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Enhancement in VCF 5.2.2 to bypass vSAN ESA HCL Check

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When vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA) is selected as the primary storage for deploying VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.x, the Cloud Builder Appliance will validate the system against the vSAN ESA HCL and will block the deployment if the hardware components are non-compliant.


For a production deployment, this should be the default experience but for non-production or proof-of-concept (POC), this can be annoying if you wish to accept the risk and proceed with using non-certified vSAN ESA hardware.

Today, the most viable workaround is to install the vSAN ESA Hardware Mock VIB , which will allow users to proceed with the deployment but it does require the additional installation step for each ESXi host.

Having spoken with VCF Engineering about this topic awhile back, they have introduced a nice enhancement with the latest release of VCF 5.2.2 that will allow users to easily bypass the vSAN ESA HCL check without requiring additional ESXi configurations changes.

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VCF 9.0 Hardware BOM for Silicon Valley VMUG

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I recently participated in a special VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9 event at the Silicon Valley VMUG, which was held at the Broadcom headquarters in Palo Alto, California.


I had a fantastic time at the event, lots of great engagement from attendees, kudos to Frances Wong and the entire VMUG team for putting the event together!

With the huge amount of interests from the community in running VCF 9, I thought this would be a great event to showcase a VCF 9 lab setup using the popular Minisforum MS-A2. The exact same VCF 9 lab setup will also be used for the upcoming VMware {Code} Hackathon at VMware Explore, so definitely sign up if you are interested in playing with the MS-A2 at Explore!

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ESXi on GMKtec NucBox K11

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The GMKtec NucBox has been growing in popularity amongst the VMware community as a modern AMD Ryzen-based alternative to the Intel/ASUS NUC, offering many of the same advantages while avoiding some of the drawbacks of Intel's Hybrid CPU architecture.

In preparation for my upcoming session at the inaugural VMUG Connect Conference in April, I have been experimenting with several modern hardware options, with the goal of deploying the full VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) solution for use within a lab environment, while still staying budget friendly!

I know several folks have had great success with the GMKtec NucBox K8 Plus and it just so happens, while browsing the GMKtec website, I noticed an additional NucBox has just been released called the K11.


While the differences between the K8 Plus and K11 is pretty minimal, I was interested in validating some new hardware add-ons, so getting the latest hardware would hopefully give me the best chance!

In collaboration with the VMware {Code} team, I was able to get hands on with the latest GMKtec NucBox K11!

UPDATE (06/25/25) - The K11 can be used to run VCF 9.0, but you will NOT be able to run VCF Automation (VCFA). You can see how I have used the K11 is used in a "Hybrid" configuration in this blog post under Scenario 3.

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