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VCF 9.1 - Quick Tip: Easily Generate VCF SSO API Tokens using VCF Component UI

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VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 Single Sign-On (SSO) not only provides a unified login experience across all VCF components, but it also enables organizations to easily add multi-factor authentication (MFA) to protect their VCF infrastructure using modern identity providers that support OIDC or SAML 2.0.

Another benefit of configuring VCF SSO in 9.1 is the ability to create and use VCF SSO API Tokens for automation purposes. Rather than hardcoding passwords in scripts, API Tokens provide a more secure authentication mechanism and can be centrally managed and revoked whenever needed.

Once VCF SSO has been configured, you can easily generate a new VCF SSO API Token from the UI of any VCF component by right-clicking on your username and select Generate API Token.

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VCF 9.1 - Deploying the VCF License Server Directly to an ESX Host

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For most customers, a single VCF License Server, which is automatically deployed as part of a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) or VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) deployment, is sufficient to provide centralized license management for all VCF components. A single VCF License Server and VCF Operations instance can manage both VCF and VVF entitlements, so deploying additional VCF License Servers provides no additional benefit.


While additional VCF License Servers (LS) can certainly be deployed, the primary use cases are replacing an existing VCF LS or supporting extreme edge deployments where vCenter Server has limited connectivity to the primary data center and requires a VCF LS to be co-located with the edge deployment.

The VCF LS is provided as a virtual appliance in OVA format. The typical deployment workflow uses vCenter Server, where the VCF LS uses OVF properties, like most virtual appliances, to configure itself during deployment.

With that said, if you need to deploy the VCF LS directly to an ESX host, this is certainly possible using OVF Tool, which can inject the required OVF properties as part of the deployment workflow.

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VCF 9.1 - vSphere Back-in-Time Support for Upgrade, Converge and Import

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Back-in-time vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) releases can be a little confusing in the context of upgrades. This occurs when the source version, such as vSphere 8.0 Update 3j or VCF 5.2.4, was released AFTER the target version you are upgrading to, such as VCF 9.1.

Today, there are three supported paths to the latest VCF 9.1 release:

  • Upgrade an existing VCF deployment to a VCF 9.1 Fleet
  • Converge an existing vSphere-based (non-VCF) deployment into a new VCF 9.1 Fleet
  • Import an existing vSphere-based (non-VCF) deployment into an existing VCF 9.1 Fleet

The table below summarizes the latest supported back-in-time release compatibility for each of these deployment scenarios.

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