SDDC test / dev environments ?

[bl0ckh3ad]

ready for a silly question?

I want to deploy SDDC inside VCD 😉

we build out large test / dev environments for our team of devs, and we just got a requirement in that we are shifting to SDDC.

we will still need to be able to supply test environments to our devs for development, however, my hopeis that I will be able to deploy SDDC inside a vapp, for pure functionality testing only.

I knowit sounds crazy, but we kinda need to make this work.

do hosts have to be re-imaged using the imaging tool to be used with vcf?

[frank_wegner]

bl0ckh3ad I assume you mean "SDDC" == "VMware Cloud Foundation". If your definition of SDDC is anything else please let us know what it is. My answer applies to VMware Cloud Foundation, aka VCF.

Asking about VCF deployments inside vCD is not a silly question at all. Being able to get hands on experience with VCF is a very important step to learn about the product.I wrote about the first things you should do to experience VCF in my response on the thread on how to do VCF PoCs:

To demonstrate VMware Cloud Foundation you can use the Hands-On Lab: HOL-1706-SDC-5 - VMware Cloud Foundation Fundamentals. This lab currently is based on an older release of Cloud Foundation, but the basic principles are very similar. You also find a list of videos on VMware Cloud Foundation on Youtube - these range from basic introductions to technical deep dive demos. VMware sales people also have access to further guided demos.

Back to your question of a nested VCF:

We do have VCF running as a nested system inside VMware for testing purposes. You'd need to tweak the software to disable all hardware validation which is built into VCF. This is not officially documented. Due to the extra QA overhead we are not (yet) releasing this to customers or partners. So for now you need to rely on the pieces of advice I have given on the thread on how to do VCF PoCs.

[NealeC]

In VCF 2.1 I can't see a way to import a host that isn't "empty" effectively so you would have to swing out each of your hosts controlled by VCD after removing them from their existing clusters/vcenters.

Then you could (once you get to 3 or more hosts) create a new VI workload domain.

You would have to set up VCD cells and DB in Workload-Domain0 (the mgmt domain)

VCF could build you out the cluster (vc/vsan/nsx etc.)

Then you would need to point VCD at those hosts/vcenter.  However, currently, VCF is not VCD "aware".  Which means that the LCM might say "hey new version available".  If you were to push out patches/upgrades then it may break VCD.

So you still have manual work to do to ensure your VCD version supports the upgrade/patch first, which does take away some of the value of VCF/SDDC-Manager

There is also a 256GB Limit for the VCD Service Catalog on VSAN

https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vcat/vmware-architecting-a-vcloud-...

Page 44 section 6.4.4

So there are quite a few gotchas and limitations that either hamstring VCD or rules out functionality the VCF provides that means it's value diminishes.