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VMware Cloud Foundation with a single ESXi host for Workload Domain?

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Earlier this week, we demonstrated that we could deploy a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Management Domain using just a single ESXi host. In addition, we can further optimize the deployment for homelab purposes by removing the CPU and memory reservations for NSX when deploying either a VCF Management or Workload Domain.

The most logical question that I am sure some of you are probably asking ... besides, how much time I actually spent testing these scenarios out!? (I rather not comment 😵‍💫) ... is what about deploying a VCF Workload Domain with just a single ESXi host? 🤔


You guessed it, it is definitely possible!

Disclaimer: This is not supported by VMware, use at your own risk. As of writing this blog post, this trick is functional with the latest VCF 4.5 release.

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Removing NSX CPU/Memory reservations when deploying a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Management or Workload Domain

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Now that you can deploy a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Management Domain onto a single ESXi host for homelab purposes, another challenge that can arise is simply having enough resources to deploy either a Management or Workload Domain.

While you do need to meet some minimum bar in terms of the amount of CPU and memory resources required to run the various components within a VCF Management or Workload Domain, I found that NSX resource requirements does add another challenge. The NSX Unified Appliance comes configured with both CPU and memory reservations, this means unless you can reserve both the required CPU and Memory for NSX, you can not power on NSX and the deployment will continue to retry until it eventually gives up. 

Again, for a production environment, this is not a problem but for homelab or testing purposes, this can further restrict users from exploring the VCF solution. 

I figured why not just reduce or even remove the CPU and memory reservations from the NSX OVA within the VMware Cloud Builder which is responsible for the initial VCF bringup? Well, I quickly found out why as the ISO which contains all the OVA is mounted as read-only 🙂


Luckily, all hope is not lost and this is where I learned to leverage a neat Linux kernel capability called OverlayFS which can help us! With a bit of trial/error, I was able to remove the CPU and memory reservations from the NSX appliance that is used during the deployment of a VCF Management Domain. In addition, I also ran into the same challenge when deploying a VCF Workload Domain and luckily, that was a much easier solution to figure out.

Disclaimer: This is not supported by VMware, use at your own risk. As of writing this blog post, this trick is functional on latest VCF 4.5 release.

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Logging into vCenter when vCenter Cloud Gateway (VCGW) is disconnected from vSphere+ Cloud Service

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As part of setting up access to the vSphere+ / vSAN+ Cloud Service, a vCenter Cloud Gateway (VCGW) is deployed into your on-premises infrastructure and serves as a gateway between your vCenter Server(s) and the VMware Cloud Console.

If the VCGW has connectivity issues to the VMware Cloud Console for whatever reason, your infrastructure and workloads continue to run but you will not be able to perform any operations through the VMware Cloud Console until connectivity is restored.

UPDATE (06/21/23) - The period in which VMware declares a VCGW unreachable has been updated from 24hrs to 7 days. This means even if your VCGW loses connectivity, you will still be able to login to your on-premises vCenter Server and/or SDDC Manager without needing to go to emergency URL.

However, if you attempt to login into your on-premises vCenter Server(s) using the vSphere UI, you may be surprised to find the following error message.


The message may looking alarming at first about not being able to login, but can still login even if connectivity between the VCGW and VMware Cloud Console has been lost.

While I will agree the user experience may not very intuitive, the hint is in the URL link below where it says "Still having connection problems?"

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