In my last post HomeLab Stage LXXI: New Hardware Invests, I have written about my new hardware servers. Now it is time to write more about the details of those new projects:
I have a lot of customers, who are running VCF in their environments. Some using it for production, others still in PoC or Pilot phase. How to get more familiar with this new concept? How to prepare for certifications?
I wanted to build several VMware Cloud Foundation setups for self-training, customer demos and of course for troubleshooting. You need hands-on experience with it!
I have created / upgraded one of my new servers especially for the VCF use case. My plan was to run the VMware HoloDeck 2.0 setup on that machine. But not only one single environment, you know me…. I want more
Dual Xeon 6258R CPUs with 28 Cores and 2.7 GHz each is a perfect starting point. 1,5TB memory is absolutely required and a lot of SSD capacity as well….
What is HoloDeck?
Setting up a VCF environment is resource intensive and time consuming…. A normal setup is placed on one datacenter, 4 hosts for mgmt and additional hosts for the workload domain. The mgmt domain must utilize vSAN, the workload domains can use it too, but also can use other storage options. My initial setup is based on a VCF Standard Design. HoloDeck helps you to setup and configure an entire VCF environment. The physical ESXi server must be disconnected from your vCenter, otherwise the setup will fail.
The environment is isolated and you have only access to it via a Cloud Console called Windows VM. The HoloDeck setup creates a Windows ISO image with eval licenses inside. My first step after the creation was the replacement of the eval key with a non-expiring key…..
After the key replacement I tweaked the Cloud Console Windows VM…. CPU reservation, 100% memory reserveration, NVMe controller and the most performance based modification: a vGPU profile from my Nvidia L4 GPU with 12GB of frame buffer!!!! Why 12GB? Because the other 12GB of my 24GB L4 GPU Frame Buffer is used by one of my AI / Gen-AI VMs. More on that topic later….
How does the first VCF environment look like?
The first 4 VMs on the physical host are dedicated for the mgmt domain within VCF. They use vSAN and have a dedicated vCenter deployed on it.
After the initial setup I deployed additional hosts for the workload domain. 3 hosts are configured for NFS storage and 4 hosts are again using vSAN. I created two different clusters inside the workload domain. That environment is using 11 virtual ESXi hosts on my physical Dell R740 machine, nearly all of them are fully utilizing their resources. Next step is upgrading that environment to the newest VCF 5.1.1 version.
Why a second VCF environment?
The VCF Standard Design with mgmt and workload domains must exist inside a single datacenter. Most of our customers running vSAN Stretched Clusters and have 3 different datacenters. Like myself at my HomeLab…. 🙂
I wanted a second environment with a stretched VCF setup. How to do that? I can strongly recommend the VCF 5.0 Training Deploy, Configure, Manage. That training is a perfect preparation for all kind of deployment options and it includes the topic stretched VCF setups….
First I deployed once again 4 hosts for the management domain, I made the deciscion to create a Consolidated Design (combination of mgmt and workload domain). To make it stretched, deploy 4 additional hosts as well as a vSAN Witness appliance. Yes it must be deployed manually, not via the SDDC manager. After the host commisiong process you can start the stretching…. via API Explorer inside SDDC manager! After nearly one hour, my VCF was stretched and ready for upgrades. Upgrade to VCF 5.1.1 went fine, but took another day including all the prechecks.
I learned so much using HoloDeck! Please don´t install VCF at any customer location without attending the VCF Training first and with a lot of hands-on experience!!!!
Certification
I have deployed and upgraded my HoloDeck environments several times to get experience in troubleshooting it and prepare myself for the certification. Actually there are two different VCF specialist exams available:
I have sucessfully done both exams, the first one is going to retire in june, you should focus on the newer one. It is a tricky exam (multiple choice) with a lot of content about the different deployment options. Without my HoloDeck deployment at home and the customer field experience I would not have been able to pass it.
Want more infos on my VCF topic? I have submitted VMware Explore talks for Las Vegas as well as Barcelona…. And I also did a VMug talk at the UserCon in Frankfurt, Germany
VCF is a complex product, but don´t fear it. Use HoloDeck to play with it. It will be worth
Check the next episode: HomeLab Stage LXXIII: New networks
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