VCF 9.1: Fixing “Hot migration is disabled in vmkernel” and Making It Stick
This one caught me in the lab while I was moving VMs off a management domain host ahead of some maintenance. vMotion failed almost instantly, and vCenter gave…
Fixing a VCF Services Runtime etcd That Can’t Start: 5.4 Million Keys and a Runaway Support Bundle
All of this was done in my home lab. A few of the steps (deleting keys directly from etcd, suspending Flux, running etcd outside of its StatefulSet) are…
VCF 9.1: A Failed OPS_LOGS Precheck and a Greyed-Out Upgrade Plan
Two unrelated-looking roadblocks turned up in the same afternoon while moving a VCF 9.0.2 environment to 9.1: a Log Management precheck that failed instantly with a 500, and…
VMSP Toolkit – Troubleshooting Appliance for VCF 9.1’s Management Services
If you've deployed VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1, you've met the VCF Service Runtime — the Kubernetes cluster quietly running the entire management plane. Broadcom calls the platform underneath…
VMware Explore 2026: A No-Hype Field Guide for VCF Practitioners
VMware Explore 2026 runs August 31 – September 3 at The Venetian in Las Vegas, and for once the calendar is working in our favor. VCF 9.1 went…
Build a Production-Ready VCF Offline Depot in 5 Minutes
If you've stood up a VCF offline depot before, you know the drill. nginx or Apache vhost. TLS cert — Let's Encrypt, internal CA, or self-signed. htpasswd (SDDC…
VMware Explore 2026: What VCF Practitioners Should Plan For
VMware Explore 2026 lands August 31 – September 3 at The Venetian in Las Vegas. Registration opened April 28. For anyone running VCF, NSX, or vSAN in production,…
VMware Cloud Foundation 9.x Upgrade Workflow
Updated October 2026. I wrote this back in January for the 9.0.1 to 9.0.2 upgrade. VCF 9.1 changed the order enough that following the old list will stop…
Deploying the VCF Download Tool on Photon OS for VCF 5.2 to 9.1.x Upgrades
Updated October 2026. I wrote this back in January for the 9.0.1 to 9.0.2 upgrade. VCF 9.1 changed the order enough that following the old list will stop…
VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2.1.1
VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2.1.1 includes bug fixes and a new version of SDDC Manager. You can upgrade to VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2.1.1 from VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 or…