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Deployment Guide—VMware Cloud Foundation on PowerEdge Servers and Unity Storage
VMware Cloud Foundation Deployment
Introduction General deployment guidelines Installing ESXi on the management hosts Configuring the ESXi management network Installing VMware Cloud Foundation Builder Completing the deployment parameter sheet Creating the management domain

Installing VMware Cloud Foundation Builder

  • The VMware Cloud Foundation Builder VM provides VMware Cloud Foundation staging, imaging, configuration, and deployment services. It is responsible for the entire SDDC bring-up process. Installation of this component is the first of a multistep bring-up process for VMware Cloud Foundation.

    Although VMware Cloud Foundation Builder includes VIA, we do not use it because we have installed ESXi remotely through the iDRAC.

    VMware Cloud Foundation Builder does require a host outside of the Ready Stack environment to perform the VMware Cloud Foundation bring-up process. You can perform the process on a laptop running VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion, or on an ESXi host. The VMware Cloud Foundation Builder VM must have network access to all hosts on the management network. Deployment of the VMware Cloud Foundation Builder VM requires approximately 350 GB of storage.

    For this deployment guide, we installed VMware Cloud Foundation Builder on a PowerEdge R640 server that was connected to S5248F-ON switches and running ESXi 6.7.

    Download and install VMware Cloud Foundation Builder

    To install the VMware Cloud Foundation Builder VM:

    1. Download the VMware Cloud Foundation Builder OVA to a network location that is accessible to the ESXi host.

    You must have an authorized VMware account to access the download file.

    1. Log in to the ESXi host with the VMware Host Client, and deploy the OVA using the default options.
    2. In the Select Networks dialog box, select the port group that is associated with the VLAN ID that is used by the ESXi hosts where VMware Cloud Foundation will be deployed.
    3. Enter the configuration that is specific to your environment.

    Do not change the Default Deployment Architecture (vcf).

    1. Connect to the VM through SSH, using the administrator credentials that you specified during the ESXi installation, and verify:
    • Network connectivity to all network services such as NTP, DHCP, and so on
    • Network connectivity to Ready Stack management hosts
    • Forward and reverse DNS lookups of the Ready Stack management hosts

    Note: DNS configuration errors are one of the leading causes of VMware Cloud Foundation deployment failures.

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Completing the deployment parameter sheet