vSphere / ESXi Requirements
vSphere / ESXi Requirements for VCF 9
Supported ESXi Versions
- VCF 9.0 ships with vSphere 9.0 (now branded as “ESX” rather than “ESXi”)
- vCenter version must be equal to or higher than ESX host version
- ESX 8.0 hosts can be mixed with ESX 9.0 hosts using Custom EVC (requires vCenter 9.0)
- vSphere 8.x Update 3 remains available as standalone editions (Standard/Enterprise Plus)
- vSphere 9.0 is only available through VCF or VVF bundles
Hardware Requirements
CPU:
- Minimum: Intel Sandy Bridge or AMD Bulldozer (for XSAVE instruction support)
- Supported Intel generations: Nehalem through Ice Lake and newer
- Supported AMD generations: Opteron Gen 1-4, Piledriver, Steamroller, Zen/Zen 2/Zen 3
- Hardware virtualization required (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI)
- Certain older CPU generations deprecated and will show warnings during installation
- For VCF Automation (VCFA): Host must have at least 12 cores/24 threads to provision 24 vCPU VM
Memory:
- ESX 9.0 minimum: 8 GB physical RAM
- Production recommended: 12 GB minimum per host
- Lab deployment total: ~194 GB across management domain
Storage:
- Boot disk minimum: 32 GB persistent storage (HDD, SSD, or NVMe)
- Recommended boot device: 128 GB for new deployments
- Boot device should support 128 TB written (TBW) with 100 MB/s sequential write
- RAID 1 mirrored boot device recommended for resiliency
- Lab deployment storage: ~3.2 TB total, ~330 GB used
Network:
- Minimum: One or more Gigabit Ethernet controllers
- 10GbE NIC pre-check enabled for workload domain deployment
- VCF 9.0 supports single pNIC (VCF 5.x required minimum 2 pNICs)
- Minimum 5 VLANs required for VCF Fleet deployment
ESXi Host Preparation
BIOS Settings:
- UEFI boot mode recommended
- Enable Intel VT-x or AMD-V/RVI
- Enable hardware virtualization extensions
Firmware Requirements:
- Current firmware recommended for all server components
- NIC firmware should be compatible with VMware HCL
Network Configuration:
- Configure management VLAN on physical NICs
- Ensure DHCP or static IP assignment before deployment
- DNS resolution required for all hosts
Important Notes:
- Stateless ESX hosts not supported
- Non-certified ESA disks allowed for PoC only (VCF 9.0.1+)
- AMD Ryzen CPUs require workaround for NVMe Tiering
vCenter Server Requirements
Version:
- vCenter 9.0 included with VCF 9.0
Sizing Options:
- Small, Medium, Large, X-Large based on environment size
- Medium sufficient for smaller environments
- Can scale out to clustered deployment later
Minimal Lab Resources (Management Domain):
- Total vCPU: 48
- Total Memory: 194 GB
- Total Storage: 3.2 TB
Compatibility Notes
Supported:
- vSAN OSA and ESA for principal storage
- NFSv3 and Fibre Channel VMFS as principal storage (new in VCF 9)
- Minimum 2 hosts with external storage, 3 hosts with vSAN
- Mixed ESX 8.0/9.0 clusters using Custom EVC
Deprecated/Removed:
- Host Profiles deprecated (use vSphere Configuration Profiles)
- vSphere Lifecycle Manager baselines no longer supported (use images)
- vSphere Update Manager legacy workflows removed
Limitations:
- Production vSAN deployments: 4 hosts recommended for HA/maintenance
- VCFA minimum 24 vCPU (can manually reduce to 16 or 12 with performance impact)