Lifecycle Management on iThinkVirtual™

Patching VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1.1, Part 2: NSX, vCenter, and ESX

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 23:09:00 -0400

Part 1 covered the management plane. This part moves on to the core components.

Planning the component upgrade

I planned NSX Manager, vCenter, and ESX in the same component upgrade plan as SDDC Manager in Part 1, so there was nothing to plan again for the management domain.

Patching VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1.1, Part 1: Management Components

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 23:08:00 -0400

In the series overview I covered what’s in the October 12th patch set and the caveats to know first. This part patches the management plane.

Patch binaries

On the instance’s Binary Management tab, Patch binaries for VCF version 9.1 lists five patches, and I downloaded the vCenter, SDDC Manager, NSX, and ESX ones before planning anything.

Patching VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1.1: Series Overview

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 23:07:00 -0400

On October 12th, Broadcom published a new round of patches for VCF 9.1.1 components. This series applies them to the lab I upgraded from 9.0.2 to 9.1.1, in the order the documentation gives, using the upgrade planner where it applies. This post covers what’s in the patch set, the caveats to know first, and how the series is laid out.

VCF 9.1 Readiness Gates: What Held Up and What Didn't

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 20:30:00 -0400

Before I started the upgrade series, I wrote down five readiness gates I’d want in front of anyone booking a window for a 9.0.x to 9.1.x upgrade. Now that I’ve run the whole thing end to end, here’s what held up and what didn’t. This is a nested lab, not production, so read it as a rehearsal and not as evidence.

Before You Upgrade to VCF 9.1.x: Five Readiness Gates

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0400

VCF 9.1.1 has been out since September 3rd, and the 9.1.1.0100 patches for fleet lifecycle and SDDC lifecycle landed on the 21st, so the upgrade guidance has finally settled enough to plan against. Downloading the binaries is the easy part. The hard part is being able to say exactly what will change, why the path is supported, and how you’ll know the environment is healthy afterward.