📋 VCF 9.1 Complete Technical Reference — 18-Part Series
| # | Part Title | Key Subjects Covered | Approx. Doc Lines |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 ✅ | Release Notes, What's New & Bill of Materials | Product overview, GA date, BOM (all 50+ components + builds), What's New by component (ESX/vSphere/vSAN/NSX/Installer/Operations/Automation/SDKs), Upgrade sequences, API Changelog, Deprecations & EoS | ~1,400–6,800 |
| 2 | VCF Platform Fundamentals & Core Architecture | What is VCF / vSphere Foundation, Platform constructs, Management Services architecture, Build/Manage/Operate/Protect pillars, Cloud Services, Provider & Org Management, Job Functions, Getting Started flows | ~6,800–8,350 |
| 3 | Design — Architectural Options & All Component Models | Architectural Options reference, VCF Fleet Deployment Models, Sizing Models (First/Additional Instance, Resource Requirements), VCF Automation/Supervisor/Network/LB/Storage/NSX/Edge/Management Services/Operations/Log Mgmt/Identity Broker/Domain/Cluster/Switch/Private AI Models | ~8,350–16,000 |
| 4 | Design Blueprints I — Fleet Infrastructure Topologies | Single-Site Minimal Footprint, Single-Site Standard, Multi-Site Single Region, Multi-Site Multi-Region, Multi-Site+Additional Region; all layers: Consumption/Operations/Security/Virtual Infra/Physical; VCF Fleet Management Blueprint (IAM, Certs, Passwords, Config, Tags, Monitoring, Troubleshooting, Edge blueprints) | ~16,000–70,000 |
| 5 | Design Blueprints II — Security, Application Modernization & Detailed Design Library | Security Modernization (vDefend SSP, Mgmt Domain Security, Workload Domain Security); Application Modernization (Self-Service Multi-Tenant, VKS Consumption, Private AI Services); Full Detailed Design Library: VCF Automation, Supervisor, Workload Connectivity, LB, NSX Manager/Edge/VNA Cluster, Storage (vSAN/NFS/FC), Network (VDS, VMkernel, NIOC), Private AI Compute, vSAN Stretch, vCF Edge 10 patterns | ~70,000–125,000 |
| 6 | Planning & Preparation + Deployment, Convergence & Upgrade | Public URLs, FQDNs/IPs; Paths to 9.1; ESX install/config/ZTP; VCF Installer deploy; JSON spec files; Converge existing VI; Upgrade sequences (all paths: 5.2→9.1, 9.0→9.1, vSF, vSphere 8+Aria); Component upgrade order; vSphere LCM Baselines→Images transition; NSX upgrade checklist; ESX/vDS/vSAN on-disk upgrades; Monitoring & Troubleshooting upgrades | ~123,200–140,000 |
| 7 | Licensing | Licensing terminology, model, mixed-version environments; License Server (networking, security, downtime impact, recovery); Connected/Disconnected mode; Business Services Console operations; License lifecycle (split/merge/change/reclaim/delete); CSP/Hyperscaler provider licensing; License Usage Analytics | ~140,000–141,100 |
| 8 | Building Cloud Infrastructure — Domains, vSAN, NSX Federation & VPC | Network Pool Management; ESX Host Commission/Decommission; Workload Domain CRUD + L3 multi-rack; vSAN cluster create/expand/shrink; Stretched vSAN (ESA/OSA, Witness deploy/register/config); NSX Global Manager + Federation setup; Stretch VCF Fleet segments; Configure Centralized/Distributed network connectivity; VPC management; Transit Gateways; Connectivity Profiles/Policies; Overlay VMkernel; SDDC Manager Workflows | ~141,100–153,800 |
| 9 | vSAN Administration — Design, Configuration & Operations | Designing vSAN network (DHCP, IPv6, Unicast); NIC teaming/LACP/NIOC; vSAN cluster design & sizing; Storage device prep; Witness host config; Stretched Compute Cluster; vSAN Configuration Profiles/Drift; WSFC/Oracle RAC shared VMDKs; NFS/SMB file shares; Snapshots; Data-in-Transit encryption; Standard Key Provider (KMS); Proactive Hardware; vsantop CLI tool; Troubleshooting | ~153,800–172,500 |
| 10 | NSX Networking — Data Plane, Routing, VPC, VPN, Load Balancer & EVPN | NSX Manager overview; Tier-0/Tier-1 Gateways (BGP, VRF, HA modes, failure domains, GRE); Segments + Segment Profiles (QoS, IP Discovery, SpoofGuard, Security, MAC, Industrial vSwitch); Edge Bridging; Host Switches (vDS, EDP, RSS, LACP, L4 ECMP, VLAN MTU); Transport Zones/Profiles/TNPs; Host Transport Nodes; NSX Edge install/configure; VPC (subnets, external IPs, NAT, VLAN extension); Transit Gateways; VPN (IPSec Policy/Route-based, L2 VPN); NAT; NSX Native + Distributed LB; EVPN (Inline/Route Server); IPAM + Infoblox; Networking Settings (IGMP, Gateway QoS) | ~172,500–201,500 |
| 11 | NSX Security & Operations — vDefend, Federation, Auth, Certs, Ops & Troubleshooting | vDefend Firewall + ATP; NSX Inventory (Groups, Context/L7 Profiles, App IDs, FQDNs, URL Categories, Containers); NSX Federation (Global/Local Mgr, RBAC, Traceflow, Disaster Recovery, SRM); NSX Multi-tenancy; System/Network Monitoring (IPFIX, Port Mirroring, Traceflow, SNMP, Live Traffic Analysis, Network Latency, East-West introspection); Authentication/Authorization (LDAP, RBAC, Custom Roles, Session Auth); Certificates; Backup/Restore (NSX Manager/Global Manager); Operations (Node Profiles, Compliance, GRUB, Support Bundles, Syslog); Scale Out NSX Manager; Troubleshooting (Host TNs, Edge Nodes, BGP/BFD/HA, VPN) | ~201,500–226,100 |
| 12 | Lifecycle Management — Binary Management, Software Depot & VCF LCM | Binary Management (Download Tool, Offline Depot, Software Depot assignment); VCF Download Tool command reference (General, Binaries, Depot Mgmt, Metadata, Releases, ESX, Bundles); VCF Component LCM (Resource Locks, Patch Individual Components, Patch SDDC Manager from VCF Ops, HCX upgrade); vSphere LCM Images for VCF (Import images, Workload Domain upgrades, Post-upgrade NFS steps) | ~226,100–230,000 |
| 13 | Fleet Management — IAM, SSO, Certificates, Passwords, Configuration & Cloud Proxy | Fleet Deployment Modes; Identity Provider config (Okta/Ping/Entra ID/ADFS/Symantec/SAML2.0/OIDC/AD-LDAP/OpenLDAP); SSO (VCF Fleet-Wide, Cross-Instance, Single VCF); API Client/Token/Emergency Access Management; Certificate Management (MSCA, auto-renewal, manual renewal, CSRs, import, external CA); Password Management (accounts, policies, rotate/remediate/reset, SDDC Manager accounts); Tags & Categories; Configuration Templates (vCenter/Cluster, Source Control, Drift Detection/Remediation); Cloud Proxy (Deploy, Monitor, Groups, CLI, FAQ, Troubleshooting); Shutdown/Startup procedures | ~230,000–249,500 |
| 14 | Fleet Management — Backup, Restore & Disaster Recovery | Component B&R (SFTP config, File-based SDDC Mgr/vCenter/NSX/VDS backups; Image-based VCF Operations B&R; VCF Management Services B&R; VCF Automation B&R; vSphere Foundation B&R); Instance B&R (full VCF instance restore task library, restore plans for Mgmt/Workload domains); VCF Fleet Disaster Recovery (Failover/Failback plans, DR task library, NSX Federation DR, Protection and Recovery, FIPS Config) | ~249,500–265,900 |
| 15 | Infrastructure Operations — VCF Operations Platform (Day-2) | Configuring Management Components (scaling, network actions, proxy, rename); Exporting/Importing accounts; Management Packs (add, Solutions Catalog, Connected/Disconnected); Policies (Policy Workspace, Operational/Compliance/Active Policies); Alerts (Intelligent Alerts, Outbound Notifications, Symptom-based, Actions); Inventory (Object Types, Object Discovery, Topology Tab, vSAN Capacity); Logs (Overview, Import/Export); Dashboards (Types, Predefined: Capacity/Cost/Performance/Inventory/Network; Dashboard Library; Custom); Metrics & Properties (vCenter, vSAN, OS/App, Self-Monitoring, NSX); Reports & Views; Super Metrics; Admin Settings (Users, Access Control, Adapter Redescribe) | ~265,900–300,000 |
| 16 | VCF Operations for Networks + Workload Monitoring & Security Compliance | Ops for Networks: Data Sources (add NSX, vCenter, GCP VMware Engine, multi-cloud); Network Discovery; Settings (Capacity, DNS, Alerts, Security Certs, CLI); VPC Planning; Flow Analysis (Physical/NAT flow); Guided Network Troubleshooting; Entities; Pins & Dashboards; Path Topology; Network Maps/Intents; Micro-Segmentation (App Analysis); Application Discovery; Streaming Databus; Metric Definitions; FAQs. Workload Monitoring: Telegraf (Product-Managed, App Services Monitoring, OS config); Service Discovery Adapter. Security & Compliance: Security Posture Management, Compliance Benchmarks | ~300,000–308,000 |
| 17 | vSphere Supervisor Platform — Deploy, Configure, Manage, Monitor & Troubleshoot | VKS Architecture & Components; Deploy Supervisor (Foundation LB, NSX VPC, exported config); vSphere Namespaces (NSX VPC, object limits); Connect to Supervisor/VKS clusters; Configure/Manage Supervisor (storage, change settings); Monitoring (persistent volumes, storage migration); Update/Upgrade Supervisor & VKS; Backup/Restore (Velero plugin); Troubleshoot (certificate issues, networking, NSX integration issues) | ~308,000–328,500 |
| 18 | Administration — SDKs, APIs, CLI & Programming Guide | VCF SDKs overview, OAuth Token support; vSphere Add-On SDKs; Developer Setup Guide; VCF Programming Guide (vCenter REST API, vSphere Automation API, Web Services API: Property Collector, Authentication, Host Config, Storage, Networking, VMs, Tasks/Events, Profiles, SSO, Session); vSAN Management APIs; Solution Development; VCF PowerCLI (Concepts, Config, vSphere Mgmt, VCF API, vSphere Replication, NSX Policy API, VM Apps); VCF Operations API; Ops for Networks API; VCF Automation APIs for VM Apps + All Apps/Provider Portal |