VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 – Understanding Private Clouds, Fleets, and Instances

by · 24/06/2025

In today’s rapidly evolving IT landscape, enterprises are increasingly looking to bring the speed, flexibility, and automation of the public cloud into their own data centers. But achieving this isn’t just about virtualizing infrastructure, it’s about unifying it under a modern, scalable, and automated framework. That’s where VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) comes in.

With the release of VCF 9.0, VMware introduces a new level of clarity and structure to private cloud architecture. Whether you’re an experienced cloud architect or just beginning your VCF journey, understanding this is essential to planning, deploying, and managing your private cloud the right way.

This article is here to help you make sense of the key building blocks of a VCF-based private cloud. We’ll break down what a VCF Private Cloud really is, introduce you to the concept of a VCF Fleet, and explore the role and anatomy of a VCF Instance. By the end, you’ll have a clear picture of how these components come together to form a resilient, automated, and centrally managed private cloud environment.

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is VMware’s integrated private cloud platform that combines compute (ESX), storage (vSAN), networking (NSX), and management software into a unified stack. VCF 9.0, in particular, redefines the modern private cloud by combining the agility of public cloud with on-premises control delivering cloud-like speed and flexibility along with the performance, governance, and cost control enterprises require.

In essence, a VCF Private Cloud is a full-stack software-defined data center built on VMware technologies, providing a consistent cloud operating model on-premises. This summary introduces the key concepts in VCF’s taxonomy. The VCF Private Cloud as an overall construct, and its building blocks: the VCF Fleet and VCF Instances.

Constructs of a VCF Private Cloud

A VCF Private Cloud is the highest level of management and consumption for the underlying software-defined data center resources. It encompasses all the necessary components to run enterprise workloads in a private (data center or edge) setting with cloud-like Automation and Operations.

In structure, a VCF private cloud consists of one VCF Fleet (the top-level construct), which in turn can contain one or more VCF Instances. Each VCF instance represents an individual Cloud Foundation deployment (often aligned to a site or region) with its own set of resources and domains. Together, the fleet and its instances form the complete private cloud infrastructure.

From a high-level perspective, a VCF Private Cloud includes:

  • VCF Instance: SDDC Manager, ESX, vCenter, vSAN, and NSX are integrated to provide compute, storage, and networking virtual infrastructure that runs business workloads and services across the cloud. A VCF instance consists of VCF Domains, a management domain, and optionally additional workload domains.
  • VCF Fleet: An environment that is managed by a single set of fleet management components (VCF Operations and VCF Automation). A VCF Private Cloud contains one or more VCF Fleets.
  • VCF Domains: A VCF Domain in a VCF Instance consists of the following components:
    • One vCenter instance,
    • One or more vSphere Distributed Switches per cluster for system traffic and NSX segments for workloads.
    • Dedicated NSX Manager instance, either specifically for the VCF domain or shared between VCF domains, for configuring and implementing software-defined networking.
    • Optionally, one or more NSX Edge clusters
    • One or more shared storage allocations as principal or supplemental storage.

VCF Fleet

A VCF Fleet introduced as a term in VCF 9.0, is the top-level scope of management in a VCF private cloud. A VCF Fleet contains the following components.

  • Centralized Services:
    • Fleet-level management ties these instances together, so administrators get a consolidated view and consistent operations across all instances in the fleet. For example, fleet-wide patching and compliance checks can be done through VCF Operations for every VCF instance from one console.
    • In a fleet, there is one instance of VCF Operations and one instance of VCF Automation providing oversight and cloud APIs for the whole environment. These central services enable fleet-wide health monitoring, license and certificate management, identity federation (single sign-on), lifecycle management (patching/upgrades), and more from a single pane of glass.
  • One or More VCF Instances:
    • The fleet can contain multiple VCF instances

Importantly, a fleet can scale to support multiple Cloud Foundation deployments while maintaining unified control. For example, an enterprise might have a primary data center (one VCF instance) and a secondary site (another VCF instance); the VCF Fleet concept allows them to be managed under one umbrella. If starting fresh, you deploy a new VCF fleet (which includes deploying the first instance and the VCF Operations/Automation components). If expanding, you add a new VCF instance to an existing fleet.


VCF Instance

A VCF instance is essentially a single deployment of VMware Cloud Foundation within the fleet. You can think of a VCF instance as a fully functional cloud-in-a-box that contains its own set of management and workload domains. In practice, a single VCF instance consists of one or more workload domains deployed to a single location (single site or availability zone). Each instance has its own dedicated management domain and its own vCenter/NSX control planes, thereby representing an independent Cloud Foundation environment (though multiple instances can be linked under one fleet for unified operations).

Components that constitute a VCF Instance: Each VCF instance is composed of several integrated components and logical constructs, which together deliver a complete SDDC (Software-Defined Data Center) environment. The main components are:

  • Management Domain: A special-purpose management workload domain that hosts the core infrastructure VMs and services for the instance. This domain runs on its own cluster of ESXi hosts (usually a minimum of 3+ hosts for resiliency). It contains the SDDC Manager appliance along with a dedicated vCenter and NSX (for managing the management network), among other services. The management domain’s role is to instantiate, manage, and monitor the Cloud Foundation infrastructure. It is automatically created as the first step when deploying a VCF instance (either via the Cloud Builder tool in initial bring-up or via the VCF installer) and is foundational to the instance. Essentially, the management domain provides the “brains” and control plane of that VCF instance. (In a consolidated architecture, this domain also runs user workloads; in a standard architecture, it is kept separate from user workload domains.)
  • Workload Domain(s): One or more VI workload domains can be created within a VCF instance to run business applications and tenant workloads. A workload domain is an isolated pool of compute, storage, and network resources dedicated to user workloads. Each workload domain is implemented as one or more vSphere clusters (with vSAN for storage) and typically has its own vCenter Server to manage those clusters. By default, each workload domain also gets a separate NSX deployment for network virtualization (though in some cases, multiple domains can share an NSX instance if designed accordingly). Workload domains are the units of expansion in a VCF instance – administrators can create, extend (scale), or delete workload domains as needed through the Cloud Foundation automation tools. This makes it easy to carve out logical compartments for different workload types or tenants, each with isolation at the SDDC level. (For example, one workload domain might host general enterprise server VMs, while another might host a Kubernetes cluster or VDI environment, all within the same VCF instance.)
  • SDDC Manager: The Software-Defined Data Center Manager is the orchestration engine for each VCF instance. It is delivered as a virtual appliance running in the management domain. SDDC Manager automates the provisioning and lifecycle management of all other components in the instance. For example, it is responsible for creating new clusters/domains, adding hosts, patching and upgrading the stack, and generally ensuring the environment follows VMware’s standardized design. In VCF 9.0, some of the SDDC Manager’s traditional UI functions have been folded into the new VCF Operations console, but the SDDC Manager service/appliance still underpins critical infrastructure tasks behind the scenes. Notably, automated provisioning of workload domains and infrastructure clusters is performed via SDDC Manager’s integration, allowing admins to expand capacity easily by following guided workflows. Think of SDDC Manager as the automation and lifecycle hub of the instance – while you may interact primarily with the VCF Operations UI in 9.0, that UI in turn leverages SDDC Manager (in each instance) to carry out changes in the environment.

Looking Ahead

Understanding the VCF Fleet, Instances and Private Clouds are just the first step toward mastering VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0. As enterprises modernize their infrastructure, these new features provide the backbone for planning scalable, secure, and automated private cloud environments. Whether you’re deploying a single VCF instance or managing a fleet across multiple sites, knowing how the pieces fit together is key to success.

Stay tuned…

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