In this blog post, we’ll be deploying VCF Operations for Logs. This component is not deployed during installation so we need to do this as a Day-2 operation. Log into VCF Operations, browse to Fleet Management / Lifecycle. Click Add, and it will begin the deployment wizard. This is going to look pretty similar to…
The NSX Edge Cluster deployment procedure has changed significantly in VCF 9. When we performed this in previous versions, it was via the SDDC Manager (either by JSON spec or GUI in newer VCF versions). As I mentioned in previous posts, the SDDC Manager is being deprecated, so the Edge deployment has moved into the…
We have a new and improved workflow for Certificates in VCF 9:ESX Certificates now supported in the Operations Console!Auto-renewal now supported if you are using the CA Integration! First, we configure the integration with a Microsoft CA Now we can generate a CSR, and replace the certs directly from the CA. After a few minutes,…
VIDM IS DEAD! We finally have a new authentication solution for VCF, the Identity Broker. This intended to be the central authentication point for all of the VCF components, and we have new functionality such as integration with modern identity providers like Entra/Ping We have 2 deployment modes available:1: Integrated with Management Domain vCenter. This…
VCF 9 has mostly done away with the SDDC Manager – it still gets deployed, but is scheduled for deprecation. I assume it’s still there to allow customers that have deveoped their own automation workflows that hit the SDDC-M endpoint. We now have a new method of commissioning and deploying hosts via the vCenter directly….
VCF 9 has made major changes to the deployment process. The Cloud Builder + Deployment EMS spreadsheet have been deprecated and we have a brand new installer! To begin, we deploy an SDDC Manager/Installer appliance via vSphere. Once it’s online, we can begin the process. Now we connect the Installer to either an online or…
Update: 20250630 – The Official Holodeck 9 has now been released, so this guide is only useful if you want to deploy from scratch manually. Holodeck has become the standard for home lab VCF, and it’s easy to see why. It’s probably going to be a while before the official scripts are released, so here’s…
The parts have all landed (finally) including the extra fans I needed.Here’s the install pic showing the extra CPUs, fans, memory and 25Gbit RNDC card installed. Luckily the RAM from the old Gibson was also compatible with the new hardware, so I’ve pulled some extra memory. ESX installed, hosts cut over and the old ones…
This code snip is used to set the expiry on NSX accounts to “9999” days to ensure we don’t get any annoying account lockouts. For VCF we cannot just disable password expiry, as it will cause SDDC Manager workflow issues if an empty expiry time is returned from NSX. This is my first attempt at…
When deploying Holodeck, I like to add the VMs to a vApp so I can power-up/power-down the environment from one place. Because this is running vSAN, we want all the nodes to power up simultaneously to minimise any potential issues with the vSAN consistency.When we create a vApp, the VMs will just get added to…