VMware Cloud Foundation Components: What's Included in the VCF Bundle

How Broadcom Restructured VMware Cloud Foundation

Before the Broadcom acquisition, VMware Cloud Foundation was one product among many in VMware's extensive portfolio. Organisations could choose from vSphere, vSAN, NSX, and the Aria (formerly vRealize) management suite as separate licence purchases, mixing and matching the components they actually needed. That flexibility ended in 2024.

Broadcom collapsed more than 160 VMware SKUs into four primary bundles, with VCF as the flagship. Perpetual licensing was eliminated — all new purchases and renewals are subscription-based on a per-core model. The mandatory bundling means organisations must pay for every component in the VCF stack, regardless of whether those components fit their infrastructure architecture. Support cost increases of 3 to 5 times compared to the old perpetual plus maintenance model are typical across the customer base.

Understanding exactly what VCF includes — and what it does not — is the starting point for making informed procurement decisions and for having productive conversations with Broadcom's account team.

The Core VCF Component Stack

VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 (the current major version as of mid-2024) delivers the following components as part of a single subscription licence.

vSphere Enterprise Plus

The compute virtualisation foundation. vSphere Enterprise Plus is the highest tier of VMware's hypervisor platform, including ESXi, vCenter Server, vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS), vSphere vMotion, Storage vMotion, High Availability (HA), Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), vSphere Fault Tolerance, and vSphere Replication. This is the production-grade compute layer that most VMware customers have already been running. It is included in both VCF and the lower-tier vSphere Foundation (VVF) bundle.

NSX — Network Virtualisation

NSX is VMware's software-defined networking platform, providing network virtualisation, micro-segmentation, distributed firewalling, load balancing, and VPN services at the hypervisor layer. NSX creates an overlay network that abstracts physical network infrastructure, enabling security policy enforcement independent of physical topology. This is one of the most technically complex and operationally significant components in the VCF bundle.

NSX is included in VCF but absent from the lower-tier VVF bundle. For organisations with compliance requirements that mandate network segmentation (PCI DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001), NSX is non-negotiable and VCF becomes the effective minimum. NSX is also the component most frequently cited by customers as one they would not have licensed separately at the included level of functionality — making it a source of both genuine value and bundling-driven cost for different customer profiles.

vSAN — Hyper-Converged Storage

vSAN is VMware's software-defined storage platform, delivering hyper-converged infrastructure by pooling the local storage devices across vSphere hosts into a shared, distributed datastore. VCF includes vSAN with an entitlement of 1 TiB of raw capacity per licensed core. This is four times the vSAN capacity entitlement in the lower-tier VVF bundle (which provides 250 GiB per core).

For storage-intensive deployments, the 1 TiB per core entitlement in VCF frequently makes the premium over VVF commercially justified. An enterprise licensing 500 cores on VCF receives 500 TiB of vSAN capacity — a datastore that would cost substantially more to purchase as a standalone storage array or separate SAN solution. However, organisations with existing enterprise SAN, NFS, or NVMe-oF storage infrastructure may find the vSAN entitlement redundant, paying for capacity that sits unused.

SDDC Manager

SDDC Manager is the lifecycle management and automation control plane for VMware Cloud Foundation. It handles deployment, patching, upgrading, and configuration management for the entire VCF stack across the management domain and workload domains. SDDC Manager automates what would otherwise be a complex multi-product upgrade coordination process, reducing operational overhead for organisations running VCF at scale.

SDDC Manager is the component that makes VCF a coherent platform rather than a bundle of individual products. It is exclusive to VCF and is not included in VVF. Organisations that run large VMware environments and have historically struggled with cross-component upgrade coordination will find SDDC Manager one of VCF's most compelling operational advantages.

Aria Suite Enterprise

The Aria Suite (formerly vRealize Suite) is VMware's management, operations, and automation platform. VCF includes the Enterprise tier, which encompasses Aria Operations (infrastructure and application performance monitoring), Aria Operations for Logs (log analytics and management), Aria Automation (infrastructure-as-code and self-service catalogue), and Aria Operations for Networks (network analytics and troubleshooting, formerly vRealize Network Insight).

The Enterprise tier of the Aria Suite is substantially more capable than the Standard tier included in VVF. Aria Automation in particular represents a significant capability — it provides a full infrastructure-as-code framework with multi-cloud extensibility. For organisations that have purchased third-party monitoring, automation, or CMDB platforms, the Aria Suite creates overlapping capability that is included in the VCF price whether or not it is deployed.

HCX — Hybrid Cloud Extension

VMware HCX is the hybrid cloud interconnect and migration platform included in VCF. HCX enables live workload migration between vSphere environments (including to Azure VMware Solution, Google Cloud VMware Engine, and AWS VMware Cloud on AWS) with network extension, bulk migration, and disaster recovery capabilities. It is the primary tool for organisations planning phased migrations or hybrid cloud operations.

vSphere Kubernetes Services (VKS)

VCF includes vSphere Kubernetes Services (formerly Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, now rebranded as VKS in VCF 9.0), providing native Kubernetes cluster lifecycle management within the vSphere environment. VKS allows virtual machine and container workloads to coexist on the same infrastructure, managed through a common control plane. The platform uses Pinniped for authentication, Antrea for container networking, and Velero for backup and restore.

vDefend — Lateral Security

vDefend (formerly NSX Advanced Threat Prevention) is VMware's ransomware prevention and lateral movement detection platform. It provides network traffic analysis for east-west traffic within the vSphere environment, anomaly detection, and automated threat response. vDefend is a newer addition to the VCF bundle and reflects Broadcom's strategy of incorporating security capabilities directly into the infrastructure stack.

VMware Private AI Services

As of VCF 9.0, Broadcom has included VMware Private AI Services in the standard VCF bundle. This component provides the infrastructure framework for deploying and operating AI/ML workloads on-premises, including GPU scheduling, model serving, and vector database integration. While the enterprise AI use cases for this component are still maturing, its inclusion reflects Broadcom's positioning of VCF as the platform for private AI infrastructure.

The VCF Architecture: Management Domain and Workload Domains

VCF organises infrastructure into a two-tier domain architecture. The Management Domain hosts the VCF control plane — SDDC Manager, vCenter Server for the management cluster, NSX Manager cluster, Aria Suite, and other management components. This domain requires a dedicated cluster of at least three hosts running VMware-managed virtual machines for all control plane services.

Workload Domains are the compute environments where production, development, and test workloads run. Each Workload Domain has its own vCenter Server instance and NSX configuration, managed centrally by SDDC Manager. This architecture enables multi-tenancy, workload isolation, and independent lifecycle management for different application environments within the same VCF deployment.

The Management Domain introduces a hardware overhead that is worth factoring into total cost. A minimum VCF deployment requires three hosts dedicated entirely to management functions: three NSX Manager nodes, three VCF Operations nodes, three VCF Automation nodes, and three log management appliances, all running as virtual machines on the management cluster hosts. These hosts are fully licensed at the VCF per-core rate but contribute zero directly to production workload capacity.

What Is Not Included in VCF

Understanding the VCF component scope requires equal clarity about what is not in the bundle — components that must be procured separately and that are commonly confused with VCF inclusions.

vSAN ESA (Express Storage Architecture): The newer vSAN Express Storage Architecture, optimised for NVMe-based all-flash storage, may require additional configuration and validation beyond the standard vSAN included in VCF. Organisations with NVMe-first storage strategies should verify vSAN ESA support in their specific VCF version.

Tanzu Mission Control: While VCF includes vSphere Kubernetes Services, Tanzu Mission Control — which provides multi-cloud Kubernetes fleet management across both on-premises and cloud Kubernetes clusters — is a separate product not included in VCF.

vSphere+: The cloud-connected management subscription that enables SaaS-based management console features and cloud-based backup for vSphere environments is not part of VCF.

Broadcom Support Tiers: All VCF subscriptions include mandatory Broadcom Maintenance Support as of May 2024. However, premium support tiers (Mission Critical Support, Premier Support) require separate subscription fees and are not included in the VCF base price.

The Per-Core Licensing Model Explained

VCF is licensed per physical processor core across all hosts in all vSphere clusters included in the deployment. The licence covers the entire bundle — you cannot separate vSphere licensing from NSX licensing or vSAN licensing within VCF. Every core receives the full component entitlement, including vSAN capacity, NSX network services, and Aria Suite access.

Core counting follows two rules. First, there is a minimum of 16 cores per physical CPU socket. A server with a 12-core processor is counted as 16 cores for licensing purposes. Second, the per-core count applies to every physical core in every licensed host, including hosts in the Management Domain cluster. Hosts in disaster recovery clusters, development environments, and test environments all require full VCF licensing — there is no reduced-cost category for non-production workloads under standard VCF terms.

The minimum order quantity of 72 cores, effective from April 2025, means even small initial deployments require a minimum annual commitment of $25,200 at list price ($350 × 72). Enterprise negotiated pricing at $140 to $180 per core reduces this to $10,080 to $12,960 at the minimum, but the core count itself cannot be reduced below 72 at order.

VCF vs VMware vSphere Foundation: Component Comparison

The most frequent decision enterprises face is whether their deployment requirements justify VCF over the lower-tier VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF). The component differences are decisive for organisations with specific requirements.

VVF includes vSphere Enterprise Plus, vCenter Server, Aria Suite Standard (not Enterprise), one Tanzu Kubernetes cluster, and vSAN at 250 GiB per core. It does not include NSX, SDDC Manager, Aria Automation, HCX, or vDefend. The list price is $135 per core per year — 61 percent less than VCF at list.

The key upgrade triggers from VVF to VCF are the NSX requirement, multi-cluster Kubernetes needs, and storage density exceeding the 250 GiB per core VVF entitlement. Organisations that need any of those capabilities cannot achieve them through VVF without purchasing NSX as a separate add-on, at which point the total cost often approaches or exceeds VCF anyway.

Alternatives beyond the VMware portfolio — Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure and Azure VMware Solution (AVS) — should also be factored into any VCF adoption or renewal decision. Nutanix offers modular licensing at $100 to $150 per core per year without forced bundling, and Azure VMware Solution provides a VMware-compatible cloud environment that eliminates on-premises infrastructure capital expenditure. Both represent credible alternatives that Broadcom's account teams take seriously in commercial negotiations.

Practical Implications for IT Leaders

For CIOs and IT infrastructure directors evaluating VCF, the component landscape carries several practical implications.

First, the mandatory bundling creates genuine value for organisations that will deploy and operationalise the full VCF stack. If your team will actively use NSX for micro-segmentation, vSAN for hyper-converged storage, SDDC Manager for lifecycle automation, and the Aria Suite for operations visibility, VCF delivers significant functional capability at the per-core price. The question is not whether VCF includes powerful components — it does — but whether your organisation has the operational capacity to deploy and benefit from all of them.

Second, the elimination of perpetual licensing means organisations can no longer carry forward functional VMware infrastructure indefinitely after licence expiry. Subscription expiry terminates access to software updates, security patches, and eventually to feature-complete operation of vSphere itself. Annual renewal is now a hard operational requirement, not a commercial option.

Third, the support cost increases of 3 to 5 times compared to the perpetual plus maintenance model reflect Broadcom's intent to capture significantly more per-customer annual revenue. Organisations that were previously paying $200,000 per year for VMware maintenance and support may face $600,000 to $1,000,000 in annual VCF subscription costs for equivalent infrastructure. The strategic question is whether the operational overhead of migrating to Nutanix or a cloud platform is justified by the 40 to 60 percent cost savings those platforms can offer.