exactly the same as the Intel NUC 11 Performance (Panther Canyon) and Intel NUC 11 Pro (Tiger Canyon), which requires the Community Networking Driver for ESXi to enable both the 2.5GbE and 1GbE onboard network adapters when installing ESXi on Topaz. One really nice feature of Topaz is that all three models (i7, i5 and i3) include dual onboard network adapters, where as this option is only available on Intel NUC 11 Pro as an add-on card that must be purchased separately.

Here is screenshot of the latest ESXi 7.0 Update 2 release running on Topaz

Ruby

Although there was quite a bit of community interests in running ESXi on the Ruby platform, I was not particularly optimistic mainly because both the onboard network adapters are from Realtek. Since there are no ESXi networking drivers from Realtek, ESXi would not be able to detect either of the network adapters which is the same behavior that I have seen for other AMD-NUC like kits such as the ASRock Gen 1 and Gen 2 systems.

Unfortunately, there has been no progress with Realtek joining VMware's I/O Vendor Partner (IOVP), which would enable the development of an official network driver for ESXi. Although folks can add networking to these platforms leveraging the USB Network Native Driver for ESXi, it is less than ideal. At this point in time, I can not recommend Ruby or other AMD-based NUCs that uses Realtek-based network adapters.

Here is screenshot of ESXi 7.0 with USB network adapter running on Ruby

Supermicro 2021 Homelab Group Buy

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After many months of planning and discussions, today I am excited to share the Supermicro 2021 Homelab Group Buy with the VMware Community! 🥳

A big thanks to both Supermicro and the Aspen Systems team for supporting this community initiative.

Details

This group buy is for a barebones (includes CPU) Supermicro E300-9D-8CN-8TP, which is a very capable platform for running your VMware Homelab which I have previously written about here and here. As a successor to the popular E200-8D, another benefit of the E300-9D is that it is officially listed on the VMware HCL and is supported with the latest vSphere 7.0 Update 2 release.

Since this is the first time we are partnering up with both Supermicro and Aspen Systems for a group buy, we wanted to keep the program simple and initially focus on US based users. If this group buy is successful, we will work with the team to run a similar group buy for other regions such as EMEA/APJ. For this group buy, we have been able to secure a 20% discount for the VMware Community and does require a minimum quantity of 300 units to be purchased to qualify for the discounted rate. If you are interested in participating in this group buy, please visit the URL below. In addition, I will also periodically update this blog post with the latest numbers, so folks have an idea of the overall progress.

Lastly, please help get the word out by sharing this blog post with your friends, colleagues and social network!

UPDATE 3 (07/07/21) - Unfortunately, we did not meet the minimum requirements based on the final results and this group buy will NOT be proceeding. I have no plans to re-attempt this and/or future group buys as this was a non-trivial amount of work.

I also have no plans to re-attempt this for other regions, this was a non-trivial amount of work on my end and although there was a lot of "interests" from the community, it did not actually translate to folks committing. Sorry to disappoint folks who wanted this to go through, it seems the community has spoken

UPDATE 2 (06/03/21) - Shipping estimates have changed to ~12-14 weeks due to current global shortages. Group buy website has also been updated to reflect units sold, which will happen at the end of each business day.

UPDATE 1 (06/02/21) - Quantity per customer has been increased to 4

Details Description
Minimum Quantity 300
Unit Cost $1350 (includes taxes and fees)
Shipping Cost Calculated based on destination
Shipping Time ~12-14 weeks
Start Date June 2 2021
End Date July 5 2021
Group Buy URL http://vmwa.re/supermicro-2021-groupbuy