A single vCenter together with the storage, switching, NSX Manager and clusters it controls. Every VCF Instance has one for management, plus optional extra ones for workloads.
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Terms in this definition
- vCenter
Management software for VMs, clusters and ESX hosts. Each domain in VCF gets a dedicated one.
- General-purpose v1
The older storage account kind (
Storage), which lacks access tiers, Archive and premium file shares and retires on 13 October 2026. Converting to ZRS requires first upgrading to GPv2, a one-way change. - NSX Manager
Runs NSX's management and control planes. Through its interface or API, admins create segments, VPCs and transit gateways and steer traffic; one copy may belong to a single VCF domain or be shared.
- VCF Instance
Combination of a management domain with any number of workload domains, each instance having its own NSX, SDDC Manager and vCenters. A VCF fleet is made up of one or more of them.
Related terms
- management domain
VCF domain built by the VCF Installer to host a VCF Instance's management components, plus fleet-wide components such as VCF Operations and VCF Automation in the first instance. Business workloads may run there too.
- network pool
Subnets defined in SDDC Manager for one layer 2 domain. Hosts joining a VCF domain get static IPs from it automatically for their vMotion and vSAN/NFS/iSCSI VMkernel adapters.
- Sync Inventory
Action run from VCF Operations against a VCF domain when SDDC Manager's records and vCenter disagree, bringing the two back into line. It is unrelated to detecting configuration drift.
- vSphere cluster
Hosts grouped and managed together by vCenter so their pooled resources can support vSAN, DRS and vSphere HA. In VCF, each such cluster belongs to a VCF domain.