Category: VCF & Infra Series
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How to Convert vSphere to VCF 9 with the Converge Workflow (VCF 9 Series, Part 13)
Converging a standalone vSphere environment into a VCF 9 management domain is mostly about clearing the right prerequisites before you launch the Installer. Here is the runbook, the blockers that stop a converge cold, and the version matrix.
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VCF 9 Adoption Paths: When to Converge, Import or Start Fresh (VCF 9 Series, Part 12)
VCF 9 offers four adoption paths from vSphere. Here is how converge, import, expand and greenfield differ, plus a decision matrix and tree to choose the right one for your estate.
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Avi Load Balancer vs NSX Native Load Balancing in VCF 9: Which to Choose (VCF 9 Series, Part 11)
In VCF 9 the NSX native load balancer is deprecated and Avi is the strategic choice. A clear feature, architecture, licensing and migration comparison, with a definite verdict.
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NSX in VCF 9 Explained: Transit Gateways, VPCs and the Distributed Firewall (VCF 9 Series, Part 10)
NSX in VCF 9 keeps Tier-0 and Tier-1 but puts a cloud-style VPC model in front: NSX projects, one Transit Gateway each, distributed routing with no Edge VMs, and the DFW.
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Deploy a VI Workload Domain in VCF 9 with VCF Operations (VCF 9 Series, Part 9)
Deploy a VI workload domain in VCF 9 from the VCF Operations console: commission hosts, choose storage and NSX, and the default-on Supervisor toggle worth turning off.
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VCF 9 Management Domain Bring-Up with the VCF Installer (VCF 9 Series, Part 8)
A step-by-step VCF 9 management domain bring-up with the VCF Installer: depot setup, the live-validated wizard, what gets deployed, and the DNS sweep that prevents most failures.
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VCF 9 Reference Architecture: Sizing, Topology and Design Trade-offs (VCF 9 Series, Part 7)
The VCF 9 management domain topology, appliance sizing and the standard versus consolidated decision, plus the one appliance (VCF Automation) that quietly drives your whole BOM.
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vSAN ESA vs OSA in VCF 9: Storage Design and When to Choose Which (VCF 9 Series, Part 6)
vSAN ESA vs OSA in VCF 9: single-tier all-NVMe versus two-tier disk groups, the resilience math, the lowered hardware minimums, and a clear verdict on which to choose.
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VCF 9 Network Design: 7 Mistakes That Break Your Deployment (VCF 9 Series, Part 5)
Seven network design errors that fail a VCF 9 bring-up, framed as symptom, cause and fix. The MTU drop on a single transit hop is the one that wastes the most hours.
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VCF 9 Planning and Prerequisites: Sizing, Networking and the Readiness Checklist (VCF 9 Series, Part 4)
Sizing, VLANs, MTU, DNS and the readiness checklist for a VCF 9 deployment. The prerequisites that decide whether your bring-up sails through validation or stalls hours in.
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VCF 9 Licensing Explained: Core Counting, the vSAN TiB Entitlement and 5 Costly Mistakes (VCF 9 Series, Part 3)
VCF 9 licensing looks simple but bites at design time: the 16-core-per-CPU floor, the 1 TiB-per-core vSAN entitlement, and the move of production load balancing to Avi. Five mistakes, with the numbers behind each.
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VMware Cloud Foundation 9 Architecture: Fleet, Instances and Domains Explained (VCF 9 Series, Part 2)
The VCF 9 hierarchy is fleet, instance, domain, cluster. Here is what each layer really means, the host-count minimums, and why you should schedule change windows by domain and fleet-services, not by vCenter.
Architect’s Toolkit
PJ’s Tools
VMware Cloud Foundation
- VCF Documentation
- VCF 9 Planning & Preparation Workbook
- VCF Bill of Materials (BoM)
- VMware Compatibility Guide
- VMware Interoperability Matrix
- VMware Configuration Maximums
- VMware Ports & Protocols
- VMware Hands-on Labs
- RVTools Download
Nutanix
AI & Cloud-Native Platform
- NVIDIA Build (Model Catalog)
- NVIDIA AI Enterprise Reference Architecture
- NVIDIA NIM Performance Benchmarking
- NVIDIA NGC Catalog
- NeMo Microservices Helm Chart
- Helm Charts Repository
- Hugging Face Models
Architecture & Design
About the Author
Dr Pranay Jha
Dr. Pranay Jha is a Cloud and AI Consultant with 18+ years of experience in hybrid cloud, virtualization, and enterprise infrastructure transformation. He specializes in VMware technologies, multi-cloud strategy, and Generative AI solutions. He holds a PhD in Computer Applications with research focused on Cloud and AI, has published multiple research papers, and has been a VMware vExpert since 2016 and a VMUG Community Leader.
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