The latest release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Download Tool (VCFDT), which ships as part of VCF 9.1, includes a number of enhancements for downloading VVF and VCF installation and upgrade binaries.

For new users of VMware Cloud Foundation Download Tool (VCFDT), I thought it would be useful to put together a quick cheat sheet covering some of the most common workflows, ranging from configuring an activation code and downloading the required VCF 9.1 binaries for initial deployments and upgrades, to the new workflow for downloading ESX patches and updates.

I have even found myself repeatedly using the --help command just to locate a specific option or workflow, so hopefully this serves as a useful reference for both new and existing users, including myself! 😅

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The rapid advancement of frontier AI capabilities, including recent developments from Anthropic Mythos, keeping software and infrastructure up to date has become a critical priority for many IT organizations.

VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) and VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 introduce a ton of powerful new private cloud capabilities, which has generated tremendous interest from both customers and partners, ranging from new deployments to modernizing existing environments, all with the goal of building a more secure and resilient private cloud platform while also helping address the rapidly evolving threat landscape.

One area that has significantly changed from earlier VCF releases prior to VCF 9.0 is around upgrades, which has been a major source of confusion, even for myself at times. I will not try to defend some of the confusion and misconceptions from the past, but I will say that VCF 9.1 introduces more flexible upgrade paths, allowing customers to take advantage of the latest capabilities while also meeting them where they are currently at in their Private Cloud journey.

With that said, I am hoping this quick blog post, along with some visuals, will help demystify the supported upgrade paths to VCF 9.1, including some of the common misconceptions around specific feature capabilities and future direction, especially as it relates to VCF Automation VM Apps (Traditional) and VM Apps (Modern) or Networking using VLAN-backed, NSX Overlay/Segment and Modern NSX VPC.

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Nested ESX continues to be a popular way to explore and learn about VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), it is also the basis for the VCF Holodeck solution.

With the release of VCF 9.1, Nested ESXi VMs can now run on physical hosts with NVMe Tiering enabled, no workarounds required. In addition, you can extend the benefits of NVMe Tiering to a Nested ESX VM by applying the following VM Advanced Setting.

The easiest and quickest way to deploy a Nested ESX VM is to my Nested ESX Virtual Appliance, which has been refreshed for 9.1!

Note: The latest Nested ESX 9.1 Virtual Appliance no longer comes with default password, you will need to specify that as part of the OVF deployment.

While I have personally switched from using a nested VCF deployments to physical setup, mainly due to lack of resources, I know many of you do have sufficient capacity to run a full VCF deployment in a Nested environment.

I have also refreshed my VMware Cloud Foundation Nested Lab (VCF) Fleet Deployment script to support both VCF and VVF 9.1

Here is a screenshot of the initial deployment that takes ~25 minutes to deploy three Nested ESX VM, initialize the VCF Installer, sync from a VCF Offline Depot, generate the deployment JSON and then automatically start the VCF Fleet deployment. 😎