Welcome to part 2 of the VCF-9 series. In part 1, I discussed what’s new in VCF-9 and the deployment models and cluster topologies supported by VCF. In this post, I will walk through the deployment of VCF using the new VCF installer tool. 

The cloud builder tool that was included with earlier VCF editions has been replaced by the VCF installer. The new installer offers a whole new experience for deploying VCF instances and is lightweight. VCF-9 deployment methodology is more robust, well-designed, and efficient than the previous Excel-based Cloud Builder method. The installer can deploy VCF instances via UI or through JSON files and supports both brownfield and greenfield deployments. The installer also includes an improved built-in validation.

The VCF installer is available in the OVA file format and can be downloaded from here.

Prepping the Environment

Network & VLANs

I am using a VyOS router to provide network connectivity to my nested lab and have configured the following VLANs.… Read the rest

Introduction

VCF-9 was introduced at VMware Explore 2024, marking a pivotal advancement in how enterprises build and manage private clouds. Designed to simplify and consolidate IT environments, VCF 9 promises faster deployment, streamlined consumption, and simplified management—all while boosting security and cost-efficiency. VCF-9 is aimed at allowing organizations to manage their entire infrastructure as a single, unified system.

Some of the key features of VCF-9 are:

1: Streamlined Infrastructure: One Platform, Many Capabilities – VCF 9 integrates compute, networking, storage, and automation into a unified framework. This helps two main audiences:

• Infrastructure teams can automate and simplify private cloud deployment.
• Platform engineers & developers benefit from a self-service environment for VMs, containers, and Kubernetes workloads.

2: Tailored Experiences for Cloud Admins and Engineers

• Cloud Admins: Gain a consolidated control center to manage capacity, policies, tenants, and security—all from a single console. Diagnostic tools and topology maps accelerate issue resolution.
• Platform Engineers: Can self-provision environments across traditional VMs and modern container stacks.

… Read the rest