VCF Operations

Protecting the Recovery Control Plane: A VCF 9.1 Management-Component Backup and Fleet DR Runbook

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TL;DR Protecting workload virtual machines does not automatically protect the VMware Cloud Foundation services needed to discover, authorize, network, orchestrate, and validate their recovery. A complete VCF 9.1 recovery strategy needs several distinct mechanisms: native file-based backups for components such as SDDC Manager, vCenter Server, and NSX Manager; image-based protection for VCF Operations; backup and … Read more

The VCF 9.1 Upgrade Is an Operating Model Project, Not a Patch Window

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TL;DR A VCF 9.1 upgrade should not be treated like a normal maintenance window where each team updates its component, checks a dashboard, and leaves. The sequence matters. The ownership model matters. The readiness evidence matters. For VCF 9.1, VCF Operations is not a side task after the platform upgrade. Existing Aria Operations instances must … Read more

VCF 9.1 Management Services and Aria: Turning the Upgrade into an Operating Model

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TL;DR VCF 9.1 changes the upgrade conversation because the management layer is no longer just a collection of adjacent appliances. VCF Operations, VCF Automation, VCF Management Services, license services, software depot, identity, logging, and lifecycle workflows become part of a more unified private cloud operating model. That means the VCF 5.2.x to 9.1 upgrade should … Read more

VCF 5.2.x to 9.1: The Fleet vs Instance Ownership Model

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TL;DR The VCF 5.2.x to 9.1 upgrade is not just a component upgrade. It changes how teams should think about ownership. In VCF 5.2.x, many operational responsibilities were still organized around product lanes and appliances: SDDC Manager, Aria Operations, Aria Suite Lifecycle, Aria Automation, Log Insight, Identity Manager, vCenter, NSX, and ESXi. VCF 9.1 pushes … Read more

Designing Private Cloud SLOs in VCF Operations: Fleet Observability Without Dashboard Sprawl

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The first step in modernizing VCF Operations dashboards is changing the entry point from tools to services. The next step is harder. You have to decide what “healthy” actually means. That is where private cloud SLOs become useful. Not because infrastructure teams need to copy every SRE practice from application engineering, but because VCF operations … Read more

The VCF Upgrade Readiness Review: Decisions Before You Open the Planner

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Broadcom’s VCF Upgrade Planner is a useful starting point, but it should not be the first planning activity. The planner can help generate a tailored upgrade path from your current deployment and version inputs. It asks for the current deployment type, selected products, product versions, and target VCF 9.1 version, including inputs for vCenter, ESX, … Read more

When Fibre Channel Paths Lie: A Safe Fabric Login Reset Runbook for ESXi

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There are storage incidents where the host looks half-recovered. The fabric switch is back online. The link light is good. The array port is healthy. Some paths may even show up again. But inside ESXi, the storage view still does not match reality. A datastore has fewer paths than expected. An RDM-backed workload is not … Read more

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 Upgrade Planning Tool: Why Customers Should Start Now

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VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 is not the kind of upgrade you should treat as a last-minute lifecycle task. For many customers, the move to VCF 9.1 is also a shift in operating model, lifecycle sequencing, management services, resource planning, and cross-team readiness. That is why the new VCF 9.1 Upgrade Planning Tool matters. VMware’s announcement … Read more

VCF 9.0 GA Mental Model Part 6: Topology and Identity Boundaries for Single Site, Dual Site, and Multi-Region

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TL;DR Architecture Diagram Table of Contents Scope and terminology guardrails You will move faster as an organization if you treat these as non-negotiable guardrails: For topology conversations, you also need consistent physical vocabulary: Assumptions Decision criteria Use these criteria to keep topology and identity debates grounded in operational outcomes: Challenge You need a topology and … Read more