The first diagnostic question is which workflow the environment should be on. Using the wrong path produces failures that no amount of retrying fixes. Figure 4.1 shows the four starting points and the path and tool each one leads to.
| Starting point | Path | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing to reuse | Deploy a new VCF fleet or instance | VCF Installer |
| Existing VCF 5.x instance | Upgrade the management domain, then workload domains | SDDC Manager UI, then VCF Operations (Chapter 3, “Upgrading VCF 5.x to VCF 9.0”) |
| Existing vSphere (vCenter and ESX), with or without Aria products, not part of VCF | Converge into the management domain of a new VCF fleet or a new VCF instance in an existing fleet | VCF Installer |
| Further existing vCenter instances, with or without NSX | Import as workload domains into an existing VCF instance | VCF Operations |
Points to keep in view:
- Converge applies to the management domain only, because the management domain is the minimum building block of a VCF instance. Workload domains are imported and upgraded in VCF Operations after the management domain exists.
- The VCF Installer replaces Cloud Builder. During convergence it deploys any VCF component the environment lacks (SDDC Manager, NSX Manager if needed, VCF Operations, the fleet management appliance, the collector, and optionally VCF Automation) and uses the existing vCenter and ESX hosts to form the management domain.
- Standalone 9.0 components can be evaluated before convergence: vCenter, ESX and Aria Operations upgraded independently to 9.0 can run for up to 90 days before being licensed from VCF Operations.
- NSX 4.x deployments that are not part of a VCF instance reach 9.0 by being imported as workload domains and then upgraded; from VCF 9.0.1, existing NSX registered with vCenter instances that do not use ELM can also be upgraded as part of a management domain through the VCF Installer convergence workflow (the convergence scenario pages set NSX 4.2.1 as the minimum).
- Convergence to vSphere Foundation (VVF) is a separate, simpler path (vCenter, ESX and VCF Operations only); it is not covered further here.
The VCF Installer documentation describes the components converged or upgraded as follows:
| Component | Converged to VCF 9.0.x |
|---|---|
| Aria Suite Lifecycle | Not upgraded: a VCF Operations fleet management appliance 9 is deployed and the existing connections are imported |
| Aria Operations / VCF Operations | Yes, automated or manual |
| Aria Automation / VCF Automation | Yes |
| VMware Identity Manager / VCF Identity Broker | No: deploy VCF Identity Broker manually |
| Aria Automation Orchestrator, Aria Operations for Networks | Yes |
| HCX | Listed as Yes, but the VCF Installer known issues state that an existing vCenter with VMware HCX deployed is not supported (no workaround) |
| Aria Operations for Logs / VCF Operations for logs | No: redeploy 9.0 |
| SDDC Manager | Not applicable (deployed new) |
| NSX | VCF 9.0.0: no (a new NSX 9.0 is deployed); VCF 9.0.1: yes, without ELM |
| vCenter, ESX, vSAN | Yes |
Common trap: Trying to converge a workload-domain vCenter with the VCF Installer - converge builds the management domain only; additional vCenter instances are imported as workload domains from VCF Operations.
Common trap: Running the convergence path on an existing VCF 5.x instance - a VCF 5.x instance is upgraded through SDDC Manager, not converged; convergence is for vSphere environments that are not yet part of VCF.