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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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Quick Tip - Updating Firmware on Minisforum MS-A2

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I recently had to setup a couple more Minisforum MS-A2 which will be used to deploy VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9 for a special VMUG event at Broadcom's Palo Alto headquarters this week.

One of the first things I like to do with any new hardware system is to check the vendors website to make sure that I am running the latest firmware and drivers. I know many of you in the VMware Community have acquired the popular MS-A2 for VCF 9, so this is a good reminder to make sure your firmware is up to date!

My MS-A2 kits all shipped with the 1.0.1 version of the firmware and as of publishing this blog post, the latest version is 1.0.2. While reading the release notes for 1.0.2, I saw that one of the new feature is the ability to control the fan speeds, which was really the only negative feedback I had in my MS-A2 review, that fans were quite loud when any load was placed on the system.

Spoiler alert ... changing the fan speed to either balance and/or quiet did not make a difference 🤣 ... so YMMV with this new feature 😅

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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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