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VMware Flings are back!

12.14.2023 by William Lam // 15 Comments

In addition to the big announcements from yesterday on major simplification of the new VMware by Broadcom offers and licensing model and the new chapter for the VMware Desktop Hypervisor products, I have one more piece of exciting news that I would like to share with our users, just in time for the holidays! 🎁

[Read more...]

Categories // ESXi, Home Lab, NSX, VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware Tanzu, vRealize Suite, VSAN, vSphere Tags // Fling

ESXi on iKOOLCORE R2

12.13.2023 by William Lam // 3 Comments

I first wrote about the tiny palm size iKOOLCORE R1 back in Spring of this year, I was pretty impressed at how capable the R1 was, especially given the tiny footprint that is slightly taller than a Lego minifigure!


It has not even been a full year since the release of the R1 and the second generation of the R-Series is now available, not surprisingly dubbed the R2.

[Read more...]

Categories // ESXi, Home Lab Tags // iKOOLCORE

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) using USB Network Adaptor

12.11.2023 by William Lam // 5 Comments

To deploy VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), your physical or virtual ESXi host must have at least two network adaptors to be able to migrate to Distributed Virtual Switch (VDS), which is configured as part of the VCF Bringup process. While you can technically migrate to a VDS with just a single network adaptor using this trick, it is definitely easier if you have a system that meets this basic requirement.

Earlier this year, I demonstrated that you can deploy VCF using just an Intel NUC with only 64GB of memory, which would be the minimum to run single node VCF Management Domain, however it does not leave you with much room for running other workloads due to pushing the memory limits.

The ASUS PN64-E1 is currently one of my top favorite small form factor kits, especially being able to support up 96GB of memory using the new non-binary DDR5 memory modules. After the release of VCF 5.1, I wanted to use the ASUS PN64-E1 for a VCF deployment, but there was only one problem ... my particular configuration of the PN64-E1 only had a single network adaptor!

I thought I could out smart the VCF Bringup pre-check by using a USB network adaptor and installing the popular USB Network Native Driver for ESXi 😉

However, it turns out the pre-check is looking for PCIe-based network adaptors, so while the system does have two network adaptors, it still failed the pre-check and prevented the deployment from continuing. I ended up reaching out some of the VCF Engineers to see if there were any workarounds and he was kind enough to provide me with a nice workaround that would benefit our users looking to play and explore VCF in a lab environment.

Disclaimer: This is not officially supported by Broadcom, use at your own risk.

[Read more...]

Categories // VMware Cloud Foundation Tags // usb ethernet adapter, usb network adapter, VMware Cloud Foundation

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Author

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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Recent

  • VMware Flings is now available in Free Downloads of Broadcom Support Portal (BSP) 05/19/2025
  • VMUG Connect 2025 - Minimal VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.x in a Box  05/15/2025
  • Programmatically accessing the Broadcom Compatibility Guide (BCG) 05/06/2025
  • Quick Tip - Validating Broadcom Download Token  05/01/2025
  • Supported chipsets for the USB Network Native Driver for ESXi Fling 04/23/2025

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