Deploying and Configuring VMware Cloud Foundation
Bring-up is a validated, template-driven workflow; SDDC Manager refuses to proceed on the smallest mismatch, so treat pre-checks as the exam's centre of gravity. Before touching the installer, complete the planning workbook and harden the environment: forward and reverse DNS for every component, reachable NTP, directory credentials, and ESXi hosts that are installed, unlocked, identically credentialed and cabled to ports carrying every required VLAN at MTU 9000.
Key objects
- Network pool: the VLAN IDs and MTU used for vMotion, vSAN, NFS and NSX host overlay (host TEP) traffic.
- IP pools: CIDR plus gateway plus an address range per subnet; SDDC Manager reserves addresses for appliances and allocates per-host TEP addresses.
- Deployment parameter workbook: FQDNs, IPs, passwords, licence key, host inventory and network settings, uploaded to the installer.
Bring-up
Deploy the installer appliance (VCF Installer in current releases, Cloud Builder in older ones), upload the workbook, run validation, then start bring-up. The installer deploys SDDC Manager and builds the management domain; once complete it is powered off or decommissioned. Only afterwards do you commission hosts and create workload domains.
Traps
- Assuming the installer remains as a permanent management component.
- Confusing commissioning a host into the free pool with adding it to a domain - two distinct operations, in that order.
- Sizing a host TEP pool as one address per host.
- Forgetting reverse DNS zones; most validation failures are name resolution.
Rule of thumb
Each host consumes two host-TEP addresses and the pool retains reserved addresses. For a /24 with five reserved: 254 usable − 5 reserved = 249, divided by 2 ≈ 124 hosts. A /25 will bite you.