I use this site to share what I learn while building, upgrading, troubleshooting, and automating systems in a VCF Holodeck lab. The posts cover the products, tools, failures, fixes, workarounds, and experiments I run into along the way, including the details behind each workaround.
Upgrading VCF Salt Master to 9.1.1 Step by Step
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 the VCF Salt Master from 9.1.0.0400 to 9.1.1 through VCF Operations. The VCF 9.1.1 release notes are the source for the release scope and patch dependencies. The VCF Operations 9.1.1 release notes list Salt Master and Salt RaaS at target build 25679895. This walkthrough covers a 9.1.0.x to 9.1.1 maintenance upgrade of one Salt Master instance. If you are starting from an older VCF or VMware Aria release, follow the applicable VCF upgrade or migration procedure first. ...
Upgrading VCF Identity Broker to 9.1.1 Step by Step
With VCF 9.1.1 released on September 3, 2026, I continued patching the management services in my lab. This post is a follow-up to my VCF 9.1 management services upgrade walkthrough and covers VCF Identity Broker through VCF Operations. The VCF 9.1.1 release notes are the source for the release scope, upgrade sequence, dependencies, and known issues. The VCF Operations 9.1.1 release notes list the Identity Broker target build as 25679886. In VCF 9.1, Identity Broker is a VCF management service hosted by the VCF services runtime. The supported lifecycle workflow is Build -> Lifecycle -> VCF Management -> Upgrade. This walkthrough covers a 9.1.0.x maintenance upgrade. If you are coming from an older VCF or VMware Identity Manager deployment, follow the applicable migration or upgrade procedure first; this is not a replacement for that transition workflow. ...
Upgrading VCF Telemetry to 9.1.1 Step by Step
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 Telemetry from 9.1.0.0 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. The VCF Operations 9.1.1 release notes list the Telemetry target build as 25671600. Telemetry is a VCF management service hosted by the VCF services runtime. The supported lifecycle workflow is Build -> Lifecycle -> VCF Management -> Upgrade. This walkthrough covers one 9.1.0.x to 9.1.1 maintenance upgrade. If you are coming from an older VCF or Aria release, follow the applicable VCF upgrade procedure first. ...
Upgrading VCF Real-Time Metrics Store to 9.1.1 Step by Step
With VCF 9.1.1 released on September 3, 2026, I continued patching the management services in my lab. This post is a follow-up to my VCF 9.1 management services upgrade walkthrough and covers the Real-Time Metrics Store through VCF Operations. The VCF 9.1.1 release notes are the source for the release scope, upgrade sequence, dependencies, and known issues. The VCF Operations 9.1.1 release notes list the Real-Time Metrics Store target build as 25714471. The Real-Time Metrics Store is its own VCF management component. It is separate from the Real-Time Metrics component, even though both appear in the same VCF Management list. The supported lifecycle workflow is Build -> Lifecycle -> VCF Management -> Upgrade. This walkthrough covers a 9.1.0.x to 9.1.1 maintenance patch; an environment coming from an older VCF or Aria release should follow the applicable VCF upgrade procedure first. ...
Upgrading VCF Real-Time Metrics to 9.1.1 Step by Step
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 VCF 9.1 management services upgrade walkthrough and focuses on Real-Time Metrics through VCF Operations. VCF 9.1.1 is a maintenance release focused mostly on improving product supportability. The VCF 9.1.1 release notes include the Bill of Materials, upgrade sequence, dependencies, known issues, and the component build numbers. The VCF Operations 9.1.1 release notes list Real-Time Metrics at build 25679622. ...
Upgrading VCF Log Management to 9.1.1 Step by Step
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 VCF 9.1 management services upgrade walkthrough and focuses on Log Management through VCF Operations. VCF 9.1.1 is a maintenance release focused mostly on supportability improvements. The main VCF 9.1.1 release notes and the VCF Operations 9.1.1 release notes are the references I used for this upgrade. In VCF 9.1, Log Management is a VCF management service hosted on the VCF services runtime. The supported lifecycle workflow is therefore in VCF Operations under Build -> Lifecycle -> VCF Management -> Upgrade. This walkthrough covers a 9.1.0.x maintenance upgrade; an environment coming from an older VCF or Aria release should follow the matching Log Management upgrade procedure first. ...
Upgrading VCF SDDC Lifecycle to 9.1.1 Step by Step
With VCF Services Runtime upgraded to 9.1.1, the next component I wanted to upgrade in my lab was SDDC Lifecycle. In this post I will go over upgrading it from 9.1.0.0400 to 9.1.1.0 through VCF Operations. VCF 9.1.1 was released on September 3, 2026. This is a maintenance release focused mostly on supportability improvements. The release notes can be found here. Before You Begin For an existing 9.1.0.x environment, upgrade Fleet Lifecycle to 9.1.1 first, before any other VCF component. In my lab it is already on 9.1.1.0.25713934. Continue to follow the release-specific dependencies in the 9.1.1 release notes when planning the remaining components. ...
Upgrading VCF Services Runtime to 9.1.1 Step by Step
With Fleet Lifecycle upgraded to 9.1.1, the next component I wanted to upgrade in my lab was VCF Services Runtime. In this post I will go over upgrading it from 9.1.0.0200 to 9.1.1.0 through VCF Operations. VCF 9.1.1 was released on September 3, 2026. The release notes can be found here. The runtime fixes listed in the VCF Operations release notes include improvements for mixed-case FQDNs, services recovering after a cluster power-on, and log buffers filling the logging disk. ...
Upgrading VCF Operations to 9.1.1 Using a .PAK File
With the release of VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1.1 on September 3, 2026, I wanted to get my VCF Operations lab upgraded. This is a maintenance release focused mostly on supportability improvements. The VCF 9.1.1 release notes can be found here, and the VCF Operations release notes are here. In this post I will go over upgrading VCF Operations from 9.1.0.0400 to 9.1.1 using the upgrade PAK file. If you are still on an older release, I also covered upgrading VCF Operations to 9.0.1 using a PAK file. That is a separate walkthrough, not a required intermediate upgrade. ...
Updating ESXi with the Authenticated Broadcom Depot or an Offline Bundle
This is the corrected follow-up to my earlier ESXi command-line upgrade articles. The shared public VMware host-update depot used in those examples is no longer valid. Broadcom now uses customer-specific authenticated download URLs, and its current standalone command-line procedure documents an offline depot ZIP with esxcli software profile update. The procedure and release information below were reviewed on August 25, 2026. Reopen the linked Broadcom articles during every change: depot authentication, entitlements, available profiles, release builds and support status can change. ...