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Clearing resource locks with VCF 9.0 Installer

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While deploying a new VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 Fleet, I had observed the VCF Installer task for checking the deployment status for VCF Automation (VCFA) had taken longer than expected and it eventually failed to complete.


While the deployment of VCFA will take some time, especially if you are using consumer grade hardware like I was, I was actually monitoring the granular progress within VCF Operations (VCFO) under Fleet Management->Lifecycle->VCF Management->Tasks and you should see an active task labeled VCF Automation which is representing the deployment of VCFA.

Perhaps it was my impatience ... but I had noticed the VCFA task had already completed but the VCF Installer still did not progress further after waiting maybe 10-15 minutes.

I had the (not so) brilliant idea of attempting to force a re-check of the task by simply rebooting the VCF Installer ...

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Workaround for single NIC using NFS storage with VCF 9.0

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VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 brings additional flexibility by supporting multiple types of principal storage: vSAN (OSA/ESA), Fibre Channel & NFS v3 that users can now choose from.


Right before heading out for PTO a couple of weeks ago I was experimenting with NFS as my principal storage for deploying my initial VCF 9 Fleet with a Minisforums MS-A2 system. While the MS-A2 does have multiple network adapters that are supported with ESXi 9.0, I only had the ethernet NIC connected.

While a single NIC can be used to deploy VCF 9.0, especially when using vSAN as the principal storage. However, in my testing with NFS and a single NIC, the migration from Virtual Standard Switch (VSS) to Virtual Distributed Switch (VDS) ran into some issues.

Note: When using NFS as your principal storage, the NFS network must reside in its own dedicated VLAN (e.g. can not be shared with the ESXi Management Network)

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Ultimate Lab Resource for VCF 9.0

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Since the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, you may have seen a few blogs from me ?

To help folks digest all the resources for deploying and running VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 in a lab environment, I have put this blog post together to summarize the various considerations and/or tweaks that will allow you to get the full experience of VCF 9.0 for non-production/commercial usage.

Make sure you to bookmark this page as I will continue to add new updates, I still have a number of backlog items to share ... but for now that will have to wait as I am in need of some PTO, which starts tomorrow! ?

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