In the Part-1 , we understood the feature, requirements and service available on VCF platform. in this post i will show you how to deploy VCF on IBM Cloud. lets start..

Some considerations for VCF on IBM Cloud

(DFW) – You must configure rules for all communications from the IBM CloudDriver and the SDDC Manager virtual machines (VMs) to allow all protocols to communicate on the IP addresses 10.0.0.0/8 and 161.26.0.0/16.

(DFW) – You must create a DFW rule that allows for HTTPS traffic from the IBM Cloud Driver VM to any destination.
(DFW) – The DFW rule must come before any other rules that would block traffic to or from these VMs.
Do not change the NSX Manager password. You can find this password on the Summary tab of the instance details page in the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions console.
You can change passwords for NSX Controllers.
Do not change the password for the management VMware NSX Edge Services Gateway (ESG)

During VCF deployment, VMWare NSX is ordered, installed, licensed, and configured in your instance. Also, NSX Manager, NSX Controllers, and NSX Transport Zone are set up, and each ESXi server is configured with the NSX components.

However, if your workload VMs need to communicate with each other and to access the Internet, it is your responsibility to configure NSX for use by your VMs.

Ordering VCF:

When you order a VCF instance, you must specify the following settings under System.

Instance type

You can deploy the instance as a primary (single) instance in your environment, or deploy the instance in a multi-site configuration by linking it with an existing primary instance for high availability. let’s start with our first VCF instance and Click on Primary

it will take to you next window as below to enter below details.

Instance name

The instance name must meet the following requirements:

Only alphanumeric and dash (-) characters are allowed.
The instance name must start and end with an alphanumeric character.
The maximum length of the instance name is 10 characters.
The instance name must be unique within your account.

Domain name

The root domain name must meet the following requirements:

Only alphanumeric and dash (-) characters are allowed.
The domain name must consist of two or more strings that are separated by period (.)
Each string in the domain name must start with an alphabetic character and end with an alphanumeric character.
The last string in the domain name can contain only alphabetic characters.
The length of the last string in the domain name must be in the range 2 – 24 characters.
The maximum length of the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) for hosts and VMs (virtual machines) is 50 characters. Domain names must accomodate for this maximum length.

Subdomain prefix

The subdomain prefix must meet the following requirements:

Only alphanumeric and dash (-) characters are allowed.
The subdomain prefix must start and end with an alphanumeric character.
The maximum length of the subdomain prefix is 10 characters.
The subdomain prefix must be unique within your account.

Host name prefix

The host name prefix must meet the following requirements:

Only alphanumeric and dash (-) characters are allowed.
The host name prefix must start and end with an alphanumeric character.
The maximum length of the host name prefix is 10 characters.

Bare Metal Server configuration

You can select a Bare Metal Server configuration depending on your requirements:

Small (Dual Intel Xeon E5-2650 v4 / 24 cores total, 2.20 GHz / 128 GB RAM / 12 disks)
Large (Dual Intel Xeon E5-2690 v4 / 28 cores total, 2.60 GHz / 512 GB RAM / 12 disks)
User customized: you can specify the CPU model and RAM for the bare metal server

Item	Options
CPU	Dual Intel Xeon E5-2620 v4 / 16 cores total, 2.10 GHz
	Dual Intel Xeon E5-2650 v4 / 24 cores total, 2.20 GHz
	Dual Intel Xeon E5-2690 v4 / 28 cores total, 2.60 GHz
RAM	64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB, 384 GB, 512 GB, 768 GB, 1.5 TB

Data center location

You must select the IBM Cloud Data Center where the instance is to be hosted. Only the data centers that meet the Bare Metal Server specification are displayed.

Storage settings

The storage settings for the Small and Large standardized Bare Metal Server configurations cannot be changed:

For the Small Bare Metal Server configuration, two disk drives of 1.9 TB SSD SED are ordered.
For the Large Bare Metal Server configuration, four disk drives of 3.8 TB SSD SED are ordered.

If you selected the User customized Bare Metal Server configuration, you can customize the VMware vSAN storage for your instance by specifying the following settings under vSAN Storage:

Number of vSAN Capacity Disks

Specify the number of disk drives for the storage that you want to add.

Disk Type and Size for vSAN Capacity Disks

Select the type and capacity that meets your storage needs.

Licensing

When you order a VCF instance, you can also order the appropriate component licenses or Bring Your Own License (BYOL):

vCenter Server License – Standard
vSphere License – Enterprise Plus
NSX License – Enterprise
vSAN License: choose between Advanced and Enterprise edition

Once you filled the required data , click on the next , this will take you to Licenses page , here you have two options:

If you want new licenses to be purchased on your behalf, select Include with purchase for the components. For vSAN license, also select the license edition.
If you want to use your own VMware license for a component, select I will provide and enter the license key string for the component.

Click Next and that will take you to services pages where you can choose additional like:

VEEAM , F5 , FortiGate and Zero

Click Next and that will take you to Summary Page:

Review the settings for the instance.
Click the link or links of the terms that apply to your order, and ensure that you agree with these terms before you order the instance.
Review the estimated cost of the instance by clicking the price link under Estimated Cost. To save or print your order summary, click the Print or Download icon on the upper right of the PDF window.

Click Place Order.

The deployment of the instance starts automatically. You receive confirmation that the order is being processed and you can check the status of the deployment by viewing the instance details. When the instance is ready to use, the status of the instance is changed to Ready to Use and you receive a notification by email.

Next is to order a secondary instance, the VMware vSphere Web Client for the primary instance (linked to the secondary one) might be restarted after your secondary instance order is completed. View the access information for the instance-related components. These passwords are initial passwords that are generated by the system.

AD/DNS server IP: The IP address of the AD server.
AD/DNS server FQDN: The AD/DNS server fully qualified domain name.
AD/DNS server (Remote desktop): The user name and password that you can use to access the AD server via a remote desktop connection.
NSX Manager IP: The IP address of the NSX Manager.
NSX Manager FQDN: The NSX Manager fully qualified domain name (FQDN).
NSX Manager (HTTP): The user name and password that you can use to access the NSX Manager web console.
NSX Manager (SSH): The user name and password that you can use to access the NSX Manager VM via SSH connection.
PSC IP: The IP address of the Platform Services Controller (PSC).
PSC FQDN: The PSC fully qualified domain name (FQDN).
PSC (SSH): The user name and password that you can use to access the PSC VM via SSH connection.
PSC (ADMIN): The VMware vCenter Single Sign-On user name and password that you can use to access the PSC web console.
vCenter IP: The IP address of the vCenter Server.
vCenter FQDN: The vCenter Server fully qualified domain name (FQDN).
vCenter (SSH): The user name and password that you can use to access the vCenter Server VM via SSH connection.
vCenter (ADMIN): The VMware vCenter Single Sign-On user name and password that you can use to log in to the vCenter Server by using the vSphere Web Client.