Capacity requirements for vending foundation on Tanzu Hub with VCF

Products

• VMware Tanzu Platform Core

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to vend a foundation using the VCF Automation method in Tanzu Hub (Beta) the pre-flight check fails with an error indicating insufficient capacity. The error typically specifies requirements around:

• Storage: Approximately 4.4 TB of total capacity.
• Memory: Approximately 137 GB (128 GiB).

- The pre-check evaluates Total Capacity (provisioned quota) rather than currently Available/Free Space.
- The requirement may prevent deployment in smaller demo, lab, or evaluation environments where storage is limited (e.g., a 3.5 TB datastore with 2.4 TB free will still fail the 4.4 TB pre-check).
- Currently, VCF Automation Namespace Classes do not allow for resizing after creation, locking the namespace into the initial quota.

Environment

Tanzu Hub/VCF

Cause

The Tanzu Application Service (TAS) tile and associated VMs provision significant storage upon installation. To account for this and the current technical limitation where VCF Automation namespaces cannot be easily resized after creation, the automation logic sets a high initial quota to ensure successful lifecycle operations.

Resolution

To bypass the pre-flight error and proceed with foundation vending in environments with lower physical storage, you must manually increase the quotas in the management plane.

Workaround 1: Modify Region Quota in VCFA Provider Portal
1. Log in to the VCF Automation (VCFA) Provider Portal.
2. Navigate to Organizations and select the target Organization.
3. Go to Region Quota and select the active quota.
4. Click Edit Storage Class.
5. Increase the storage limit to meet or exceed the requirement (e.g., set to 4.5 TB). 
   *Note: This interface does not validate if the backend physical storage actually exists, allowing the pre-check to pass.*

Workaround 2: Modify Namespace Limits in vCenter
If the namespace has already been created but needs an immediate limit adjustment:
1. Log in to vCenter.
2. Navigate to Workload Management > Namespaces.
3. Select the specific namespace used for vending.
4. Go to Capacity and Usage > Edit Limits.
5. Increase the values for Storage, CPU, or Memory as required.
6. Verify that the updated values reflect in the VCFA Namespace page.