Cosmin Trif: Notes on VCF, ESXi and Infrastructure Automation

In Part 3 we gave NSX a way out without edges. Now we enable the Supervisor on the one-host cluster, with a single control plane VM instead of the usual three. Two things stalled it along the way, and I headed off a third before it could. I’ll go through all of them, then prove the result with a test pod. Before you begin vSphere HA and DRS on, HA admission control off (Part 2) The FTT=0 policy compatible with the vSAN datastore (Part 2) Five consecutive free IPs on the management network for the Supervisor (mine: 10.1.1.85 to 10.1.1.89) DNS servers that answer from the address they were queried on (more on that below) Then ask vCenter whether the cluster can take a Supervisor on VPC networking: ...

In Part 2 we built the one-host cluster. Before we can enable a Supervisor on it, NSX needs a way to get VPC traffic in and out. My management domain has NSX with an overlay transport zone, but no edge cluster, no Tier-0 and no Tier-1. In VCF 9.1 that is fine: a Supervisor on VPC networking can use a distributed transit gateway and a small cluster of Virtual Network Appliances (VNAs) instead of edges. ...

In Part 1 we set up SDDC Manager to accept a single-host cluster. Now we add the GPU host to the domain as its own one-host cluster. In my lab that host is esx-05a, a spare nested host, and the new cluster is cluster-mgmt-02a in the management domain mgmt-a. This is where the series hit its first failure, and the fix is the part I would have liked to read about before I started. ...

I was working with a customer, and we were going through William Lam’s post on running VCF 9.1.1 on a single ESX host. They wanted a vSphere Supervisor so they could run VCF Private AI Services later, but only one of their hosts had GPUs in it. Buying two more GPU hosts just to meet a cluster minimum was not an option. So the question was simple: can we add a one-host cluster to the existing VCF domain and run a Supervisor on it? ...

With VCF 9.1.1 available, I wanted to patch SDDC Manager in my lab. This is the follow-up to my VCF 9.0 SDDC Manager upgrade guide. In this post I will go over the upgrade from 9.1.0.0400.25570100 to 9.1.1.0.25713928 through VCF Operations. VCF 9.1.1 is a maintenance release with an updated Bill of Materials. The VCF 9.1.1 release notes are the source of truth for supported paths and dependencies. One naming detail before we start: these screenshots show SDDC Manager under Build -> Lifecycle -> VCF Instances. That is different from the SDDC Lifecycle management-service component under Build -> Lifecycle -> VCF Management. The procedure below is for SDDC Manager. This patches SDDC Manager only; it does not change the management-domain version or patch the other core components. Broadcom documents this standalone path in Upgrade SDDC Manager without upgrading VCF. ...

With VCF 9.1.1 released on September 3, 2026, I continued upgrading the management components in my lab. In this post I will go over upgrading the Migration Service Engine from 9.1.0.0200 to 9.1.1.0 through VCF Operations. The task is labeled VCD_MIGRATOR in the workflow, so I use both names below. This is the component upgrade that prepares the VCD migration service. It does not migrate workloads by itself. If you are preparing a VCD workload migration, also check the supported VCD baseline and the Environment Assessment Tool requirements in Broadcom KB 455238. Broadcom currently documents VCD 10.6.2 as the supported source for the VCF 9.1 migration path. ...

With VCF 9.1.1 released on September 3, 2026, I wanted to bring the management-service upgrades together in one place. I already wrote a separate walkthrough for each component, but following a collection of individual posts is not how I want to plan a maintenance window. This post is the all-in-one runbook I would use for a VCF 9.1.0.x fleet, including the VCD Migrator that was missing from my earlier set of guides. ...

With VCF 9.1.1 released on September 3, 2026, I continued upgrading the management components in my lab. In this post I will go over upgrading VCF Automation from 9.1.0.0200 to 9.1.1.0 through VCF Operations. VCF 9.1.1 is a maintenance release focused mostly on supportability improvements. The VCF 9.1.1 release notes are the source for the release scope, patch order, and known issues. The component release notes for VCF Automation 9.1.1 list build 25714559. ...

With VCF 9.1.1 released on September 3, 2026, I continued patching the management services in my lab. In this post I will go over upgrading VCF Operations for Networks from 9.1.0.0200 to 9.1.1.0 through VCF Operations. The VCF 9.1.1 release notes are the source for the release scope, upgrade sequence, dependencies, and known issues. In my lab, the target VCF Operations for Networks build was 9.1.1.0.25682214. VCF Operations for Networks was formerly known as Aria Operations for Networks and vRealize Network Insight. In VCF 9.1 it is a separate appliance managed from the VCF Operations Fleet Lifecycle workflow. This walkthrough covers one 9.1.0.x maintenance upgrade. If you are still on Aria Operations for Networks 6.x, I covered upgrading to 6.14 via an upgrade bundle and upgrading to 6.14 via Aria Suite Lifecycle. Moving from 6.14 into VCF 9.x is a separate migration path, so follow the applicable VCF upgrade procedure first. ...

With VCF 9.1.1 released on September 3, 2026, I wanted to continue patching the management services in my lab. This post is a follow-up to my older SaltStack Config 8.12.1 guide and covers upgrading VCF Salt RaaS from 9.1.0.0100 to 9.1.1 through VCF Operations. VCF Salt is the current product name for the Salt services that were previously presented as SaltStack Config or VMware Aria Automation Config. The VCF 9.1.1 release notes and the VCF Operations 9.1.1 release notes are the references I used for the target build and upgrade dependencies. ...