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VCF 9.1 - VMUG x Intel x Micron Collaboration on Single VCF Host Deployment for VMUG Connect

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Everyone knows how difficult and expensive it can be to build a personal lab, yet that is often where practitioners and architects gain their most valuable hands-on experience with VMware technologies.

Earlier this year, Intel reached out and shared that they would be attending several VMUG Connect events to showcase how organizations can leverage the latest Intel Xeon 6 processors for AI inferencing using Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX).

Intel was also interested in doing something cool and fun for the VMUG community at these events, so after brainstorming a few ideas, we landed on what seemed like the obvious answer: giving away a system to an attendee that would allow them to get hands-on with AI workloads running on VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)! 😆

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VCF 9.1 - Deploying VCF Management Services (VCFMS) with Custom IP Allocation using SDDC Manager API

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One of the new steps when upgrading an existing VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.x or 9.0.x environment to VCF 9.1 is deploying the new VCF Management Services (VCFMS) component using SDDC Manager.


Unlike a brand new VCF 9.1 deployment using the VCF Installer, the VCFMS deployment workflow during an upgrade requires the VCF Services runtime network to be specified using a CIDR format rather than an IP Range, which can also be tricky if you do not have a contiguous IP address block.


Users can choose from additional IP allocation options, but you will need to use the SDDC Manager API, as I recently shared in this blog post.

To demonstrate this new SDDC Manager API, I have put together a quick PowerShell script called deploy_vcf_management_service_with_custom_ip_allocation.ps1 that simplifies the deployment of VCFMS using a custom IP allocation method.

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VCF 9.1 - VCF Download Tool (VCFDT) Cheatsheet

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The latest release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Download Tool (VCFDT), which ships as part of VCF 9.1, includes a number of enhancements for downloading VVF and VCF installation and upgrade binaries.

For new users of VMware Cloud Foundation Download Tool (VCFDT), I thought it would be useful to put together a quick cheat sheet covering some of the most common workflows, ranging from configuring an activation code and downloading the required VCF 9.1 binaries for initial deployments and upgrades, to the new workflow for downloading ESX patches and updates.

I have even found myself repeatedly using the --help command just to locate a specific option or workflow, so hopefully this serves as a useful reference for both new and existing users, including myself! 😅

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