VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 – Technical Overview

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 – Technical Overview

Jun 5, 2023 | Cloud Native Apps, Edge Computing, HCX, Kubernetes, NSX, Tanzu, VMware Aria, VMware Cloud Foundation, vRealize, vSphere

Update: Please have a look at the VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 Technical Overview.

This technical overview supersedes this version, which was based on VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5, and now covers all capabilities and enhancements that were delivered with VCF 5.0.

What is VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)?

VMware Cloud Foundation is a multi-cloud platform that provides a full-stack hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) that is made for modernizing data centers and deploying modern container-based applications. VCF is based on different components like vSphere (compute), vSAN (storage), NSX (networking), and some parts of the Aria Suite (formerly vRealize Suite). The idea of VCF follows a standardized, automated, and validated approach that simplifies the management of all the needed software-defined infrastructure resources.

This stack provides customers with consistent infrastructure and operations in a cloud operating model that can be deployed on-premises, at the edge, or in the public cloud.

What software is being delivered in VMware Cloud Foundation?

The BoM (bill of materials) is changing with each VCF release. With VCF 5.0 the following components and software versions are included:

Note: Only one vCenter Server license is required for all vCenter Servers deployed in a VMware Cloud Foundation system.

VMware Cloud Foundation 5 Overview

What happened to the Tanzu entitlements?

With the release of VCF 5.0, VMware plans to retire the perpetual licensing for VMware Cloud Foundation in Q3 2023.

Around the same time, we can expect that VCF is only being sold as part of the “Cloud Packs” (connected and disconnected):

VCF Cloud Pack 

As already mentioned here, customers have also no more option to buy “Tanzu Standard” and existing Tanzu Standard customers can “upgrade” to “Tanzu Kubernetes Grid” (TKG) and Tanzu Mission Control (add-on).

There are several options available. Please contact your VMware representative.

VMware Cloud Foundation Architecture

VCF is made for greenfield deployments (brownfield not supported) and supports two different architecture models:

  • Standard Architecture
  • Consolidated Architecture

VMware Cloud Foundation Deployment Options

The standard architecture separates management workloads and lets them run on a dedicated management workload domain. Customer workloads are deployed on a separate virtual infrastructure workload domain (VI workload domain). Each workload domain is managed by a separate vCenter Server instance, which allows autonomous licensing and lifecycle management.

VMware Cloud Foundation Single Site Deployment

Note: The standard architecture is the recommended model because it separates management workloads from customer workloads.

Customers with a small environment (or a PoC) can start with a consolidated architecture. This allows you to run customer and management workloads together on the same workload domain (WLD).

Note: The management workload domain’s default cluster datastore must use vSAN. Other WLDs can use vSAN, NFS, FC, and vVols for the principal storage.

VMware Cloud Foundation Storage Options

What is a vSAN Stretched Cluster?

vSAN stretched clusters extend a vSAN cluster from a single site to two sites for a higher level of availability and inter-site load balancing.

VMware Cloud Foundation Stretched Cluster

Does VCF provide flexible workload domain sizing?

Yes, that’s possible. You can license the WLDs based on your needs and use the editions that make the most sense depending on your use cases.

VMware Cloud Foundation Flexible Licensing

How many physical nodes are required to deploy VMware Cloud Foundation?

A minimum of four physical nodes is required to start in a consolidated architecture or to build your management workload domain. Four nodes are required to ensure that the environment can tolerate a failure while another node is being updated.

VI workload domains require a minimum of three nodes.

This means, to start with a standard architecture, you need to have the requirements (and money) to start with at least seven physical nodes.

What are the minimum hardware requirements?

These minimum specs have been listed for the management WLD since VCF 4.0 (September 2020):

VMware Cloud Foundation Hardware Requirements

Can I mix vSAN ReadyNodes and Dell EMC VxRail deployments?

No. This is not possible.

What about edge/remote use cases?

When you would like to deploy VMware Cloud Foundation workload domains at a remote site, you can deploy so-called “VCF Remote Clusters”. Those remote workload domains are managed by the VCF instance at the central site and you can perform the same full-stack lifecycle management for the remote sites from the central SDDC Manager.

VMware Cloud Foundation Remote Cluster

Prerequisites to deploy remote clusters can be found here.

Note: If vSAN is used, VCF only supports a minimum of 3 nodes and a maximum of 4 nodes per VCF Remote Cluster. If NFS, vVOLs or Fiber Channel is used as principal storage, then VCF supports a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 4 nodes.

Important: Remote clusters and remote workload domains are not supported when VCF+ is enabled.

Does VCF support HCI Mesh?

Yes. VMware Cloud Foundation 4.2 and later supports sharing remote datastores with HCI Mesh for VI workload domains.

HCI Mesh is a software-based approach for disaggregation of compute and storage resources in vSAN. HCI Mesh brings together multiple independent vSAN clusters by enabling cross-cluster utilization of remote datastore capacity within vCenter Server. HCI Mesh enables you to efficiently utilize and consume data center resources, which provides simple storage management at scale.

Note: At this time, HCI Mesh is not supported with VCF ROBO.

What is SDDC Manager?

SDDC Manager is a preconfigured virtual appliance that is deployed in the management workload domain for creating workload domains, provisioning additional virtual infrastructure and lifecycle management of all the software-defined data center (SDDC) management components.

VMware Cloud Foundation SDDC Manager

You use SDDC Manager in VMware Cloud Foundation to perform the following operations:

  • Commissioning or decommissioning ESXi hosts
  • Deployment of workload domains
  • Extension of clusters in the management and workload domains with ESXi hosts
  • Adding clusters to the management domain and workload domains
  • Support for network pools for host configuration in a workload domain
  • Product licenses storage
  • Deployment of vRealize Suite components.
  • Lifecycle management of the virtual infrastructure components in all workload domains, and of vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager components.
  • Certificate management
  • Password management and rotation
  • NSX-T Edge cluster deployment in the management domain and workload domains
  • Backup configuration

VMware Cloud Foundation SDDC Manager Dashboard

How many resources does the VCF management WLD need during the bring-up process?

We know that VCF includes vSphere (ESXi and vCenter), vSAN, SDDC Manager, NSX-T and eventually some components of the vRealize Suite. The following table should give you an idea what the resource requirements look like to get VCF up and running:

VMware Cloud Foundation Resource Requirements

If you are interested to know how many resources the Aria Suite (formerly vRealize Suite) will consume of the management workload domain, have a look at this table:

VMware Cloud Foundation Resource Requirements vRealize

How can I migrate my workloads from a non-VCF environment to a new VCF deployment?

VMware HCX provides a path to modernize from a legacy data center architecture by migrating to VMware Cloud Foundation.

VMware Cloud Foundation HCX

    Can I install VCF in my home lab?

    Yes, you can. With the VLC Lab Constructor, you can deploy an automated VCF instance in a nested configuration. There is also a Slack VLC community for support.

    VCF Lab Constructor

    Note: Please have a look at “VCF Holodeck” if you would like to create a smaller “sandbox” for testing or training purposes.

    Where can I find more information about VCF?

    Please consult the VMware Foundation 5.0 FAQ for more information about VMware Cloud Foundation.

     

     

     

    VMware Tanzu Licensing – What’s New?

    VMware Tanzu Licensing – What’s New?

    May 9, 2023 | AWS, Azure, Cloud Native Apps, CNCF, Edge Computing, ESXi, Kubernetes, NSX, Observability, Tanzu, Tanzu Application Platform, VMware Cloud, VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware Data, vSphere

    Last year, VMware gave the Tanzu portfolio a fairly good facelift with all the announcements from VMware Explore 2022. It is clear to me that VMware focuses on multi-cluster and multi-cloud Kubernetes management capabilities (Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations) and a superior developer experience with any Kubernetes on any cloud (Tanzu Application Platform). VMware embraces native public clouds and so it was very exciting for many customers when they announced the lifecycle management of Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) clusters – the direct provisioning and management of EKS clusters with Tanzu Mission Control. But what happened in the last 6 to 9 months since VMware Explore US and Europe? And how do I get parts of the VMware Tanzu portfolio nowadays?

    Tanzu Licensing

    Let us start with licensing first. in October 2022, VMware made it clear that they do not want to move forward anymore with the Tanzu Basic and Advanced editions, only Tanzu Standard was left. VMware replaced Tanzu Basic with “Tanzu Kubernetes Grid” (TKG), which comes with the following components:

    • vSphere capabilities / K8s Runtime
    • K8s Cluster Lifecycle Management – Cluster API
    • Image Registry – Harbor
    • Container Networking – Antrea/Calico
    • Load Balancing – NSX Advanced Load Balancer
    • Ingress Controller – Contour
    • Observability – Fluent Bit, Prometheus, Grafana
    • Operating System – Photon OS, Ubuntu, bring-your-own node image
    • Data Protection – Velero

    Note: Nothing is official yet, but according to this article intended for partners, VMware is going to announce the Tanzu Standard EOA (End of Availability) soon:

    …containing updated information on Tanzu Standard entering end of availability (EOA) and the new Tanzu Kubernetes Operations and Tanzu Application Platform partner resources.

    Looking at the “Tanzu Explainer” and its changelog from the 5th of May, one can find the following: “Updated to reflect new Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations SKUs“.

    Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations Bundles

    The Tanzu Explainer on Tech Zone lists the following new bundles/packages for Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations (TKO):

    1. Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations Foundation includes Tanzu Mission Control Advanced and Tanzu Service Mesh Advanced. Two add-on SKUs are available—one adds Antrea Advanced and Aria Operations for Applications, the other adds these plus NSX Advanced Load Balancer Enterprise. Tanzu Kubernetes Grid is not included in this bundle.
    2. Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations includes Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, Tanzu Mission Control Advanced, Tanzu Service Mesh Advanced, Antrea Advanced, and Aria Operations for Applications.
    3. Tanzu for Kubernetes Operations with NSX Advanced Load Balancer includes Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, Tanzu Mission Control Advanced, Tanzu Service Mesh Advanced, Antrea Advanced, Aria Operations for Applications, and NSX Advanced Load Balancer Enterprise.

    Note: Since Tanzu Mission Control Standard (TMC) was only sold as part of the Tanzu Standard Edition, we see VMware moving forward with TMC Advanced only. Which is good! But TMC Essentials still comes with vSphere+ and VMC on AWS.

    Tanzu Entitlements with vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation Editions

    What about vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)? Let me give you an overview here as well:

    • vSphere+ Standard – No Tanzu entitlements included
    • vSphere+ – Includes TKG and TMC Essentials
    • vSphere Enterprise+ with TKG – Includes TKG
    • VMware Cloud Foundation – All VCF editions have Tanzu Standard included

    Note: We do not know yet what the Tanzu Standard EOA means for the Tanzu entitlements with VCF. Need to wait for guidance.

    VMware Cloud Packs

    In April 2023, VMware introduced new bundles called VMware Cloud Packs and they come in four different flavours:

    1. Compute with Advanced Automation. vSphere+ and Aria Universal Suite Advanced
    2. HCI. vSphere+, vSAN+ Advanced and Aria Universal Suite Standard
    3. HCI with Advanced Automation. vSphere+, vSAN+ Advanced and Aria Universal Suite Advanced
    4. VMware Cloud Foundation. vSphere+, vSAN+ Enterprise, NSX Enterprise Plus, SDDC Manager, Aria Universal Suite Enterprise, Aria Operations for Networks Enterprise add-on

    In addition to these four Cloud Packs offerings, customers can get the following add-ons:

    • Data Protection & Disaster Recovery
    • Network Detection and Response
    • Tanzu Mission Control
    • Ransomware Recovery
    • Advanced Load Balancer
    • Workload and Endpoint Security
    • Intrusion Detection and Prevention
    • VDI/Desktops

    Note: As you can see, all new cloud packs have TKG included and TMC is an add-on. vCenter Standard is with connected and disconnected subscriptions.

    Important: Please note as well that the individual components of the bundles cannot be upgraded independently. Example – Aria Universal Suite Standard as part of the HCI Cloud Pack cannot be upgraded to Aria Universal Suite Enterprise.

    Conclusion

    VMware is clearly moving in the right direction: They want to simplify their portfolio and improve how customers can consume/subscribe services. As always, it is going to take a while until they have figured out which bundles and product versions make sense for most of the customers. Be patient. 🙂

     

    What does VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery have in common with Dell PowerProtect?

    What does VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery have in common with Dell PowerProtect?

    May 4, 2023 | AWS, Azure, Cloud Native Apps, Data Protection, ESXi, Kubernetes, Security, VCPP, VMware Cloud, VMware Cloud Foundation, vSphere

    It was at VMware Explore Europe 2022 when I ran into a colleague from Dell who told me about “transparent snapshots” and mentioned that their solution has something in common VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VCDR). After doing some research, I figured out that he was talking about the Light Weight Delta (LWD) protocol.

    Snapshots

    Snapshots are states of a system or virtual machine (VM) at a particular point in time and should not be considered a backup. The data of a snapshot include all files that form a virtual machine – this includes disks, memory, and other devices like network interface cards (vNIC). To create or delete a snapshot of a VM, the VM needs to be “stunned” (quiesce I/Os).

    I would say it is common knowledge that a higher number of snapshots negatively impact the I/O performance of a virtual machine. Creating snapshots results in the creation of a snapshot hierarchy with parent-to-child relationships. Every snapshot creates a delta .vmdk file and redirects all inputs/writes to this delta disk file.

    VMware vSphere Storage APIs for Data Protection

    Currently, a lot of backup solutions use “VMware vSphere Storage APIs for Data Protection” (VADP), which has been introduced in vSphere 4.0 released in 2009. A backup product using VADP can backup VMs from a central backup server or virtual machine without requiring any backup agents. Meaning, backup solutions using VADP create snapshots that are used to create backups based on the changed blocks of a disk (Changed Block Tracking aka CBT). These changes or this delta is then written to a secondary site or storage and the snapshot is removed after.

    Deleting a snapshot consolidates the changes between snapshots and previous disk states. Then it writes all the data from the delta disk that contains the information about the deleted snapshot to the parent disk. When you delete the base parent snapshot, all changes merge with the base virtual machine disk.

    To delete a snapshot, a large amount of information must be read and written to a disk. This process can reduce the virtual machine performance until the consolidation is complete.

    VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VCDR)

    In 2020, VMware announced the general availability of VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery based on technology from their Datrium acquisition. This new solution extended the current VMware disaster recovery (DR) solutions like VMware Site Recovery, Site Recovery Manager, and Cloud Provider DR solutions.

    VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery is a VMware-delivered disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) offering that protects on-premises vSphere and VMware Cloud on AWS workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS from both disasters and ransomware attacks. It efficiently replicates VMs to a Scale-out Cloud File System (SCFS) that can store hundreds of recovery points with recovery point objectives (RPOs) as low as 30 minutes. This enables recovery for a wide variety of disasters including ransomware. Virtual machines are recovered to a software-defined data center (SDDC) running in VMware Cloud on AWS. VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery also offers fail-back capabilities to bring your workloads back to their original location after the disaster is remediated.

    VMware Cloud DR Architecture

    Note: Currently, VCDR is only available as an add-on feature to VMware Cloud on AWS. The support for Azure VMware Solution is expected to come next.

    To me, VCDR is one of the best solutions from the whole VMware portfolio.

    High-Frequency Snapshots (HFS)

    One of the differentiators and game-changers are these so-called high-frequency snapshots, which are based on the Light Weight Delta (LWD) technology that VMware developed. Using HFS allows customers to schedule recurring snapshots for every 30 minutes, meaning, that customers can get an Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 30min!

    To enable and use high-frequency snapshots, your environment must be running on vSphere 7.0 U3 or higher.

    With HFS and LWD, there is no Changed Block Tracking (CBT), no VADP, and no VM stun. This results in better performance when maintaining these deltas.

    Transparent Snapshots by Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager (PPDM)

    At VMworld 2021, Dell Technologies presented a session called “Protect Your Virtual Infrastructure with Drastically Less Disruption [SEC2764S]” which was about “transparent snapshots” – image backups with near-zero impact on virtual machines, without the need to pause the VM during the backup process. No more backup proxies, no more agents.

    Dell Transparent Snapshot Architecture

    As with HFS and VCDR, your environment needs to run on vSphere 7.0 U3 and higher.

    How does it work?

    PowerProtect Data Manager transparent snapshots use the vSphere API for I/O (VAI/O) Filtering framework. The transparent snapshots data mover (TSDM) is deployed in the VMware ESXi infrastructure through a PowerProtect Data Manager VIB. This deployment creates consistent VM backup copies and writes the copies to the protection storage (PowerProtect appliance).

    After, this VIB (Data Protection Daemon (DPD) which is part of the VMware ESXi >7.0 U3 image has been installed on the ESXi host) tracks the delta changes in memory and then transfers the delta changes directly to the protection storage.

    VMware Data Protection Daemon

    Note: PPDM also provides image backup and restore support for VMware Cloud on AWS and Azure VMware Solution, but requires VADP.

    Light Weight Delta (LWD)

    It seems that LWD has been developed by VMware but there is no publicly available information out there yet. I only found this screenshot as part of this Dell article:

    VMware Light Weight Delta

    It also seems that Dell is/was the first who could leverage the LWD protocol exclusively but I am sure it will be made available to other VMware partners as well.

    VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal – The New Intercloud?

    VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal – The New Intercloud?

    Apr 5, 2023 | Edge Computing, Equinix, ESXi, HCX, NSX, Tanzu, VMware Cloud, VMware Cloud Foundation, vSAN, vSphere

    It was November 2022 when VMware and Equinix announced an expanded partnership to deliver new infrastructure and multi-cloud services. Called VMware Cloud on Equinix, this solution combines VMware Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) with Equinix Metal Hardware-as-a-Services (HWaaS) independently. In other words, the SDDC (software-defined data center) stack is sold by VMware, and HWaaS is sold by Equinix. Looking at this partnership and solution, one could say that Equinix might become “the” intercloud in this multi-cloud era.

    What is VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal (VMC-E)?

    VMC-E combines VMware’s managed and supported cloud IaaS with Equinix’s baremetal-as-a-service (BMaaS) offering. This gives enterprises the advantage to run this cloud offering almost everywhere globally. Another benefit is that VMC-E will be available in over 30 of the most interconnected global Equinix locations, connected to all the major public clouds and networks (Equinix Fabric).

    Equinix Multi-Cloud App

    What is Equinix Fabric?

    This service allows organizations to connect to other Equinix customers and other internet resources like service providers:

    • Amazon Web Services (AWS)
    • Microsoft Azure
    • Google Cloud
    • Oracle Cloud
    • Alibaba Cloud
    • IBM Cloud
    • and many more

    For me, Equinix Fabric is an interesting way to interconnect different VMware-based Clouds like VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure VMware Solution, Google Cloud VMware Engine, Alibaba Cloud VMware Solution, or Oracle Cloud VMware Solution.

    VMC-E for multi-cloud apps?

    A lot of enterprises are not “cloud-first” anymore, they became “cloud-smart”. They put the right apps in the right cloud based on the right reasons.

    VMware Cloud-Smart

    VMC-E has the potential to become a true multi-cloud enabler by letting VMware and Equinix customers move their applications to an ideal place. Imagine lifting and shifting a legacy application to VMC-E. This application then sits in the middle of all major clouds and customers can use different services and components for the same application. This is my definition of a multi-cloud app.

    Multi-Cloud App on VMC-E

    What are the use cases?

    VMware and Equinix mention distributed environments and mission-critical applications that rely on high-performance network bandwidth and low latency, such as smart cities, video analytics, game development, VDI, real-time financial market trading, retail POS, IoT, and machine learning.

    Which hosts are available?

    VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal comes with multiple host configs that can be found here. It is not clear yet which host type(s) will be available during the initial lunch. But the tech preview on YouTube shows the “n3.xlarge.x86” instance type.

    Tech Preview VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal - YouTube

    How can I get VMC-E?

    VMC-E is currently in an early access phase for selected customers in H1 2023.

    Tech Preview VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal

    Where can I get more information?

    To learn more and to participate in the early access program for VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal, please email your interest to  .

    VMware Cloud Foundation – A Technical Overview (based on VCF 4.5)

    VMware Cloud Foundation – A Technical Overview (based on VCF 4.5)

    Dec 6, 2022 | Cloud Native Apps, Edge Computing, ESXi, HCX, homelab, Kubernetes, NSX, Tanzu, VMware Aria, VMware Cloud, VMware Cloud Foundation, vRealize

     

    Update: Please follow this link to get to the updated version with VCF 5.0.

    This technical overview supersedes this version, which was based on VMware Cloud Foundation 4.3, and now covers all capabilities and enhancements that were delivered with VCF 4.5.

    What is VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)?

    VMware Cloud Foundation is a multi-cloud platform that provides a full-stack hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) that is made for modernizing data centers and deploying modern container-based applications. VCF is based on different components like vSphere (compute), vSAN (storage), NSX (networking), and some parts of the Aria Suite (formerly vRealize Suite). The idea of VCF follows a standardized, automated, and validated approach that simplifies the management of all the needed software-defined infrastructure resources.

    This stack provides customers with consistent infrastructure and operations in a cloud operating model that can be deployed on-premises, at the edge, or in the public cloud.

    Tanzu Standard Edition is included in VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise editions.

    Note: The VMware Cloud Foundation Starter, Standard, Advanced and Enterprise editions do NOT include Tanzu Standard.

    What software is being delivered in VMware Cloud Foundation?

    The BoM (bill of materials) is changing with each VCF release. With VCF 4.5 the following components and software versions are included:

    • VMware SDDC Manager 4.5
    • vSphere 7.0 Update 3g
    • vCenter Server 7.0 Update 3h
    • vSAN 7.0 Update 3g
    • NSX-T 3.2.1.2
    • VMware Workspace ONE Access 3.3.6
    • vRealize Log Insight 8.8.2
    • vRealize Operations 8.8.2
    • vRealize Automation 8.8.2
    • (vRealize Network Insight)

    Note: Only one vCenter Server license is required for all vCenter Servers deployed in a VMware Cloud Foundation system.

    VMware Cloud Foundation Components

    What is VMware Cloud Foundation+ (VCF+)?

    With the launch of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 4.5 in early October 2022, VCF introduced new consumption and licensing models.

    VCF+ is the next cloud-connected SaaS product offering, which builds on vSphere+ and vSAN+. VCF+ delivers cloud connectivity to centralize management and a new consumption-based OPEX model to consume VMware Cloud services.

    VMware Cloud Foundation Consumption Models

    VCF+ components are cloud entitled, metered, and billed. There are no license keys in VCF+. Once the customer is onboarded to VCF+, the components are entitled from the cloud and periodically metered and billed.

    VMware Cloud Foundation+

    The following components are included in VCF+:

    • vSphere+
    • vSAN+
    • NSX (term license)
    • SDDC Manager
    • Aria Universal Suite (formerly vRealize Cloud Universal aka vRCU)
    • Tanzu Standard
    • vCenter (included as part of vSphere+)

    Note: In a given VCF+ instance, you can only have VCF+ licensing, you cannot mix VCF-S (term) and VCF perpetual licenses with VCF+.

    What are other VCF subscription offerings?

    VMware Cloud Foundation Subscription (VCF-S) is an on-premises (disconnected) term subscription offer that is available as a standalone VCF-S offer using physical core metrics and term subscription license keys.

    VMware Cloud Foundation Subscription TLSS

    You can also purchase VCF+ and VCF-S licenses as part of the VMware Cloud Universal program.

    Note: You can mix VCF-S with perpetual license keys as long as you use the same key (either or) for a workload domain.

    Which VMware Cloud Foundation editions are available?

    A VCF comparison matrix can be found here.

    VMware Cloud Foundation Architecture

    VCF is made for greenfield deployments (brownfield not supported) and supports two different architecture models:

    • Standard Architecture
    • Consolidated Architecture

    VMware Cloud Foundation Deployment Options

    The standard architecture separates management workloads and lets them run on a dedicated management workload domain. Customer workloads are deployed on a separate virtual infrastructure workload domain (VI workload domain). Each workload domain is managed by a separate vCenter Server instance, which allows autonomous licensing and lifecycle management.

    VMware Cloud Foundation Single Site Deployment

    Note: The standard architecture is the recommended model because it separates management workloads from customer workloads.

    Customers with a small environment (or a PoC) can start with a consolidated architecture. This allows you to run customer and management workloads together on the same workload domain (WLD).

    Note: The management workload domain’s default cluster datastore must use vSAN. Other WLDs can use vSAN, NFS, FC, and vVols for the principal storage.

    VMware Cloud Foundation Storage Options

    What is a vSAN Stretched Cluster?

    vSAN stretched clusters extend a vSAN cluster from a single site to two sites for a higher level of availability and inter-site load balancing.

    VMware Cloud Foundation Stretched Cluster

    Does VCF provide flexible workload domain sizing?

    Yes, that’s possible. You can license the WLDs based on your needs and use the editions that make the most sense depending on your use cases.

    VMware Cloud Foundation Flexible Licensing

    How many physical nodes are required to deploy VMware Cloud Foundation?

    A minimum of four physical nodes is required to start in a consolidated architecture or to build your management workload domain. Four nodes are required to ensure that the environment can tolerate a failure while another node is being updated.

    VI workload domains require a minimum of three nodes.

    This means, to start with a standard architecture, you need to have the requirements (and money) to start with at least seven physical nodes.

    What are the minimum hardware requirements?

    These minimum specs have been listed for the management WLD since VCF 4.0 (September 2020):

    VMware Cloud Foundation Hardware Requirements

    Can I mix vSAN ReadyNodes and Dell EMC VxRail deployments?

    No. This is not possible.

    What about edge/remote use cases?

    When you would like to deploy VMware Cloud Foundation workload domains at a remote site, you can deploy so-called “VCF Remote Clusters”. Those remote workload domains are managed by the VCF instance at the central site and you can perform the same full-stack lifecycle management for the remote sites from the central SDDC Manager.

    VMware Cloud Foundation Remote Cluster

    Prerequisites to deploy remote clusters can be found here.

    Note: If vSAN is used, VCF only supports a minimum of 3 nodes and a maximum of 4 nodes per VCF Remote Cluster. If NFS, vVOLs or Fiber Channel is used as principal storage, then VCF supports a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 4 nodes.

    Important: Remote clusters and remote workload domains are not supported when VCF+ is enabled.

    Does VCF support HCI Mesh?

    Yes. VMware Cloud Foundation 4.2 and later supports sharing remote datastores with HCI Mesh for VI workload domains.

    HCI Mesh is a software-based approach for disaggregation of compute and storage resources in vSAN. HCI Mesh brings together multiple independent vSAN clusters by enabling cross-cluster utilization of remote datastore capacity within vCenter Server. HCI Mesh enables you to efficiently utilize and consume data center resources, which provides simple storage management at scale.

    Note: At this time, HCI Mesh is not supported with VCF ROBO.

    What is SDDC Manager?

    SDDC Manager is a preconfigured virtual appliance that is deployed in the management workload domain for creating workload domains, provisioning additional virtual infrastructure and lifecycle management of all the software-defined data center (SDDC) management components.

    VMware Cloud Foundation SDDC Manager

    You use SDDC Manager in VMware Cloud Foundation to perform the following operations:

    • Commissioning or decommissioning ESXi hosts
    • Deployment of workload domains
    • Extension of clusters in the management and workload domains with ESXi hosts
    • Adding clusters to the management domain and workload domains
    • Support for network pools for host configuration in a workload domain
    • Product licenses storage
    • Deployment of vRealize Suite components.
    • Lifecycle management of the virtual infrastructure components in all workload domains, and of vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager components.
    • Certificate management
    • Password management and rotation
    • NSX-T Edge cluster deployment in the management domain and workload domains
    • Backup configuration

    VMware Cloud Foundation SDDC Manager Dashboard

    How many resources does the VCF management WLD need during the bring-up process?

    We know that VCF includes vSphere (ESXi and vCenter), vSAN, SDDC Manager, NSX-T and eventually some components of the vRealize Suite. The following table should give you an idea what the resource requirements look like to get VCF up and running:

    VMware Cloud Foundation Resource Requirements

    If you are interested to know how many resources the Aria Suite (formerly vRealize Suite) will consume of the management workload domain, have a look at this table:

    VMware Cloud Foundation Resource Requirements vRealize

    How can I migrate my workloads from a non-VCF environment to a new VCF deployment?

    VMware HCX provides a path to modernize from a legacy data center architecture by migrating to VMware Cloud Foundation.

    VMware Cloud Foundation HCX

    What is NSX Advanced Load Balancer?

    NSX Advanced Load Balancer (NSX ALB) formerly known as Avi is a solution that provides advanced load balancing capabilities for VMware Cloud Foundation.

    Which security add-ons are available with VMware Cloud Foundation?

    VMware has different workload and network security offerings to complement VCF:

    Can I get VCF as a managed service offering?

    Yes, this is possible. Please have a look at Data Center as a Service based on VMware Cloud Foundation.

    Can I install VCF in my home lab?

    Yes, you can. With the VLC Lab Constructor, you can deploy an automated VCF instance in a nested configuration. There is also a Slack VLC community for support.

    VCF Lab Constructor

    Where can I find more information about VCF?

    Please consult the VMware Foundation 4.5 FAQ for more information about VMware Cloud Foundation.

     

     

     

    VMware Explore Europe 2022 Major Announcements

    VMware Explore Europe 2022 Major Announcements

    Nov 10, 2022 | AWS, Azure, Edge Computing, ESXi, Google Cloud, HCX, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Tanzu, VMware Aria, VMware Cloud, VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware Explore, vRealize

    VMware Explore Europe 2022 is history. This year felt different and very special! Rooms were fully booked, and people were queuing up in the hallways. The crowd had a HUGE interest in technical sessions from known speakers like Cormac Hogan, Frank Denneman, Duncan Epping, William Lam, and many more!

    Compared to VMware Explore US, there were not that many major announcements, but I thought it might be helpful again to list the major announcements, that seem to be the most interesting and relevant ones.

    VMware Aria Hub Free Tier

    For me, the biggest and most important announcement was the Aria Hub free tier. I am convinced that Aria Hub will be the next big thing for VMware and I am sure that it will change how the world manages a multi-cloud infrastructure.

    VMware Aria Hub is a multi-cloud management platform that unifies the management disciplines of cost, performance, configuration, and delivery automation with a common control plane and data model for any cloud, any platform, any tool, and every persona. It helps you align multiple teams and solutions on a common understanding of resources, relationships, historical changes, applications, and accounts, fundamental to managing a multi-cloud environment.

    The new free tier enables customers to inventory, map, filter, and search resources from up to two of their native public cloud accounts, currently from either AWS or Azure. It also helps you understand the relationships of your resources to other resources, policies, and other key components in your public cloud and Kubernetes environments. WOW!

    Aria Hub Free Tier Announcement: https://blogs.vmware.com/management/2022/11/announcing-vmware-aria-hub-free-tier.html 

    Aria Hub Free Tier Technical Overview: https://blogs.vmware.com/management/2022/11/aria-hub-free-tier-technical-overview 

    If you want to sign up for the free tier, please follow this link: https://www.vmware.com/learn/1732750_REG.html 

    Tanzu Mission Control On-Premises

    Many customers asked for it, it is coming! Tanzu Mission Control (TMC) will become available on-premises for sovereign cloud partners/providers and enterprise customers! 

    Bild

    There is a private beta coming. Hence, I cannot provide more information for now.

    Tanzu Kubernetes Grid 2.1

    At VMware Explore US 2022, VMware announced Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG) 2.0, and at Explore Europe 2022, they announced TKG 2.1, which adds support for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Additionally, it will now also have the option of leveraging VMs as the management cluster. Each will be familiar, but now they both support a single, unified way of cluster creation using a new API called ClusterClass.

    TKG 2.1 Announcement: https://tanzu.vmware.com/content/blog/tanzu-kubernetes-grid-2-1 

    Tanzu Service Mesh Advanced Enhancements

    VMware unveiled new enhancements for Tanzu Service Mesh (TSM) as well, which are going to bring new capabilities that would provide VM discovery and integration into the mesh, providing the ability to combine VMs and containers in the same service mesh for secure communications and to apply consistent policy.

    VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal (VMC-E)

    The last thing I want to highlight is the VMC-E announcement. It is a combination of VMware Cloud IaaS with Equinix Metal hardware as-a-service, which can be deployed in over 30 Equinix global data centers.

    VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal is a great option for enterprises that want the flexibility and performance of the Public Cloud, where business requirements prevent moving data or applications to the public cloud. It offers full compatibility and consistency with on-premises and VMware Cloud operational models and policies and zero downtime migration

    VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal is a fully managed solution by VMware (delivered, operated, managed, supported).

    VMC-E Announcement: https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud/2022/11/07/introducing-vmware-cloud-on-equinix-metal 

    VMC-E Technical Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WpGfrxW39Y&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=VMwareCloud