VMware Cloud Foundation on iThinkVirtual™

VCF 9.1 Readiness Gates: What Held Up and What Didn't

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 20:30:00 -0400

Before I started the upgrade series, I wrote down five readiness gates I’d want in front of anyone booking a window for a 9.0.x to 9.1.x upgrade. Now that I’ve run the whole thing end to end, here’s what held up and what didn’t. This is a nested lab, not production, so read it as a rehearsal and not as evidence.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 Upgrade - Part 6: Post-Upgrade Housekeeping and the Workload Domain

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 23:45:00 -0400

With the management domain upgraded in Parts 1 to 5, this final part covers the cleanup tasks that round out the upgrade, and then the workload domain. (As always, the series overview has the environment and prerequisites if you need them.)

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 Upgrade - Part 5: ESX Hosts and Completing the NSX Upgrade

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 15:00:00 -0400

With NSX Manager and vCenter upgraded in Part 4, it’s time for the hosts. Part 5 covers the ESX host upgrade with vLCM image-based remediation, and then completing the NSX upgrade. My management domain doesn’t have an NSX Edge cluster. The Edges in my lab live in the workload domain, and they get their turn in Part 6.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 Upgrade - Part 4: NSX and vCenter

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 20:00:00 -0400

With the management components handled in Parts 1 to 3, Part 4 moves to the core infrastructure: NSX Manager and vCenter. The series overview has the environment details and prerequisites.

Everything here is driven from the VCF Operations Lifecycle UI, the same place I’ve worked since Part 2. Broadcom’s flow is to plan the domain upgrade, run the prechecks, then work through the sequence one component at a time, NSX Manager first and then vCenter (Upgrading vCenter and NSX Manager).

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 Upgrade - Part 3: VCF Automation and Operations for Logs

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 14:00:00 -0400

With SDDC Manager and the new VCF Management Services runtime in place after Part 2, Part 3 tackles two more components: VCF Automation and VCF Operations for Logs.

These two matter for a reason beyond just version numbers. As the series overview explains, the cert and password freeze window kicked in the moment I upgraded VCF Operations back in Part 1. VCF Automation and Logs are two of the four components stuck behind that freeze (the Identity Broker and VCF Operations for Networks are the others), so getting them to 9.1 lifts it for them.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 Upgrade - Part 2: SDDC Manager and VCF Management Services

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

In Part 1 I upgraded VCF Operations to 9.1, watched the old Fleet Management appliance decommission itself, and let the Cloud Proxy auto-upgrade along the way. With the operations layer on 9.1, next up is SDDC Manager and the new management services.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 Upgrade - Part 1: Upgrading VCF Operations

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 13:00:00 -0400

This is Part 1 of my VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0.2 to 9.1 upgrade series. The series overview covers my lab environment, what’s changing in 9.1, the prerequisites that gate the whole upgrade, and a cert and password warning that applies from this stage on. With that prep done, I started with the operations layer.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 Upgrade - Series Overview and Planning

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 12:45:00 -0400

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 dropped on May 12th, and since most of my focus these days lives squarely in the VCF world, I figured there’s no better way to put it through its paces than to upgrade my own lab from 9.0.2 and document the whole thing along the way.

Before You Upgrade to VCF 9.1.x: Five Readiness Gates

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0400

VCF 9.1.1 has been out since September 3rd, and the 9.1.1.0100 patches for fleet lifecycle and SDDC lifecycle landed on the 21st, so the upgrade guidance has finally settled enough to plan against. Downloading the binaries is the easy part. The hard part is being able to say exactly what will change, why the path is supported, and how you’ll know the environment is healthy afterward.