Welcome to the following article on building and configuring an environment based on VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0! In the previous parts, we went through the VCF 9.0 installation process, configured the pfSense router, deployed the NSX Edge cluster, and activated the Supervisor. With this in place, it’s time to get to know one of the…
Activating the Supervisor in VMware Cloud Foundation 9 with NSX VPC – A Step-by-Step Guide
Welcome back to my series on building a lab based on VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0! In the previous articles, I went through the VCF 9.0 installation process, the configuration of the pfSense router, and the deployment of the NSX Edge cluster. Now that I have a solid foundation, it’s time for one of the most…
Configuring an NSX Edge Cluster in VMware Cloud Foundation 9
(Centralized External Connectivity — Guided Edge Deployment wizard) All preparatory work described in earlier articles has already been completed:— VCF 9 is operational with the full management stack.— pfSense acts as the ToR router and provides external connectivity.— VLANs for management, TEP, and BGP uplinks are in place.— The entire data path (VDS / pfSense)…
Complete pfSense 2.7.2‑RELEASE configuration for a VMware Cloud Foundation 9 home lab
IntroductionIn the previous post, I showed how to deploy VMware Cloud Foundation 9 in a home lab. This time, we move to the network layer—you’ll see, step by step, how I set up pfSense 2.7.2-RELEASE to serve the entire VCF environment: VLANs, NAT, DHCP, NTP, and (for now, inactive) BGP peerings to NSX-T Edge. Table of contents 1 Hardware requirements…
Automating vRO Workflow Documentation with GitHub Actions
Anyone who works with vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) daily knows the pain of documentation. Manually creating and updating descriptions for workflows, their inputs, outputs, variables, and logic is time-consuming, error-prone, and often neglected. The result is hundreds of workflows that no one fully understands, making them difficult to maintain, reuse, and develop. But what if we…
Installing VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0: A Step-by-Step Guide for a Lab Environment
Introduction With the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, Broadcom is ushering in a new era of private cloud management. This latest platform version, designed for infrastructure administrators and architects, offers a unified and fully automated environment to build, deploy, and operate a private cloud infrastructure efficiently. In this article, based on official documentation…
The One-Time Secret: Securely Delivering VM Passwords to Customers
Introduction When provisioning a new Virtual Machine (VM) for a customer, one of the final, critical steps is delivering the initial access credentials. This moment is fraught with security risks: passwords sent over email, pasted in chat, or left in ticketing systems can be intercepted or accidentally exposed, compromising the security of the new machine…
Comprehensive Guide to the deploy.sh Script in VMware Aria Automation
Introduction to the deploy.sh Script The deploy.sh script is a fundamental tool in the VMware Aria Automation ecosystem (formerly vRealize Automation), responsible for deploying, configuring, and managing all components of this advanced environment. Located in the /opt/scripts/ directory on the Aria Automation virtual machine, it serves as the central orchestration point for the entire system….
Using Checkboxes as Buttons in Aria Automation: A Workaround for Concatenating Dropdown Values
Introduction So buttons in forms is quite useful but Aria Automation does not natively support them in their forms. To achieve this, I found a workaround using checkboxes as buttons concatenating two dropdown fields values together. Here in this article, we go through the setup, covering all the form configurations and the JavaScript structure to concatenate. Problem…
Automating Disk Partitioning and Formatting Using Cloud-Init: A Deep Dive
I’m very sorry that I haven’t written anything for a long time, but I have a lot of work on my head and other obligations. I hope that this article will make up for the wait and the next ones will be soon. In the world of cloud computing, managing disk partitions and formatting can…