I attempted to upgrade vCenter from 7.0.3 to 8 and it failed. I powered the original vCenter back on and everything with my cluster seems just fine, but when logging into the VAMI, it's stuck at a screen that says "Upgrade - Stage 2: Data transfer and vCenter Server setup is in progress"

I'm unable to navigate away from that screen.

I've searched around and I'm unable to find a way to abort that process so I can regain access to VAMI.

Has anyone seen this before?

I hope this isn't a stupid question but I'm a bit confused.

Dell says this:

Dell VxRail is a turnkey, hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) appliance jointly engineered with VMware. It combines Dell PowerEdge server hardware, software-defined storage (vSAN), and virtualization software (ESXi) into a single, pre-configured unit managed as a single system. 

What is VxRail?

VxRail is designed to simplify data center infrastructure. Key aspects include: [1]

Fully Integrated: It comes pre-installed with VMware vSphere (ESXi), vSAN, and VxRail Manager.

Simplified Management: Managed directly through the VMware vCenter interface.

Automated Lifecycle Management (LCM): VxRail Manager ensures that updates, patches, and node additions are non-disruptive and automatically validated for the entire stack.

Scalability: You can start with as few as two nodes and scale up to 64 nodes in a cluster.

Do I Still Need to Buy ESXi Hosts?

Yes, but you do not buy them separately. VxRail nodes are ESXi hosts. [1]

Included Software: When you buy a VxRail appliance, VMware vSphere ESXi and VMware vSAN are included as part of the appliance software bundle.

Licensing: While pre-installed, you must still supply vSphere and vSAN licenses to activate the software. You can purchase these licenses directly through Dell OEM or bring your own existing VMware licenses.

Hardware: You are buying Dell PowerEdge servers configured specifically to run as VMware ESXi nodes. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

In summary: You are buying a complete, pre-built, and supported "box" (VxRail) that includes all the necessary VMware software (ESXi + vSAN) pre-installed. You do not need to purchase separate bare-metal servers and then install ESXi yourself, but you must license the software that comes on the nodes. [1, 2]

VxRail Key Benefits vs. Traditional Hosts

Faster Deployment: Because it is pre-integrated, it is significantly faster to deploy than building an HCI cluster from scratch.

Single Support Point: Dell provides support for the entire stack—hardware and software.

Lifecycle Management: Automated testing and updating of firmware, ESXi, and vSAN, preventing compatibility issues.

So what I am reading is:

Each VxRail blade is equal to 1 ESXi host with all the compute, memory, & storage (vSan). So you need 3 VxRails at a minimum to make 1 cluster.

The good idea fairy has come knocking at work and wants to implement microsegmentation via vCenter. The easy way would be NSX, but I wouldn't be here if there was budget.

The request is for systems on 3 or 4 VLANs to go direct to the F5 router. I don't know if should use:

• Private VLANs?
• Traffic tagging?
• Something else?

My biggest concern is making sure these systems can still talk to domain services on a normal VLAN after implementation. I know it will be an administrative headache for little gain, but appreciate any help you can provide.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for guidance and resource recommendations to learn VMware vSphere from scratch to administration level.

Specifically, I want to learn:

• ESXi installation
• vCenter Server setup and configuration
• Networking (vSwitch, distributed switch basics)
• Storage (datastores, iSCSI/NFS basics)
• Cluster features (HA, DRS, vMotion)
• Day-to-day vSphere administration

What I’m looking for:

I would really appreciate if anyone can suggest:

• Good YouTube playlists (beginner → advanced)
• Any structured courses or lab-based learning series
• Any books worth reading (even if slightly older but conceptually strong)
• Hands-on lab setups or home lab guides

I’ve seen a lot of scattered videos online, but I’m looking for something structured and practical, ideally covering a full vSphere environment end-to-end.

Kinda like the title says, gauging interest in some video content before I make any

I do a lot of blogs, mostly covering how to setup, deploy and update VCF/Veeam stuff on my website

However, I dont really touch on a showcase of that the product can do

Now for work, I do a LOT of product demos showcasing what VCF can do, Ops, vSAN, NSX, K8S kinda thing

So I was thinking of making some videos like that which just show you, in a lot of detail, what the solutions can do and how I am using them in my lab

I think they would help a bit in working out if you wanna use the service, the configurations guides, I think are helpful, but if you just want to see what it can do to decide if your even interested, they are kinda pants at that

I think a video/webinar style thing would work a lot better vs a blog format, would definitely like to give it a go, if there is some demand

Would this be helpful to the VCF community?

Always appreciate any feedback

📒 https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vcf/vcf-9-0-and-later/9-1/release-notes/vmware-cloud-foundation-9-1-0-0-release-notes/what-s-new.html

💿 https://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/productfiles?subFamily=VMware%20Cloud%20Foundation&displayGroup=VMware%20Cloud%20Foundation%209&release=9.1.0.0&os=&servicePk=540528&language=EN

Our VMware ESXi 8.0.3 build-24859861 hosts are getting dinged for various OpenSSH vulns. Below is the one that needs the highest version of OpenSSH to fix. I asked a colleague and on these two hosts, closing down port 22 isn't an option (apparently for management reasons).

Has anyone had any traction getting Broadcom to fix these issues?

Tenable.io: Version source : SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_9.8

Installed version : 9.8

Fixed version : 10.3

I’m using ultraviewer to control another computer but I can’t seem to get the mouse to work. Only the other computers trackpad works
Ty yall

We recently migrate from from vsphere 6.7 and vsphere 7 to vsphere 8 in new HW imcluded All flash SAN

I notice there is NVMe Controller never used it before i always using default scsi controller

My Question !

Can i change dafault scsi controller to NVMe controller as good practice in All flash San storage ?

While i have OlD VM with OLD O.S linux and windows server???

Both the Broadcom and VMWare sites are so hard to navigate. I've never visited those sites until now because VirtualBox doesn't quite cut it. I want to get more out of my hardware when it comes to running virtual machines. I heard so much about the product, but I just can't find it available for download. Yes, I've already googled it. No, it didn't give me a download link. The tutorials I found also didn't work either. Am I stupid or do their web designers need to go back to school?

So there are 2 VMWare articles I've been looking over, but I'm still a little confused:

• https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/423919/manual-update-of-the-secure-boot-platfor.html
• https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/423893/secure-boot-certificate-expirations-and.html

1. Is the process (if done manually), install PK, reboot, install KEK, done?

2. Do I also need to do something about the DB/dbx cert? Microsoft UEFI CA 2023 and Windows UEFI CA 2023.

3. Do I need to do this on the actual exsi host as well?

We know that 90% of Broadcom VMware partners have been offboarded by April 2, 2026, so it might be interesting for some of you:

If you are an VMware expert (engineer, consultant, ...) in or nearby Luxembourg, feel free to apply:

SCHNEIDER IT MANAGEMENT is an independent company headquartered in Luxembourg. We specialize in consulting and sales of software licenses, online services and their management.

We are looking for an expert in Grevenmacher (Luxembourg) to expand our team as soon as possible:

Broadcom VMware Expert

Your tasks

   Act as a technical point of contact for VMware customers

   Understand existing VMware environments and discuss technical challenges with customer IT teams

   Support and improve customer VMware infrastructures

   Help our sales team in pre- and post-sales technical discussions, solution definition, and customer workshops

   Assist during design, upgrades, migrations, implementation and optimization phases

Your profile

   Strong hands-on VMware experience in real customer or enterprise environments

   Solid knowledge of vSphere and VCF, including lifecycle management and upgrades

   Experience working in customer-facing technical roles (consulting, implementation, advanced support)

   Able to explain technical topics clearly and pragmatically

   Structured, reliable, and comfortable taking technical ownership

   Motivation to grow within the Broadcom VMware ecosystem

   English required; German, French and Luxembourgish are strong advantages

We offer

   A challenging, versatile, and varied field of activity

   A pleasant office environment with modern technology and digital processes

   The opportunity to become a Broadcom Knight

   A full-time permanent contract, free gym membership, lunch allowance, complimentary drinks, and regular team events

Please send your application with cover letter, tabular curriculum vitae with photo, precise details of languages, certificates, your gross annual salary expectation and the possible starting date as a single PDF per e-mail to career@schneider.im

SCHNEIDER IT MANAGEMENT SARL & CIE SECS                                          

1A, Op der Ahlkërrech - L-6776 Grevenmacher                   www.schneider.im/career

Just read the forum rules, I don’t think it goes against any of the directives.
My scenario:
I have a VMware environment that I may need to out back under VMWare support. We were previously, and then had plans to completely migrate off, and my VMware skills on the bench were top notch. So we saved a sh*t ton of money, went with a 3rd party provider, locked in our code level and have been lowering our foot print all through the year.

Now, there has been a potential shift in corporate temperature on the previous direction, so we are needing to plan/anticipate/project costs of maintaining our Datacenter locations for a couple more years.

Well, that doesn’t lay into our previous 1 and 2 year objectives very well, and when we left Fraudcom/VmWare, the renewals over previous support for our environments were 2.5-3x increases. Not tenable.

I don’t want to ask VMWare for anything, unless I am absolutely sure we are going to need to re-certify our installation and gain access to support and code upgrades.

Do we have a place where people have put what their renewals were to where this population could extrapolate some estimates based on core counts and needed functionality? I want to provide some cost predictions to our Finance and C-Staff, but I don’t even want to look wrongly at the hornets nest that is VMWare… make sense?

OK, I drank the Kool-Aid. I'll be moving to VCF9.x

But, I have a number of Nutanix clusters running ESX that are not ready to move to vCenter9.
I know I can roll from ESX to AHV, but that's not happening, and that's not the question.

Do I stand up another VVF8 vCenter and move the clusters there? - and subsequently upgrade the rest of the current VVF8 vCenter/clusters to VCF9.
And/or as an afterthought, can the new vCenter8 be managed by VCF9 for an extended period of time?

Or do I get my VCF9 overhead management domain and workload domains established and move the other clusters into VCF9? thereby leaving my current vCenter 8 and a few clusters behind.

Hi All,

I'm looking at various options for upgrading my current homelab. I have 3 Dell R620 physical hosts each with E5-2600 v2 CPU, 256GB RAM, and 2 x 1 TB SSD (SATA).

My 1st question is given this CPU (E5-2600 v2) is not on the BCG, can I still deploy VCF9/9.1 using allowlegacycpu=true?

And to futureproof I'm still considering the following options..

1. Upgrading just the CPU with an E5-2697 (also not compatible) for more performance. This server does not support nvme
2. Get different physical hosts with Ice-Lake (on BCG), with nvme

Thanks..

Technical Background:

-> VMware Fusion Professional 25H2u1

-> Mac Studio M4 Max Tahoe 26.4.1

-> 4 monitors: 3 via Plugable UD-ULTC4K dock (2×DP, 1×HDMI) + 1 direct HDMI

-> For context, my setup includes one Dell P2422HE monitor and two Samsung S24R65X monitors (connected via 2× DisplayPort and 1× HDMI to the dock). One ingnok via HDMI directly.

I have tried UTM and it works fine with 4 displays.

I’m running VMware Fusion (the new free version) on my Mac and using a Kali Linux (latest) guest for some ML/Security projects. I’m hitting two major issues when trying to use multiple displays:

1. Multi-Monitor Issue: Single screen full-screen works perfectly. However, when I select "Use All Displays in Full Screen," the displays just mirror each other and then the VM often freezes. It won't extend the desktop across my monitors.
2. Mouse Click Dislocation: My mouse cursor is completely offset. To click a button, I have to aim a few centimeters to the left or right. The offset seems to get worse or change depending on how close I am to the corners of the screen.(it works fine with the single screen)

What I’ve tried so far:

• Tried different guest OS versions, but the issue persists.
• Kali Display Settings → "Mirror Displays" cannot be unchecked (resets immediately)
• Accelerate 3D Graphics: on/off
• Retina resolution: on/off
• macOS display mirroring: off
• Kali: sudo apt full-upgrade, open-vm-tools, reboot
• All monitors same refresh (60Hz)

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]

└─$ xrandr --listmonitors

Monitors: 4

0: +*Virtual-4 1920/508x1080/286+0+0 Virtual-4

1: +Virtual-1 1920/508x1080/286+0+0 Virtual-1

2: +Virtual-2 1920/508x1080/286+0+0 Virtual-2

3: +Virtual-3 1920/508x1080/286+0+0 Virtual-3

Kali sees them as 4 separate outputs, but they all point to the same physical space. Kali cannot rearrange them because the underlying position is hardcoded by Fusion.

Anyone else hitting this on Apple Silicon + dock setups? Fusion bug or fixable guest config?

I have had my Windows XP VM for about a year or two now, and I use it to use some old software and such. It has always ran perfectly. Though, I just opened it now and it's almost unusable. Even the screen that shows the loading bar took like 5 seconds to load, it was like a slideshow fading in slowly. And the same was the case for the login, it took almost a minute. Inside the machine, it's sluggish, and things barely work.

My host machine specs are here:
Ryzen 7 5800X3D
32 GB DDR4
RX 7900 XTX
And I run the VM off of a SATA SSD

These specs have not changed since I last used the VM.

I do not have Hyper-V on.
I have 4GB of RAM, 1 processor with 2 cores, 40 GB harddisk, I have 3D Acceleration on (again, this was not changed since the last time.) and VMWare tools is installed.

The only thing of note, is when I opened the VM it told me that I have Side Channel mitigations enabled for hyper-v, and said it could cause performance issues. I disabled this option and it did not change anything. It has also never brought this up at any point prior.