You start a vCenter upgrade, watch the progress, and hope this will be one of those maintenance windows where everything finishes on time. Then the database upgrade fails. That is what I ran into while upgrading VMware vCenter Server to 9.1.0.0300. The blocker was an orphaned record in the vCenter database, sitting right where the upgrade needed to enforce a foreign key relationship.

At VMware Explore 2026 in Las Vegas, I showed how I connected VMware Cloud Foundation Operations, PagerDuty, Splunk, an internal agile platform, Slack, MCP servers, and GitHub Actions to turn a four-hour manual investigation into a controlled four-minute AI workflow. There are moments in a technical career that feel bigger than another ticket closed, another upgrade completed, or another certificate added to the wall.

There are vCenter upgrade failures that give you a useful error message. Then there are vCenter upgrade failures that drop you into PostgreSQL at the worst possible point in your maintenance window. This was the second kind. During one of my recent VMware vCenter upgrade attempts to vCenter Server 9.1.0.0300, the upgrade progressed normally until the database schema migration stage.

My session is ready for scheduling at #vmwareExplore2016 #vExpert

Broadcom released VMware vSphere 8.0 Update 3k on 29 July 2026, delivering critical security fixes for both vCenter Server and ESXi. Normally, the recommendation would be straightforward: review the release notes, validate the patch in a test environment, and deploy it as quickly as your change-management process allows. This release, however, comes with an important complication: After upgrading vCenter Server to 8.0 Update 3k, you cannot currently upgrade that vCenter to VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 or any existing vCenter release based on the 9.1.0 branch.

Importing an existing vCenter Server into VMware Cloud Foundation is not always the end of a brownfield migration. In some cases, the import completes successfully, but the version of NSX Manager selected during the import creates a blocker later in the upgrade process. That is exactly what happened during our import of an existing vCenter 8 environment as a VMware Cloud Foundation Workload Domain.

Patching an ESXi host from the shell is not a shortcut. It is an exception path — the thing you reach for when a host sits outside the happy path: a standalone box with no vCenter, an isolated site, or a day when your lifecycle tooling simply refuses to cooperate. The difference between casual SSH patching and a professional one is not the commands you type.

I was attending a Zoom presentation recently about Platform Engineering 2.0 and how infrastructure needs to evolve for the AI era. The session focused on something that I think many infrastructure engineers, cloud architects, and platform teams are already feeling: Platform Engineering 1.0 got us this far, but it will not be enough for what is coming next. The presentation was titled…

If you are currently wrestling with a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 greenfield deployment or management plane overhaul, grab a coffee. You are going to need it. Lately, I’ve been working on pushing the new VCF 9.1 Management Services layer onto a custom, isolated routed network segment using the standard API deployment payloads via PowerShell. On paper, it sounds beautiful: containerized microservices, a consolidated management plane, automated lifecycle hooks.

Official Discord for HackMeNow, a terminal-style hacking puzzle game set inside AngrySysOps OS. Join for development updates, Steam and Kickstarter news, bug reports, Linux-style puzzle discussion, an...

HackMeNow has reached another important milestone. The Steam page is approved, the Kickstarter campaign is live, the HackMeNow Discord community is open, and to celebrate this stage of the project, I am launching a community giveaway sponsored by NordVPN, NordPass, Saily and Incogni. Six selected participants will receive a privacy and security prize bundle including: 1-year NordVPN subscription 1-year NordPass subscription…

Sponsored by NordVPN, NordPass, Saily and Incogni. Wishlist HackMeNow on Steam and enter the community giveaway.

A terminal-style hacking puzzle game where every command matters. Investigate logs, decode secrets, avoid traps, and uncover the rogue system watching from behind the screen.

If you are gearing up for the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 upgrade, grab a cup of coffee and pull up a chair. I recently went toe-to-toe with the new "Management Services Runtime" deployment phase, and let me tell you—if your legacy management network is running out of IP addresses, the SDDC Manager UI is going to set up a hard barrier and refuse to let you pass.

Break syntax. Climb ranks. Survive the interpreter. A PlayHackMeNow challenge by Angry Admin.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 is not just a “click update and hope” release. If you are running VCF 9.0.2 and planning the move to 9.1, the upgrade needs to be handled as a controlled sequence across VCF Operations, SDDC Manager, NSX, vCenter, ESX, and any adjacent components such as Avi Load Balancer, VMware Live Recovery / Site Recovery Manager, and vSphere Replication.

Let’s be honest: managing external Key Management Servers (KMS) for vSphere VM encryption has always been a massive pain. You have to stand up extra infrastructure, pay extortionate licensing fees, and pray the connection between vCenter and your KMS doesn't randomly drop. VMware finally threw us a bone in vSphere 7.0 Update 2 by introducing the Native Key Provider (NKP)

VMware Workstation and Fusion 26H1 Are Here: 64-Bit Workstation, Better VM Visibility, and ARM ESXi Connectivity VMware has announced the general availability of VMware Workstation 26H1 and VMware Fusion 26H1, bringing another update to its desktop hypervisor lineup. This release is not just a small maintenance refresh. It continues VMware’s move toward calendar-based versioning and focuses on modern architecture, better visibility, updated OS support, and improved management for local lab environments.

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 is now generally available, and VMware has already made three new Hands-on Labs available for anyone who wants to test the new features without building a full nested lab at home. That is good news. Because let’s be honest: reading release notes is one thing. Clicking through the interface, testing workflows, looking at the operational model, and seeing how the platform behaves is completely different.

VCF 9.1 Has Landed Broadcom has announced VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1, and the message is very clear: Private cloud is not dead. In fact, Broadcom is positioning VCF 9.1 as the platform enterprises should use when AI stops being a lab experiment and becomes something that needs governance, security, cost control and actual operational ownership. You know, the boring stuff that suddenly becomes very important when the proof of concept becomes production and the invoice arrives.

If you work with VMware Cloud Foundation, you already know the problem. Standing up a proper lab is rarely simple. It eats hardware, time, network prep, and patience. Even when you get it running, repeating the same build for testing, demos, validation, or training can turn into a project of its own. That is exactly where Holodeck comes in. Holodeck is a toolkit and validated reference architecture built to automate and standardize nested VMware Cloud Foundation lab deployments on a single ESX host or a vSphere cluster.

🚀 Follow Me on X – New Account My previous X account @AngrySysOps was suspended.I am continuing the same tech, cybersecurity, and engineering discussions under a new handle. Follow @TheTechWorldPod on X for daily insights, threads, and podcast updates. 👉 Follow @TheTechWorldPod on X 👈 So, you’ve decided to upgrade your vCenter Server Appliance. You’ve sacrificed your coffee to the IT gods, scheduled your downtime, and clicked the magical "Pre-upgrade check" button.

🚀 Follow Me on X – New Account My previous X account @AngrySysOps was suspended.I am continuing the same tech, cybersecurity, and engineering discussions under a new handle. Follow @TheTechWorldPod on X for daily insights, threads, and podcast updates. 👉 Follow @TheTechWorldPod on X 👈 There is a special kind of pain in enterprise infrastructure work. Not the dramatic kind.

HackMeNow: The Linux Terminal Puzzle Game

YouTube video by Angry Admin

In this 21st episode of The Tech World Podcast, Peter and Sarah dive into one of the most stunning breakthroughs in modern medicine: the world’s first drug discovered and designed entirely by artifici...

Keep your Gmail clean . Contribute to AngrySysOps/Gmail_cleanup development by creating an account on GitHub.

A short browser-only teaser for the HackMeNow hacking puzzle game.

Thinking about applying for VMware vExpert 2026—even if you’re “late to the party”? In this episode, Peter & Sarah break down exactly what #vExpert is (recognition, not a cert), why it accelerates you...

Thinking about applying for VMware vExpert 2026—even if you’re “late to the party”? In this episode, Peter & Sarah break down exactly what #vExpert is (recognition, not a cert), why it accelerates you...

YouTube video by Angry Admin

I’m writing this after reading Corey Romero’s new post, “It’s Never Too Late to Become a vExpert!”, and I completely agree with the spirit of it: you don’t need a full year of output to submit a st…