IBM Cloud account requirements

To order a VMware Cloud Foundation for VPC instance, you must have a Pay-As-You-Go IBM Cloud® account. The cost of the resources that are ordered are billed to that IBM Cloud® account. For more information, see Upgrading to a Pay-As-You-Go account.

Required permissions for managing IBM Cloud resources

Access to IBM Cloud resources for users in your account is controlled by IBM Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM). Every user that accesses infrastructure services resources in your account must be assigned one or more access policies that define their IAM roles. Each user must also have access to the resource group that contains the infrastructure resources.

A resource group organizes account resources in customizable groupings so that you can quickly assign access to more than one resource at a time. Every resource that is managed by IAM belongs to a resource group within your account. To manage users access and resource groups, your account must have permissions to manage resource groups and to manage accounts.

Ensure that the following requirements are met:

• You have an Editor or Administrator role on a resource group in the account. For more information, see IBM Cloud IAM roles.
• You have permission to create an IBM Cloud Schematics workspace.
• Your account meets the required IAM permissions to interact with IBM Cloud® Virtual Private Cloud (IBM Cloud VPC) infrastructure objects.
• Your account meets the required IAM permissions for Bare Metal Servers on IBM Cloud VPC.
• Your account meets the required IAM permissions for IBM Cloud DNS Services.

IBM Cloud region and zone availability for VCF for VPC deployment

The ESXi servers in VCF for VPC are built on Bare Metal Servers on IBM Cloud VPC. Therefore, you can deploy instances only in IBM Cloud® data centers that meet the requirements for IBM Cloud VPC bare metal profiles that are supported by VCF for VPC.

The following bare metal profiles are supported:

• bx3d-metal-192x1024
• mx3d-metal-64x512
• mx3d-metal-192x2048 (available only in the Sao Paulo region)

For more information about IBM Cloud VPC bare metal servers by region, see Generation 3 (x3 and x3d) bare metal profiles availability by region.

IBM Cloud quotas and service limits

When you plan your VCF for VPC deployment, you also need to consider quotas and service limits for IBM Cloud VPC and the resources available. For example, for bare metal server on IBM Cloud VPC, the limitation is 25 per account by default. To increase a quota for a resource, open an IBM Support ticket by following the steps in Getting help and support.

Configuration updates for VCF for VPC instances

For all VCF for VPC instances, you cannot download updates for some components from the Broadcom public repositories.

For new VCF for VPC instances, take note of all the configuration links as you might need them for future upgrades.

For existing VCF for VPC instances, since you cannot download configuration updates from the Broadcom site, you must complete the following steps:

1. Open an IBM Support ticket to obtain a download token.

2. Configure the download URL for each component manually. For more information, see VCF authenticated downloads configuration update instructions.

3. Then, apply the configuration changes to the following VCF for VPC components yourself:

   • VMware SDDC Manager. For more information, see SDDC fails to download the updates from online repositories - Apply the Token (Manual method).
   • VMware vCenter Server. For more information, see vCenter Server patching through VAMI fails to download the updates from online repositories - Resolution.
   • VMware vSphere ESXi. For more information, see vLCM fails to download the ESXi patches and images from online repositories - Resolution.

Related links

• IBM Cloud VPC overview
• Requirements for IBM Cloud VPC instances