VMware Home Lab: NUC NUC10i7FNH part – 1

In my experience with VMware technology, I would prefer to get first hands-on with VMware HOL https://labs.hol.vmware.com/. This will bring confidence as well as you can get ideas to design in your VMware home lab. Building a Vmware home lab is always fun as you come across with a different set of issues. When I was back in VMware I had the privilege to get one Server from VMC ( VMware on AWS ), which was very powerful and I was able to test most of the products.

But building it for Home Lab I had to review multiple servers which is available in the market. Most of the server’s basic issue is with long term bill in regards to cooling and electricity. Then I came across with Intel NUC server and it’s available series. Among them, the highest-end servers which I got were “NUC10i7FNH”

Spec Details you can find in the following link:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits/nuc/kits/nuc10i7fnh.html

This when I decided that I will be using this beast for my VMware Lab, and ordered the first piece, so to review it and calculate the performance. This was the start of my proper VMware Home Lab: NUC NUC10i7FNH.

BIOS Setting:

I had upgraded the BIOS just to test and took help from Intel site, but I do not see it was required: ( You need to download the BIOS driver and save on USB and press F7 to enter to BIOS Flash update screen)
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005636/intel-nuc.html

Regarding BIOS settings you can customize it by pressing F2 after powering up the system, you can check my video:

BIOS Setting Video

ESXi Installation:

Intel NUC is not a supported hardware in the compatibility list of VMware, which could be blocker, but many of the blogs is very helpful. I would like to thanks to the following community to make life easy :
https://www.virten.net/2020/04/homelab-will-esxi-7-0-run-on-intel-nuc/

This blog discuss about the issue with NIC adapter driver for ESXi 7.0, which can be solved by adding following driver in customized ESXi:

https://download3.vmware.com/software/vmw-tools/ESXi670-NE1000-32543355-offline_bundle-15486963.zip

In curiosity I have installed ESXi 7.0 but later discovered we can’t switch on the VMs on the nested ESXi,discussed on following blog : ( Similar issue faced to boot the VM in EVE-NG )

https://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2020/04/heads-up-nested-esxi-crashes-in-esxi-7-0-running-on-older-cpus.html



The Nested ESXi crashes and boots without system configuration!



Later I had to downgrade it to 6.7 U3 with the NIC adapter driver in customized ISO. You can find the customized ISO for 7.0 and 6.7 U3 through following ( It will save your time to make customized ISO !!! ) [ Nested ESXi 7.0 works without any issue over 6.7 ESXi ]
ESXi Customized ISO for NUC10i7FNH



You can use Rufus to make bootable USB : https://rufus.ie/

2nd NUC:

I was very convinced with the performance of the first NUC and ordered 2nd NUC to scale up the lab. In further post will discuss how I have setup the Platform and Nested network to simulate real scenarios. The scenario which will be simulated will be Active-Active DC, which you can refer on : https://www.networkbachelor.com/activedc/