-Configure network for the 5 esxi hosts via vsphere client- vlan, ip, subnet mask, gateway, dns, fqdn
-make the virtual machine network same vlan as management
-mark disks as all flash if not
-configure ntp on host and stop and start with host and start service
-Configure tsm/tsm-ssh to stop and start with host and start service

-regenerate cert on each esxi host
/sbin/generate-certificates
/etc/init.d/hostd restart && /etc/init.d/vpxa restart

If the certificate is not sticking with the esxi fqdn

/sbin/auto-backup.sh
reboot -f

-create datastore on spare esxi host
-deploy cloud builder on spare host

-Convert .xlsx to json
SSH to Cloud Builder with admin user and switch to root.
Change permissions for file
/opt/vmware/bringup/scripts/json-generator.sh my-vcf-deploy.xlsx my-vcf-deploy.json vcf-ems

-Mark HDD disk as flash disk SSD (obtain mpx from vsphere client in storage adapters)
esxcli storage hpp device set -d mpx.vmhba0:C0:T0:L0 -M true
esxcli storage hpp device usermarkedssd list
esxcli storage core adapter rescan --all

delete a failed task in SDDC manager – click on the task to get the id in SDDC GUI

curl -X DELETE 127.0.0.1/tasks/registrations/<ID OF THE FAILED TASK>
If it keeps on failing when commission new host "need clean up" check vCenter services are started

VMware Service Lifecycle Manager API
VMware Certificate Authority Service
VMware Certificate Management Service

By Kader