VCF 9.1 Deployment: The Complete Guide (VCF 9.1 Deployment Step by Step Guide)

Before you deploy. Work through the VCF 9.x pre-installation checklist and clear every precheck first, then start at Part 1 below. A clean checklist is what keeps the VCF Installer prechecks green on the first run.

A complete, step by step guide to deploying VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1, product by product. It covers the mandatory core, every optional component, and the converge and import scenarios for existing environments. New parts publish regularly. Start at Part 1, or jump to the part you need.

Complete · all 24 parts published
Start here
  1. 00Pre-Installation Checklist and readiness, complete this before Part 1
Phase 1 · Plan and prepare
  1. 01Deployment overview and component checklist
  2. 02Prerequisites and readiness checklist
  3. 03Network, DNS and NTP setup
  4. 04Deploy the VCF Installer appliance
Phase 2 · Build the mandatory core
  1. 05Deploy the management domain
  2. 06Deploy VCF Management Services and the license server
  3. 07Set up VCF Operations
Phase 3 · Operations add-ons (optional)
  1. 08Deploy VCF Operations for Logs
  2. 09Deploy VCF Operations for Networks
Phase 4 · Optional components and services (optional)
  1. 10Create a VI workload domain
  2. 11Deploy NSX Edge clusters
  3. 12Deploy Avi Load Balancer
  4. 13Deploy vDefend Distributed Firewall
  5. 14Deploy VCF Automation
  6. 15Deploy Data Services Manager
  7. 16Enable vSphere Supervisor and VKS
  8. 17Deploy Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA
  9. 18Deploy VMware HCX
  10. 19Configure a stretched cluster
Phase 5 · Existing environments (scenarios)
  1. 20Converge an existing vSphere environment
  2. 21Import a brownfield vSphere, vSAN and NSX environment
  3. 22Convert an existing vSphere 8 environment
Phase 6 · Validate and license
  1. 23Post-deployment validation and licensing
Phase 7 · Deployment for different scenarios
  1. 24Convert four sites into two instances under one fleet
Related resources

Architect’s Toolkit

About the Author

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.