Major Enhancements to VCF 9.1 Upgrade Planner Tool

The VCF Upgrade Planner was launched back in May and the reception and feedback from our users has been incredible. With over 90,000 visits in just a few months, it has quickly become an essential resource for helping customers and partners create a custom-tailored runbook for their specific environment to successfully upgrade to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1.

As if the number of visits was not enough validation, I really felt the impact firsthand at VMware Explore 2026, where I met several attendees who all shared a similar sentiment:

I would not have been able to upgrade to VCF 9.1 without the VCF Upgrade Planner.

It has been great to hear how valuable the VCF Upgrade Planner has become for our users. Based on that feedback, we have made over 100 updates, from fixes to enhancements, and today I am excited to share several major updates that further improve the user experience and introduce new capabilities that will help with your VCF 9.1 journey.

VCF Upgrade Pathways

• Support for VCF 9.1.1 Upgrade Pathways
• Support for latest VCF Component Express Patch (EP) Upgrade Pathways
• Support for VCF Workload Domain Upgrade Pathway
• Support for VCF Instance Upgrade Pathway

In addition to keeping up with the latest VCF maintenance releases and Express Patches, the VCF Upgrade Planner can now also provide upgrade guidance for additional VCF Instances and Workload Domains.

vSphere Supervisor & vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS)

• Support for vSphere Supervisor and vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) with VCF Upgrade Pathways
• Support for Standalone vSphere Supervisor and vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) Only Upgrade Pathway

Upgrade guidance for vSphere Supervisor and vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) has been a highly requested capability, especially given the complexities involved when upgrading from earlier vSphere 8.x releases.

There are two ways to access the new vSphere Supervisor and VKS Planner capability. The first is integrated into the existing vSphere or VCF upgrade planning workflow, where you can simply select the vSphere Supervisor checkbox to include the applicable upgrade guidance.

By default, the VCF Upgrade Planner recommends the minimum vSphere Supervisor and VKS versions required for compatibility with your target VCF version. Alternatively, users can select the recommended versions for optimal operations, which may introduce additional upgrade steps for vSphere Supervisor and/or VKS that can be performed after completing the VCF upgrade. This gives users the choice between meeting the minimum compatibility requirements or upgrading to the recommended versions based on their needs

For some organizations, vSphere Supervisor and VKS upgrades are managed by a separate team, such as Platform Engineering. For these users, rather than going through the full VCF upgrade planning workflow, you can access the new vSphere Supervisor and VKS Planner directly by selecting VKS Upgrade Planner from the left-hand navigation menu. Both options provide the same upgrade sequence and guidance, giving users a dedicated workflow when they only need to upgrade their vSphere Supervisor and VKS deployments.

User Experience (UX)

• Improved Visuals and Navigation
• Export Upgrade Plans in both plain text or markdown for Change Advisory Board (CAB)

Roadmap

• Support for resuming existing session with Export/Import capability (shipped on 10/27/26)
• Support for Data Services Manager (DSM) (shipped on 11/05/26)

If you have a specific feature request or idea, feel free to submit a GitHub Issue for the team to evaluate. In many cases, enhancements can be implemented and rolled out quickly, sometimes within hours or just a few days!