Upgrade from vSphere 8 to a VCF 9.1 Minimal Deployment

In the vSphere 8 era, many small environments relied on the lean duo of ESXi and vCenter for simplicity and low overhead. VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 evolves this model into a full-stack private cloud, offering automated lifecycle management, advanced networking, native container support, application blueprint provisioning, private AI, and much more--albeit with higher resource demands.

Fortunately, a minimal VCF installation enables smaller shops to use vCenter and ESX 9.1 without overcommitting their hardware. It is important to understand that you will not get all the full-stack VCF 9.1 private cloud features and benefits when you perform a minimal installation or upgrade.

Introduction

This article summarizes the process of upgrading vSphere 8 (vCenter 8 and ESX 8) to VCF 9.1. Detailed steps are provided in the Broadcom Technical Documentation. Below are the high-level steps. Steps 1 and 2 are the biggest differences between vSphere 8.0 and a 9.1 environment. VCF Operations and a license server are new requirements with 9.1.

1. Deploy VCF Operations 9.1
2. Deploy a license server
3. Upgrade vCenter to 9.1
4. Upgrade the ESX hosts to 9.1

As a reminder, ensure name resolution and time synchronization are implemented consistently across your environment for existing systems and new VCF components. I recommend reading the release notes from start to finish before proceeding. If you are running vSAN, verify all issues in vSAN Health are resolved before proceeding.

We start with a simple, 3-node cluster running vCenter 8 Update 3, ESX 8 Update 3, and vSAN ESA.

Deploy VCF Operations

The first step is deploying VCF Operations. I located and downloaded the Operations-Appliance-9.1.0.0.25346025.ova file from the Broadcom Support Portal. The exact file name/numbers will change as newer versions are released.

The .ova deployment is similar to other appliances. I chose the "small" deployment size considering this is a 3-node environment.

After successful deployment, I pointed a web browser to the new VCF Operations appliance. I chose the Express Installation for simplicity. This option will be best for the majority of environments. The initial setup process will take several minutes.

You will see a login screen after the initial setup is completed. Log in with the username admin and the password you specified during the .ova deployment. You will need to complete a few more setup steps.

Next, we will pair the new VCF Operations instance with the existing vCenter. Click the vCenter tile on the Home page and click the Add Account button.

Specify the vCenter instance you are connecting and add the credential--username and password for vCenter, e.g., administrator@vsphere.local. The Default collector group is fine for most environment. Click the Validate Connection button. If you have vSAN, activate the connection for vSAN, as well. Then, click the Add button.

You should see a popup notification, "Please note that collection for newly created vCenter accounts does not start automatically. After saving, initiate collection by clicking the ellipsis icon next to the vCenter Account and selecting 'Start Collecting' from the menu." We will need to perform that action next.

The Integrations page should show the newly-added vCenter instance. Expand the account and click the three vertical dots. Select Start Collecting All.

The status will likely change from Stopped to Warning. This is expected. Refreshing the view after a few moments should change the status to Collecting.

Finally, you will need to register VCF Operations with the VCF Business Service console to access and manage licenses in a 9.1 environment. Detailed instructions are in the Registering VCF Operations with the VCF Business Services console documentation. Most environments will benefit from the simplicity of configuring Connected Mode. There is a Disconnected Mode option for those that require it. Click Manage at the top of the VCF Operations screen and then click Licenses & Registration.

The first step in the licensing process is deploying a license server. This is new in version 9.1. There is virtually no interaction with the license server after it is deployed. All license management is performed in VCF Operations. A unique registration key is what ties the license server to VCF Operations.

You will need to download the license server .ova file, e.g., Vcf-License-Server-9.1.0.0.25346031.ova. Note that you will need to copy and paste the Unique Registration Key into the .ova deployment wizard.

Power on the license server once it is fully deployed. Wait a few moments to ensure it has completely booted. Then, click Review License Servers. You should see the new license server. Continue following the guidance in the UI and documentation depending on whether you are using Connected Mode or Disconnected Mode.

Upgrade vCenter to 9.1

Upgrading to vCenter 9.1 is similar to previous major version upgrades. It is a two stage process involving the deployment of a new appliance and the transfer or services and data from the old appliance to the new one. I am not going to cover the vCenter upgrade assuming that you have done it before. If you need detailed steps, see the Upgrading the vCenter Appliance documentation.

Upgrade the hosts to ESX 9.1

This is also similar to previous upgrades. vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) provides a GUI-driven, automated method to upgrade hosts including vendor add-ons and additional components, e.g., a newer driver, if needed. You can also upgrade hosts using a USB drive, CD/DVD, or the command line using ESXCLI. Start here if you need instructions: Overview of the ESX Host Upgrade Process.

vSAN

If you are running vSAN, it is likely you will need to update the disk format version. You will see a banner like the one shown below and vSAN Health will warn you, as well.

This is not a disruptive update, but it is always best to wait until a maintenance window or after normal business hours. Go to vSAN Health locate the Disk format version health check, and click the Troubleshoot button. Then click the Upgrade On-disk Format button. This is required to support some of the latest features of vSAN in VCF 9.1.

You might also see a health check warning about "vSAN optimal datastore default policy configuration." Click the Troubleshoot button to resolve that, as well. It is an excellent new feature that makes vSAN even easier to manage. You can read about it in this blog article: Auto-RAID in VMware vSAN for VCF 9.1 – Comprehensive System-Managed Data Resilience.

Conclusion

As mentioned previously, this minimal deployment provides a way to upgrade to 9.1 without the resource consumption of a full-stack VCF deployment. However, you miss out on many of the features and benefits of VCF. The good news is you can add components, as needed. For example, VCF Operations for Networks provides better visibility into your network infrastructure and can be added at a later time. A complete list of the VCF components including a brief description of their capabilities can be found here: Components in VCF and vSphere Foundation.

Why vSAN is Best for VMware Cloud Foundation

For VMware practitioners, the shift from traditional three-tier architectures to a software-defined data center (SDDC) isn't just about consolidation—it’s about regaining control. At the heart of this evolution is VMware vSAN, the native storage engine for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).  vSAN is the only option that delivers a full-stack, automated experience from Day 0 through Day 2 and it is included with your VCF subscription. Here is why vSAN remains the gold standard for VCF deployments.

The Power of "In-Kernel" Integration

Unlike external storage arrays that require separate management planes and complex fiber channel zoning, vSAN is embedded directly into the vSphere hypervisor.

• Minimized Latency: By residing within the hypervisor, vSAN eliminates the need to traverse separate storage networks, bringing data closer to the virtual machines (VMs).
• Unified Management: Manage both compute and storage through the familiar vSphere Client, significantly reducing the learning curve and administrative overhead.
• Feature Synergy: vSAN works seamlessly with core vSphere features like vMotion, DRS, and High Availability (HA) to ensure seamless workload mobility and resilience.
• Native vSAN-to-vSAN Replication:Replicate VMs between clusters using native workflows, eliminating the need for third-party replication tools for disaster recovery.

Performance: From OSA to ESA

With the maturity of the vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA), the performance gap between software-defined and proprietary hardware has effectively closed.

• NVMe Optimization: vSAN ESA is specifically designed for high-performance NVMe storage, utilizing a patented log-structured file system that optimizes writes.
• Adaptive Resynchronization: To maintain uptime, vSAN "self-heals" data after hardware failures, dynamically prioritizing VM traffic over background resynchronization tasks to ensure zero performance impact.
• Global Deduplication: vSAN ESA identifies and removes redundant 4KB blocks across the entire cluster rather than within a disk group, improving storage efficiency and reducing costs. Deduplication is background process, which avoids a performance impact to the write path.

Streamlined Lifecycle Management (vLCM)

Perhaps the most significant "quality of life" improvement for administrators is vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) integration.

• Full-Stack Patching: vLCM manages the entire stack—ESXi, vSAN, and the underlying hardware firmware and BIOS—ensuring a consistent, validated state across the cluster.
• Configuration Drift Control: Define a desired state for the cluster, and vLCM remediates deviations, reducing the risk of security vulnerabilities and instability.
• One-Click Site Maintenance: vSAN 9 introduces a Site Maintenance Mode for stretched clusters, allowing administrators to place a site into maintenance with a single click.

The Verdict

vSAN isn't just another storage option—it is a foundational building block for a modern private cloud. By eliminating siloed management and proprietary hardware lock-in, it allows IT teams to focus on delivering business value rather than managing and troubleshooting LUNs. Whether you are supporting AI, modern cloud-native apps, traditional apps, or virtual desktops, vSAN with VCF provides the scalability and resilience required for the next generation of enterprise workloads.

From vSphere 8 with VCF Operations to VCF 9

This post is a followup article to VCF Operations 9 with vSphere 8 for smaller shops ready to make the jump to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9. A high-level overview is provided here. This article is not step-by-step instructions. See the VCF documentation for detailed guidance. The assumption from a licensing perspective is that your organization purchased a VCF subscription.

Prerequisites

You must upgrade vCenter from version 8 to 9 prior to deploying VCF. The ESX hosts can remain on 8. The steps for upgrading vCenter are similar to the past few versions. Guidance on upgrading vCenter can be found here: vCenter Upgrade.

Your vCenter and hosts will also need to be using a Distributed Virtual Switch (DVS). Otherwise, you will see messages like the screen shot below when you get to the Validate & Deploy step in the VCF Installer deployment wizard. See Migrating from Standard to Distributed vSwitch for guidance, if needed.

VCF Installer

Begin by deploying the VMware Cloud Foundation Installer virtual appliance from the OVA file. The OVA can be downloaded from the Broadcom Support Portal. Perhaps the easiest way to find the VCF downloads is to click Downloads in the left column and enter "foundation" in the Search Product Name field. The item you need will look like this: VCF-SDDC-Manager-Appliance-x.x.x.x.xxxxxxxx.ova where the x's are a specific version number. Why is it not named VCF-Installer? The Installer appliance becomes the SDDC Manager appliance after installation. Note that you will need to have an IP address, DNS record, etc. set aside for use with this appliance just like most other VMware virtual appliance deployments.

After the appliance is deployed, point your web browser to the appliance FQDN or IP address and log in with the admin@local password you provided during deployment. One of the first things you will need to do is configure a depot connection to enable downloads. The easiest method is an online depot using your download token. For those in air-gapped/disconnected environments, an offline depot can be set up.

Ensure you have IP addresses, DNS records, NTP settings, etc. for the other appliances that will be deployed as part of VCF.

• Fleet Management appliance
• Operations Collector appliance
• NSX virtual IP (VIP)
• NSX Manager appliance

Download the components you will be using in Depot Settings. In my example below, I am not deploying VCF Automation at this time so it is not selected. I already upgraded vCenter to 9.0.2 so that component is not needed.

Wait until all of the components you are downloading have a "Success" status before proceeding.

In the Deploy section, click Deployment Wizard and select VMware Cloud Foundation. Next, choose the "Deploy a new VCF fleet" radio button and click Continue. We will use existing VCF Operations and vCenter components.

Complete the General Information step as desired. Select the "Standard (Single-node)" radio button to minimize the resource consumption of the VCF management appliances.

In the next step, you will specify your existing VCF Operations instance. VCF requires two additional operations appliances: Fleet Management Appliance and Operations Collector Appliance. Provide the FQDNs and passwords for these components.

VCF Automation deployment is optional. It can be deployed later, if needed.

Next, you will enter the details for your existing vCenter instance. As mentioned previously, you must be running vCenter 9.

NSX Manager is deployed as part of VCF regardless of whether you plan to use NSX overlay capabilities. I chose to keep with a VLAN-backed configuration as shown in the screen shot below. Note that you will need two FQDNs and IP addresses for NSX.

The VCF Installer becomes SDDC Manager as part of the installation process. We simply need a password for SDDC Manager.

Ensure all of the validations succeeded. If not, remediate all issues and re-run the validation until all show a Succeeded status.

Then click Deploy, grab some popcorn, and watch as the VCF Installer converts the environment from vSphere with VCF Operations to VCF.

VCF Operations 9 with vSphere 8

There is no need to wait to deploy VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Operation 9 if you are running vSphere 8. It is optional with version 8, but required for version 9 so you might as well deploy it now if you are entitled to it through your subscription. VCF Operations provides many benefits to vSphere environments such as...

• AI-Assisted Diagnostics: Features enhanced "Diagnostic Findings" to proactively identify misconfigurations and risks before they cause downtime.

• NVMe Memory Tiering Visibility: Monitoring vSphere 8’s NVMe-based memory tiering, helping admins optimize DRAM vs. NVMe cost/performance ratios.

• Direct Support Integration: Enables administrators to generate log bundles and attach them directly to Broadcom Support cases from within the Operations console.

• Unified License Management: Unified license key management for the VCF subscription model, synchronizing entitlements across vCenter and ESXi 8.x hosts.

• Sustainable Infrastructure Metrics: Advanced reporting on power consumption and carbon footprint, mapped to specific vSphere clusters and workloads to meet green-IT initiatives.

This article outlines the deployment and configuration steps for deploying VCF Operations 9 in a vSphere 8 environment. See the VCF 9 documentation for more details about the components of VCF including VCF Operations.

Deployment

Start by downloading the VMware Cloud Foundation Operations .ova file from the VMware Cloud Foundation downloads section of the Broadcom Support Portal. The name of the file will be like this: Operations-Appliance-9.x.x.x.xxxxxxxx.ova where the x's are various numbers depending on the version you download.

Deploy the .ova file in your vCenter 8 environment. Note that you will need to decide on a root password, DNS information, and IP configuration for the Operations appliance. You will be prompted for these during the .ova deployment process. Power on the Operations appliance after the deployment is complete. It might take several minutes for the appliance to fully boot and complete the automated post-deployment configuration. Be patient.

Open a web browser and point to the admin URL of the new Operations appliance.

https://<ip address or fqdn>/admin

Enter admin for the username and the password you set during the .ova deployment. You should see a Get Started page after you log in. The Express Installation option will be fine for most environments.

This installation step can take several minutes. Be patient and wait for the appliance to initialize. You will then start VCF Operations by clicking the button.

Starting VCF Operations will take a few minutes. The Cluster Status will show "Online" when the startup is complete.

Configuration

The next step is logging into the VCF Operations UI.

https://<ip address or fqdn>/ui

Select Local Account for the Login Method, admin for the username, and the admin password.

On the Home page, you will add a vCenter account.

Provide the details to authenticate with your vCenter and validate the connection. Ensure the Activate checkbox is checked.

Do the same for vSAN if you are running vSAN in your environment.

You will likely seen Account Monitoring Notification, which tells you monitoring will not start automatically. Check the box to acknowledge and click OK.

Back on the Home screen, click Administration > Integrations. Expand the vCenter list. You should see your newly-added vCenter. The status will likely show "Stopped."

Click the three dots and click Start Collecting All.

It might take some time for this startup to complete. You should eventually see "Collecting" in the Status column.

Adding vCenter to a VCF Operations instance installs a plugin for the vSphere Client. You might be prompted to refresh the vSphere Client to enable the plugin.

Finally, we need to license VCF Operations. It includes a 90-day evaluation license. Be sure to properly license VCF Operations before the end of the 90-day evaluation period.

VCF 9 licensing is significantly different than vSphere 8. You must first register VCF Operations with Broadcom. This can be done in connected or disconnected mode.

Start with this blog article and documentation for more details about VCF 9 licensing.

You can now benefit from some of the features of VCF Operations 9. You'll unlock many more features and benefits when you upgrade your environment from vSphere 8 to VCF 9!

Upgrading a Minimal Installation of VCF 9.0.1 to 9.0.2

Smaller environments running VCF 9 might have a subset of the VCF components/appliances deployed. This minimizes the virtual infrastructure management footprint and resource consumption. For example, a three-host environment might have VCF Operations 9 + vCenter 9 + ESX 9. The downside to these types of deployments is you lose some of the VCF functionality such as fleet management. This begs the question, "How do I update the components I have?" You can upgrade version 9 components such as VCF Operations, vCenter, and ESX similar how you upgraded version 8.

In this example, we'll upgrade a small environment that consists of VCF Operations 9.0.1, vCenter 9.0.1, and ESX 9.0.1 to 9.0.2.

We'll upgrade the components in the order below as recommended here:

• VCF Operations
• vCenter
• ESX

VCF Operations

Download the .pak file for the VCF Operations version you are upgrading to. In this case, we are upgrading 9.0.1 to 9.0.2 so I need this file -- Operations-Upgrade-9.0.2.0.25137843.pak -- from the My Downloads section of the Broadcom Support Portal.

Next, I log into the admin console of VCF Operations. Add /admin to the VCF Operations URL, e.g., https://<vcf-ops-ip-address>/admin

In the left column, click on Software Update. Click the Install A Software Update button. Browse for the downloaded .pak file and click the Upload button.

The upload and staging of the file will likely take a few minutes. You might see the following warning:

"The update will restart the cluster for the entirety of the update."

This is referring to the VCF Operations cluster (even if it is a single-node cluster), not the ESX cluster. Continue through the upgrade wizard and click the Install button. The upgrade will naturally take some time.

vCenter

The next component to upgrade is vCenter. Start by reading this knowledge base (KB) article:

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?legacyId=92659

We'll download and use the VMware-VCSA-all-9.0.2.0.25148086.iso file to upgrade from 9.0.1 to 9.0.2. You will need to mount that .iso file to the vCenter appliance similar to what is shown below.

Select vCenter in your vSphere Client inventory and click Updates. The UI will walk you through the vCenter upgrade.

You should back up vCenter before performing the upgrade. If you are not familiar with how to do this, start here:

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere/9-0/vcenter-configuration/configuring-vcenter-server-using-the-management-interface/configure-and-schedule-backups.html

You might see a warning, "Plugin should be upgraded to proceed further." Simply click the Upgrade Plug-in link before clicking Next. This will take a few minutes.

You will likely have to run the pre-checks after the plug-in upgrade (shown below). Then click Next assuming the source pre-checks ran successfully.

Click the Configure Target Appliance link. The selections in this wizard should be familiar from previous vCenter upgrades. I used the default settings.

In the final step you'll click the Start Upgrade link and set the Switchover Execution. I chose Automated from the drop-down menu. After that, I started the upgrade and waited patiently. Behind the scenes, a new vCenter appliance is deployed, the settings and data from the original appliance are copied over, and a switch-over occurs from the original appliance to the new one. As you can probably imagine, this takes a while. Ensure you have sufficient storage and compute resources for this upgrade.

You can delete the old vCenter VM after confirming the upgrade/migration completed successfully.

ESX

Finally, we upgrade the hosts. This is done using Lifecycle Manager in the vSphere Client. Click on the cluster or host if you have standalone hosts. Click on Updates. Edit the image to use the ESX version you want to upgrade to along with any vendor, firmware, and driver add-ons. Click Validate and then Save assuming the image is valid.

Lifecycle Manager should automatically check image compliance after you click Save. In the example below, we see that the single host in my lab environment is out of compliance with the new image.

Run the Pre-Check and then Remediate assuming the pre-check passed. Many upgrades still require a reboot although this is getting better with live patching. I recommend reading through the Lifecycle Manager documentation prior to using it. If you have a single host, you will need to shutdown all of the VMs on the host, put the host into maintenance mode, and perform an interactive upgrade using a CD, DVD, USB device, .iso file, ESXCLI, or script--reference this documentation for guidance.