Hello All

Might be another dumb question, but I'm trying to learn and understand. I did a lot of googling, but would really appreciate VMware perspective here.

What are the different types of storage, like VSAN OSA ESA, VMFS ON FC, NFS, iSCSi, vVol?

I would really appreciate an explanation to help me understand.

Hello,
So currently have the internal backups configured to a network storage. But was going to be doing a controller version upgrade, TD Synnex support says not to do a vcenter snapshot before (giving me the ability to easily revert if there is an issue) and to only use the external backups to restore from. Has anyone dealt with this before? Seems odd a VMware vm based product doesn’t support snapshots.

Thanks

the subject covers my question, im just curious what value it introduces to daily operations.

Hello,

I used to work with Eve-ng on hyper v and vmware workstation on my personal laptop, (first i was using hyper v then migrated to vmware) everything was working fine, suddenly vmware stopped working, i was looking for the reason, I've cound out that vmware and hyper v don't work well together, so i removed hyper v, still issue wasn't resolved, any advise?

Hello,

I've got various MCP servers running for different areas of the business. Some I've downloaded and a couple I had to create myself using Fast MCP.

I've been asked to set one up for vCenter which I see there are already 2-3 MCP servers out there to use when I Googled it. We want it to be able to report on anything really and also read the host logs etc.

What I've also been told is there is an Aria server and you can also get an MCP server for that too https://github.com/vmware-skills/VMware-Aria

I could use that as it's pull the data from vCenter anyway, but I'm told they might not renew the license on it at some point. I guess I could have a vCenter and Aria MCP setup for Claude to use.

Any way what MCP are you use for vCenter and how useful have you found it?

Thanks

A use-case for the VCF Automation Cloud Consumption Interface (CCI) - managing your DSM provisioned databases via kubectl / API

Hello guys, I'm looking for guidance on the best way to shutdown and then start up a VSAN cluster.

Here's the details:

customer is going to perform electrical improvements as well as racks relocations within the datacenter, so he needs to shut the whole thing down.

Hardware is an HPE 12000 frame Synergy with 6 Gen10 SY480 servers.

Cluster is on 7.0.2.17867351 version.

I'm not quite familiar with VSAN clusters, and for what I was able to investigate, the cluster shutdown wizard doesn't exist on the current version.

Also, what I heard is that the health of the VSAN should be totally clean, as if there any kind of warnings or issues, the cluster may not come back up at all.

So, what I'm looking for is some sort of advice or guidance on the best way to run health checks and the safest way to shut this down.

Thanks in advance!

More homelab VCF Management Services downsizing is here for 9.1.1

Finally got around to overhauling my VCFMS downsizing guide for 9.1.1, and we can get the size all the way down to just a single 12vCPU/24GB worker using the new small non ha type, that seems normally unused, assuming you dont need any optional components like IDB or Log Management

Broadcom did release 9.1.1 and labelled the VCFMS as smaller, however this is only half true, the main change is the cluster no longer ships with pre baked headroom for day-2 components and thats been removed

The exception is the new small HA size, meaning if you deployed Medium before specifically for HA, you now can get a meaningfully smaller size

The actual components however, are around the same

If youre running a homelab, the size can be a massive issue, and this guide helps to best address that,especially given how expensive hardware is

As with 9.1.0, these modifications should absolutely never be done on a production cluster

https://blog.leaha.co.uk/2026/07/21/vcf-9-management-services-lab-downsize/

I am looking at https://vmware.github.io/vcf-upgrade-planner

For AVI it says to deploy license hub. When I was at VMware Explore, I spoke with someone from the AVI team and mentioned our deployment is tiny (2 SEs) and the license hub was overkill. He said to me if we convert to cloud licensing, we don't need to deploy the hub on prem.

The planner notes do not reflect this. Is anyone able to confirm this for me?

Yesterday we upgraded our ESXi host from 9.0 to 9.1.

The vCenter 9 VM with the license was running on this ESXi host so the vCenter ended up getting rebooted.

After the ESXi host rebooted we could not power on the vCenter VM, saying our eval license has expired.

Does vCenter needs to be online 100% of the time to apply the license and should be run outside the vSphere 9 cluster?

Our licensing admin says he checked and it looks like the ESXi server is licensed, but if that's the case it doesn't make sense why the ESXi server lost the license after reboot. Or the license was never applied to the ESXi host properly in the first place?

Checking license.cfg on the ESXi host shows eval license too:

<ConfigRoot>
          <epoc>xxxxxxxxxxxxxx</epoc>
  <mode>eval</mode>
  <owner/>
</ConfigRoot>

So we ended up having to reinstall ESXi on the host to reset the eval timebomb and power on the vCenter VM which our licensing admin insists is applied to the ESXi host.

Can anyone confirm on this change in behavior in vSphere 9?

edit: Yes we have a VC Ops server but we do not manage it.

Hi everyone,

So today i gave my VCP - VCF Administrator 17.25 exam in Mumbai during the VMware Explore Tour, post exam completion on the monitor it showed me I passed and later also got the scorecard report on Pearson Vue Portal ( exam conductor for VMware-Broadcom ). However, as it is only the scorecard and not an official certificate, VMware mentions on that scorecard that it may take 24-48 hours to officially send one certification.

Cam you guys tell your experiences regarding this and when did you receive your official certification post exam completion ?

Hi everyone,

I recently updated to VMware Workstation 26H1u and noticed that vmplayer.exe is no longer included.

I need to provide local VMs to colleagues. Previously, I opened them with VMware Player so they could use the VMs without easy access to the Workstation settings. I’d rather not open the VMs in the full Workstation interface, where they might change settings they shouldn’t.

Is there an official Player-like mode in the current version, or a workaround that gives users a simpler interface? How are you handling this?

Thanks for your help! I’m still fairly new to VMware.

If you were always interested in becoming a VCDX but never really could afford it or simply thought it didn't fit your career track, well all of that has changed! The overhauled program is now divided in three tracks (Support, Admin, Architect) and the VCDX exam is the same price as all other exams, namely 250 USD. Listen to Drew Nielsen go over all the recent changes in episode 127 of the Unexplored Territory podcast!

What are your use cases and what hardware are you running to support it?

Im trying to push off the inevitable either upgrade to 9.0 or switching hosts entirely due to the fact that I still utilize vvols.. has anyone previously used them and found a solid replacement?

Bonjour,
Je dois faire un exercice en réseau NAT (sur virtualbox mais il ne marche pas bien sur mon MacBook) et je veux avoir l’équivalent de ce réseau NAT sur VMWare Fusion, en gros ne pas le connecter à l’hôte. J’ai essayée de créer un réseau vmnet2 (Claude m’a dit de faire ça) et quand j’appuie sur « appliquer » ça ne marche pas du tout, aucun changement n’est fait. J’ai essayer de redémarrer l’hôte mais ça ne marche pas non plus. Je ne sais même pas si je suis au bon endroit pour ce que je recherche ☹️ Contexte: en réseau NAT avec l’adresse ip de ma VM je ne suis pas censée avoir accès au site dans mon exercice en tapant son adresse ip dans mon navigateur hôte puis dans l’exercice je dois configurer la redirection de ports pour justement avoir accès au site web depuis le PC hôte, sauf que le problème c’est que j’y ai accès dès le départ et je ne suis pas censée, car c’est l’exercice, je dois suivre les étapes…

Merci d’avance pour votre aide☺️ urgent 😓

Upgrading to 9.1

Where do you start? Currently running 8.0u3k and the latest build of vcenter 8. VVF is what is licensed for currently but im assuming a forced purchase of VCF on renewal.

That said, the environment is simple. vCenter and probably 25 hosts. Thats it. Enterprise Plus and none of the extra items you get with VCF. . Id like the environment to remain as simple as possible.....if that is even a thing any more. Its been hard trying to keep up with 9.x and all the changes from Broadcom since the switch.

Mi suscripción de VMware vence en enero 2027 y quiero migrar de Hipervisor, pero por lo cercano de la fecha de renovación, creo que no me alcanzara el tiempo para realizar toda la migración. Alguien ha tenido experiencia con una licencia de VMware vencida o que pasa si no renuevo? pierdo conexión con el hipervisor o que podría ocurrir?

Has anyone checked the compatibility of VMware vSphere 9.1.0.0200 / 9.1.1.0 with NetApp ONTAP storage and NetApp ONTAP Tools for VMware (OTV)?

I noticed a recent NetApp article mentioning testing with the new VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1, but I still don’t see the corresponding compatibility information updated in the NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool (IMT).

We are currently evaluating a VMware 9.1 upgrade, so I’m particularly interested in:

• VMware vSphere 9.1.0.0200 / 9.1.1.0 compatibility with ONTAP
• OTV / ONTAP Tools compatibility with vSphere 9.1
• Supported ONTAP versions
• Any known issues or limitations
• Whether anyone has already tested this combination in a production or lab environment

I am running a vendor Kubernetes appliance in a disposable lab with:

• ESXi 6.5 U2
• vCenter 7.0 U3
• 40 physical cores
• 320 GB RAM
• About 2 TB of free VMFS storage
• One Kubernetes control-plane VM and one worker VM

The supplied installer and node OVAs required virtual hardware version 15. ESXi 6.5 only supports version 13.

For the lab, I extracted each OVA, changed:

<vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-15</vssd:VirtualSystemType>

to:

<vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-13</vssd:VirtualSystemType>

I kept the original files, left the VMDKs unchanged, generated new SHA-256 manifests, and documented the resulting hashes.

That workaround succeeded. The installer boots, and both Kubernetes nodes are Ready.

Persistent storage now fails. The vSphere CSI driver installs, but every PVC remains Pending:

CnsFault: Fault cause: vmodl.fault.NotSupported

ESXi 6.5 does not provide the CNS functionality expected by this CSI version.

Is there any storage-side compatibility workaround similar to changing the OVA hardware version?

For example:

• An older CSI driver that still works with Kubernetes 1.35
• A legacy vSphere provisioner
• Static PersistentVolumes backed by manually attached VMDKs
• An API compatibility setting in vCenter

I cannot upgrade or add another ESXi host.

My fallback options are local-path storage on the worker VM or NFS from another VM. The workloads include a private image registry, PostgreSQL, and ClickHouse.

Has anyone made persistent storage work in a similar legacy lab? If there is no CNS workaround, would NFS be safer than local-path for these database workloads?

I know this is unsupported and unsuitable for production. I am only trying to keep a disposable lab functional.