Broadcom has released VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1.1 and VMware Cloud Director (VCD) 10.6.2, two fully interoperable maintenance releases that also bring VMware Cloud Director Availability (VCDA) 4.7.6 into a validated, supported stack. Together, these releases give Service Providers a stable, well-defined foundation — and, more importantly, a longer support runway to plan their strategy for moving from VCD to VCF Automation (VCFA).
What’s New in VCF 9.1.1
VCF 9.1.1 is a maintenance release built on an updated Bill of Materials, and while it is light on headline features, two changes matter a great deal operationally.
A right-sized VCF Management Services (VCMS) footprint. When VCF Management Services were introduced in VCF 9.1.0, the underlying VM sizing was intentionally generous — built to accommodate the largest optional Day-N service so that adding new capabilities later wouldn’t force a resize. That approach worked, but it meant environments that never turned on those optional services were carrying more compute than they actually needed. VCF 9.1.1 fixes this by right-sizing VCMS for the initial Day-0 deployment and further trimming individual components so each service only reserves what it needs. In practice, a new Simple (non-HA) deployment now needs one fewer VCMS worker node — a saving of 12 vCPU and 24 GB of memory. VCF 9.1.1 also introduces a new Small HA deployment option, so teams can get high availability for the VCMS control plane without stepping up to a larger footprint. New deployments pick this up automatically; existing environments upgrading from 9.1.0 keep their current sizing but can apply a post-upgrade right-sizing script to reclaim the savings.
VLAN-backed VPC support in VCF Automation. VCF 9.1.1 adds support for VLAN-backed VPCs consumed through VCF Automation, where traffic flows directly on physical VLANs without overlay encapsulation (note: private networks aren’t supported in this model since IP addressing is tied to the physical VLAN CIDRs).
Two Product Support Notes are also worth flagging for anyone upgrading:
- Native management of public cloud resources (AWS, Azure, GCP) in VM Apps organizations is now deprecated and disabled by default.
- Bring-your-own Velero package installation is deprecated; VKS-deployed, Broadcom-supported Velero should be used going forward.
What’s New in VCD 10.6.2
VCD 10.6.2 is a compact but important release, built primarily to certify support for VCF 9.1.1.
- VCF 9.1.1 compatibility. VCD 10.6.2 is validated against VCF 9.1.1, vSphere 9.1.1, and NSX 9.1.1. VCD Availability is fully supported on this combination, though VCF only supports the extensions explicitly listed in the 10.6.1.2 release notes.
- Upgrade paths. You can move to 10.6.2 directly from any 10.6.x release — 10.6.0, 10.6.0.1, 10.6.1, 10.6.1.1, or 10.6.1.2.
- A worthwhile operational fix: the default relocation timeout for large VMs on non-shared datastores has been raised from 5 minutes to 8 hours, addressing a common failure mode during large-scale relocations.
- Photon OS security updates, a general set of bug fixes, and a heads-up that current VCD Management Packs and Content Packs for Operations are incompatible with this release — plan your monitoring accordingly if you rely on them.
- One important caveat if you’re planning a joint upgrade: if you move VCF Operations to 9.1.1 alongside this release, you must deploy a full VCF 9 fleet, since VCF Operations and VCF Automation now have a strict 1:1 relationship.
VCDA 4.7.6: Now Interoperable with VCD 10.6.2 and vSphere 9.1.1
VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.7.6 rounds out the stack. It’s primarily a maintenance release — resolved issues plus third-party library updates — but its significance here is interoperability: VCDA 4.7.6 is validated against VCD 10.6.2 and vSphere 9.1.1, per the Broadcom Interoperability Matrix. It supports an in-place upgrade from 4.5.x, 4.6.x, or 4.7.x, and continues to use vSphere Replication (HBR) 9.0.1 for the Classic data engine. Two resolved issues are worth a mention for larger environments: a fix for replication traffic stalls on encrypted VMs at scale (which was causing RPO violations), and a fix for static IP address configuration failures in Org VDCs with more than 32 networks.
The Bigger Story: Support Extended to August 2028
Here’s the headline for Service Providers: VCD 10.6.2, VCF 9.1.1, and VCDA 4.7.6 are all supported through August 2028. That’s a meaningful extension over what many providers had been planning around, and it buys back time in three concrete ways:
- More runway to plan the VCD-to-VCFA transition. Providers who were racing against an earlier end-of-support date now have roughly one additional year to build, test, and execute a migration strategy rather than compress it under deadline pressure.
- Room to match the migration path to the use case. Not every tenant or workload profile is ready for VCFA on the same timeline. The extended window lets providers sequence migrations by tenant complexity, network topology, or contractual constraints instead of forcing a single cutover date.
- A stable, validated interop baseline in the meantime. With VCF 9.1.1, VCD 10.6.2, and VCDA 4.7.6 confirmed to work together, providers can continue operating and patching their current VCD-based environments with confidence while the migration plan matures.
Key Takeaways
- VCF 9.1.1 and VCD 10.6.2 are interoperable and were released together on 3 September 2026.
- VCF 9.1.1 meaningfully reduces the VCF Management Services footprint and adds a Small HA deployment option.
- VCD 10.6.2’s main job is certifying VCF 9.1.1 support, alongside a critical relocation-timeout fix.
- VCDA 4.7.6 is now validated against VCD 10.6.2 and vSphere 9.1.1.
- Support for all three now runs to August 2028, giving Service Providers roughly one extra year to plan and execute their VCD-to-VCFA migration strategy.
