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Password, Certificate & Backup Management UI/API for VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) 9.1 

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When it comes to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) capabilities such as the new unified Fleet Management, it is important to distinguish between the deployment type and the deployment entitlement.

Deployment Type

Deployment Entitlement

  • VVF
  • VCF

Although related, these are two distinct concepts, and conflating them can lead to confusion about which capabilities are available in a given deployment.


To add to the confusion, the VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) deployment type includes a non-VCF Installer deployment workflow, officially referred to as VVF without VCF Management Services.  This workflow deploys the standalone VVF components, including vCenter Server, ESX, VCF Operations, and VCF License Server, rather than a VCF Management Services-based deployment. As a result, capabilities such as Log Management, which rely on VCF Management Services, are not available in this deployment model.

Customers have the flexibility to choose the deployment type that best meets the requirements of a given environment, independent of their VVF or VCF entitlement. While this flexibility is intentional, it can also lead to questions about where core management capabilities, such as password, certificate, and backup management, are exposed.

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Determining new VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) & VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) license usage in vSphere 8.0 Update 2b

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vSphere 8.0 Update 2b was just released last week and with this release, customers can now take advantage of the new included 100 GiB trial vSAN storage capacity for each deployed VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) core for use with vSAN!

Note: If you would like to understand how much vSAN storage you are entitled to (100GiB for VVF and 1TiB for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)), check out the new inventory and calculator script in KB 95927 (brownfield) and KB 96426 (greenfield) for more details.

In addition to installing and/or updating your vCenter Server to vSphere 8.0 Update 2b, you will also need to login to Customer Connect to download your new VVF and/or VCF license keys that will activate your vSAN entitlement.

I have already received questions on how to determine whether an ESXi host has been licensed with the new VVF and/or VCF license keys and which you can do so by using the vSphere UI by navigating to Administration->Licensing->Licenses->Assets->Hosts or vSAN Clusters and using the various filters, but this can be time consuming when you have a large environment with various license editions.

This is where automation and vSphere API can help!

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Updated Inventory & Calculator Scripts for counting Cores/TiBs for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF)

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Here are two new tools to help our users understand and calculate the required subscription capacity for the new VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) offerings, which are licensed based on physical CPU Cores for compute and total raw physical storage (TiBs) for vSAN.

Inventory Script

The PowerCLI script provided in KB 95927 is designed to help users inventory their existing vSphere environment (read-only account is sufficient) to assess the required VCF or VVF subscription capacity for compute and/or vSAN. The script has also been enhanced to incorporate the upcoming 100GiBs of vSAN storage entitlement for each VVF core that is provisioned to a vSAN cluster as well as the latest pricing and packaging for both VCF and VVF. For more details on how to download and use the inventory script, please check out the KB for more information.

Note: Make sure you are using the latest version of the script which had a minor update on 02/14/2024

Calculator Script

The PowerShell script provided in KB 96426 is designed to help users run different simulations for calculating the required VCF or VVF subscription capacity for compute and/or vSAN, especially in planning for a new or greenfield deployment. For customers who can not run the inventory script from KB 95927 due to organizational policies, the calculator script can be a viable alternative as long as you can manually provide the required parameters via the CSV input file used by the script. For more details on how to download and use the calculator script, please check out the KB for more information.


If you still have questions or require further assistance on sizing or pricing (including all applicable discounts), please reach out to your local VMware account team and they will be more than happy to help.