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MS-A2 VCF 9.0 Lab: Deploying Model Endpoint with DirectPath I/O using VMware for Private AI Services (PAIS)

10.07.2025 by William Lam // Leave a Comment

In this final blog post, we will now deploy several AI model endpoints (downloaded from Hugging Face), configure our private data source which can be a shared location (Google Drive, Confluence, Microsoft Sharepoint, or S3-compatible endpoint) or using local files and then consuming them using an AI Agent that is built using VMware for Private AI Services (PAIS).

As mentioned in the very first blog post of this mini-series, my goal was to get hands experience with PAIS but without the need to have an NVIDIA GPU capable of vGPU, which would also require an NVIDIA AI for Enterprise (NVAIE) license.

Luckily, we can use an NVIDIA GPU via DirectPath I/O, thanks to the backend plumbing the PAIS Engineering team have built and had shared with me 😊

For my proof of concept, I am using an ASUS NUC 14 Performance, which has an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 mobile GPU (8GB VRAM). The ASUS NUC 14 is running alongside my Minisforum MS-A2 setup, is only used to deploy the completions model endpoint. The use of the ASUS NUC 14 is purely for prototyping and experimentation purposes to demonstrate that anyone can play with PAIS within their lab environment. I plan to use a more powerful NVIDIA GPU setup, which I will share more details at a later point for those interested.

References:

  • Running Completion or Embedding Models by Using Model Endpoints
  • Adding Context to Model Responses by Using Knowledge Bases
  • Deploy an Agent for a Generative AI Application

Requirements:

  • VCF Automation (VCFA) Organization configured with Namespace
  • VMware Private AI Services (PAIS) enabled
  • Data Services Manager (DSM) configured with VCFA
  • Authentik IdP configured with OIDC Public Client Application
  • Harbor instance configured for AI model store 
  • PAIS instance deployed

[Read more...]

Categories // Private AI Services, VMware Cloud Foundation Tags // VCF 9.0

Side-loading VCF binaries into VCF Installer & SDDC Manager for Air-Gapped Environments 

10.06.2025 by William Lam // 5 Comments

The VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Installer (Day 0) and SDDC Manager (Day N) supports two common methods for downloading VCF software into a users environment.

  1. Connect to Broadcom's online depot (supports network proxy) and directly download the software into VCF Installer/SDDC Manager, which I will describe as Online Depot with/Automated Transfer
  2. Mirror Broadcom's online portal and create an offline depot used by VCF Installer/SDDC Manager to download the software, which I will describe as Offline Depot with/Automated Transfer

To help illustrate the two options, I have create the following visual:


Option 1: VCF Installer/SDDC Manager connects directly to Broadcom.com to download VCF software

Option 2: VCF Download Tool (VCFDT) is used to connect to Broadcom.com and download a mirror copy of the online depot and then transfer that to an offline depot (web server) that is then used by VCF Installer/SDDC Manager

Option 2 is the preferred choice by most organizations as it only requires a single online download of the VCF software and then it can be efficiently hosted and replicated within their datacenter(s). Many organizations also have an established process in distributing other IT/Enterprise software (Windows updates/patches, Linux updates/patches, etc), which are typically hosted on an internal web server and Option 2 simply adheres to their existing operating model.

In the off chance, your organization does not have to distribute other IT/Enterprise software or the ability to request or setup a web server, VCF Installer/SDDC Manager actually supports a 3rd option which I will describe as Local Depot w/Manual Transfer

[Read more...]

Categories // VMware Cloud Foundation Tags // VCF 9.0

How many VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Instances can a VCF Fleet support?

10.03.2025 by William Lam // Leave a Comment

With the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, a new architectural construct has been introduced called a VCF Fleet. This brings centralized fleet management and provides modern workload consumption across multiple VCF instances, all managed through a single deployment of VCF Automation and VCF Operations, as shown in the diagram below.


A common question that has been coming up quite a bit lately is how many VCF Instances can a VCF Fleet support?

Technically, there is not a fixed number of  VCF Instances that can be managed by VCF Operations. As with with most things in our industry, the answer is "it depends" ...

Before we take a closer look at what "it depends" actually means, it is important to understand what is a VCF Instance?


A VCF Instance includes a VCF Management Domain and can include one or more VCF Workload Domains.

  • VCF Management Domain includes the core SDDC components: vCenter Server, ESXi hosts, vSAN or other supported principal storage and NSX Manager) along with single instance of SDDC Manager and a VCF Operations collector.
    • SDDC Manager provides lifecycle management for all deployed core SDDC components within a VCF Instance
    • VCF Operations Collector provides inventory and metric collection within a VCF Instances, which is then sent to VCF Operations
  • VCF Workload Domain, when deployed only includes the core SDDC components and all lifecycle management and operations is performed by the single instance of SDDC Manager

[Read more...]

Categories // VCF Operations, VMware Cloud Foundation Tags // VCF 9.0

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William is Distinguished Platform Engineering Architect in the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Division at Broadcom. His primary focus is helping customers and partners build, run and operate a modern Private Cloud using the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform.

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