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VCF 9.1.1 - Enabling the the new AI Assistant for VCF in VCF Operations

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One feature in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1.1 that I am personally excited about is the new AI Assistant for VCF. It is great to see AI being integrated directly into VCF for infrastructure teams, and while this is just the first release, I think it will open up many interesting possibilities for troubleshooting, reporting, operational insights, and ultimately improving operational efficiency by giving infrastructure teams valuable time back.

More importantly, as we enter a world where AI agents can operate at a scale and speed that humans simply cannot match, these capabilities will become increasingly important. AI will not only help infrastructure teams scale their operations, but also better prepare them to defend against and respond to threats operating at machine speed.

AI Assistant for VCF currently supports both cloud-based and VCF Private AI Services (PAIS) LLM model providers. For ease of setup and to quickly get started with the new capability, I will walk through the configuration using Google Gemini, which is currently the only supported cloud-based LLM provider.

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VCF 9.1.1 - Reducing CPU Utilization on AMD Ryzen Zen4/Zen5 by Masking the RDSEED Instruction

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While I am a huge fan of the recent AMD Ryzen Zen4/Zen5-based consumer platforms, including the versatile Minisforum MS-A2, it is well known at this point that these processors can exhibit slower entropy generation, which can lead to significantly higher CPU utilization.

I have published a number of workarounds (HERE, HERE and HERE) to address higher-than-expected CPU utilization across different VCF components, but this has continued to feel like a game of whack-a-mole, with the same underlying entropy issue manifesting itself in different services and workloads.

Right before VMware Explore, I had also been testing VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1.1 in my lab while finalizing my presentations and workshops for the conference. After deploying certain VCF components, I noticed that CPU utilization had increased significantly. Long story short, after an extensive debugging session with VCF Engineering, we traced the increased CPU utilization to RDSEED instruction requests originating from application space. The simplest solution turned out to be masking the RDSEED instruction from the guest operating systems!

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10 Exciting Enhancements in VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1.1

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This has been an exciting week as VMware Explore 2026 takes place in Las Vegas, where I have been meeting with customers and partners while delivering several technical breakout sessions and workshops. To coincide with the event, we have also announced the general availability of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1.1, the first maintenance release for VCF 9.1! 🥳

Note: While there is no defined patch sequence for maintenance and EPs, there is a special exception that you should be aware specifically for VCF 9.1.1 release which will have a couple of specific sequence that must be followed (pre-checks already built into the release). These exceptions will be removed in a future maintenance release, but just something to be aware of

  • Fleet LCM must be patched to 9.1.1 before updating other VCF components to 9.1.1
  • VCFMS must be updated to 9.1.1 before updating Identity broker, Salt Master/RaaS component to 9.1.1
  • VCF Automation (VCFA) must be updated to 9.1.1 before updating VCD Migrator component to 9.1.1

As a maintenance release, it includes all cumulative bug fixes and security updates from previous Express Patches (EPs), along with platform stability improvements and enhancements that simplify the journey to VCF 9.1.

While there are many improvements in this release, here are ten that I think are worth highlighting.

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