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 😅
I have been running the full VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 stack using the Minisforum MS-A2 in a three-node configuration for almost a year now. While the MS-A2 is not hardware that you would find on the Broadcom Compatibility Guide (BCG), these units have been solid for my lab environment.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been putting my lab through its paces while testing various VCF.Next deployment and upgrade scenarios, and I began to notice the environment was sluggish, which was not something I had experienced before.
Long story short, after hours of debugging, including over the weekend with the amazing Nicholas Wilson, we were able to pinpoint one of the issues (more details at the end for the other issue) related to the onboard 10GbE SFP+ adapters. The MS-A2 uses an Intel x710, which apparently have been quite notorious when it comes to hardware offload. 😵💫
Despite its name, the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Installer can deploy both VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) environments. Many users incorrectly believe the VCF Installer restricts you to only the specific product deployments that you have entitlements for, VVF deployment for VVF entitlements and VCF deployments for VCF entitlements.
The VCF Installer does NOT care nor has any knowledge of your license entitlements when performing a deployment. In fact, both VVF and VCF deployments will default to the 90 day evaluation period until the components are licensed by VCF Operations, which is performed by a user post-deployment to retrieve product entitlements.