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Automate Inventory of vSphere Supervisor Clusters & vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) Guest Clusters

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As customers begin planning their upgrade to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1, vSphere Supervisor and vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) have been coming up more frequently in upgrade discussions.

Before you can determine the applicable upgrade path, it is important to understand what has been deployed. Depending on your environment, you may have multiple vSphere Supervisor Clusters running different Supervisor versions, VKS Service versions, and VKS Guest Cluster versions, which can make gathering a complete inventory challenging.

To help simplify the collection of information, I have created a small PowerCLI script called Get-vSphereSupervisorAndVKSInventory.ps1 (I actually had to create the initial base with me verifying specific cmdlets to provide to AI because it went on wild tangent when asked to create me such a script) which will automatically inventory your vSphere Supervisor and VKS deployments. At first, I was hoping AI could

VCF 9.1.1 - OCuLink External Graphics (eGPU) Dock with integrated PSU for GPU Passthrough with VKS

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For those who have been following my VCF Private AI Services (PAIS) exploration with deploying my own AI models and using them with Coding Agents running on VCF, I have found that these AI workloads can really push the thermals on my NVIDIA RTX 4000 running inside my Minisforum MS-A2, eventually causing the GPU to start throttling.

Earlier this year, I had shared a solution from a colleague who wanted to leverage a more capable GPU with vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) and was able to externalize the GPU using an OCuLink-based eGPU dock that is also compatible with the MS-A2.

I was initially going to use the same eGPU solution, which would have also required purchasing a separate PSU to power the GPU. While looking at my options, I came across another OCuLink eGPU dock (AG01) from Aoostar that had an integrated PSU (up to 800W), was plug-and-play ready, and certainly had a much cleaner aesthetic design.

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VCF 9.1 - Quick Tip: Optimized Workflow for Configuring Distributed Transit Gateway (DTGW) with NSX Virtual Network Appliance (VNA)

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With VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1, the Distributed Transit Gateway (DTGW) connectivity model now supports NSX stateful network services through the Virtual Network Appliance (VNA) cluster. This makes it easy for VI Admins to provision Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), which can then be used to deploy vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) workloads using either vCenter Server or VCF Automation (VCFA).

One of the most underappreciated benefits is the ability to complete various NSX workflows including an entire VNA cluster deployment and DTGW configuration directly from vCenter Server, without having to switch to the NSX Manager UI. While NSX Manager still provides the underlying micro-frontend interfaces that are integrated into the vSphere UI, I appreciate having the flexibility to perform these workflows from either the vCenter Server or NSX Manager interface, depending on your roles and responsibilities within an organization.

While there are a number of community blog posts covering DTGW and VNA deployments, they typically start in the vSphere UI for the initial VNA deployment before switching to the NSX Manager UI to complete the remaining configuration, which is perfectly valid. Personally, I prefer using the vSphere UI for as many workflows as possible, especially since enabling vSphere Supervisor and vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) is also performed through the vSphere UI.

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