VCF 9.0 and Tanzu Platform 10.2 Homelab Architecture

This document captures a conversation with CLAUDE about setting up a vSphere cluster with Minisforum MS-A2s, and deploying VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and Tanzu Platform.

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User’s Hardware

• 2 x Minisforum MS-A2
• 3 x Intel NUC6i7KYK mini PCs
• 1 x 8TB RAID1 Synology DS918+

Recommended Architecture: Consolidated Approach

For a homelab, a single VCF domain (Consolidated Architecture) is the most efficient and cost-effective approach.

Overall Topology

• Main Compute Cluster (VCF 9.0 Primary Domain):
  • 2 x Minisforum MS-A2 (running a vSAN ESA cluster)
• Witness/Edge Services:
  • 1 x Intel NUC for vSAN Witness and other edge services.
  • 2 x Intel NUCs for Tanzu workload clusters.
• Shared Storage:
  • Synology DS918+ for non-vSAN workloads (NFS datastores, backups, etc.).

Deployment Strategy

• Phase 1: Foundation:
  1. Install ESXi on all hosts.
  2. Set up networking (VLANs, port groups).
  3. Configure the vSAN witness on a NUC.
  4. Create the 2-node vSAN ESA cluster with the MS-A2s.
• Phase 2: VCF Deployment:
  1. Use Cloud Builder to bring up VCF 9.0.
  2. Deploy the Management Domain.
  3. Configure NSX in simple mode.
• Phase 3: Tanzu Platform:
  1. Enable the Supervisor Cluster on the VCF domain.
  2. Deploy TKG clusters on the NUCs.
  3. Install Tanzu Platform 10.2.