---
# source: src/content/solutions/en/vmware/vmware-cloud-foundation.md
# route:  /en/solutions/vmware/vmware-cloud-foundation/
title: Cloud Foundation
tags: [cloud, virtualization, automation]
vendors: [vmware]
summary: Compute, storage, network and operations as one product on one lifecycle, instead of four products with four maintenance windows.
photoNeed: "A vSphere or VCF console on a real screen at soulTec: a cluster view, a running task, an inventory tree, so the reader should recognise the UI"
stub: false
draft: false
kind: platform
acronym: VCF
addon: false
vendorName: VMware Cloud Foundation
status: current
practice: >
  Draft, not yet reviewed. Most of our VCF work is a migration out of a vSphere estate that grew over a decade, not a greenfield install. The effort is rarely in compute. It is in NSX, and in working out which firewall rules anyone can still justify.
practiceReview: true
---

## What it is

VMware Cloud Foundation, usually shortened to VCF, bundles vSphere, vSAN, NSX and the
operations tooling into a single product. SDDC Manager knows the dependencies between
those components and applies updates in an order that has been tested.

That is the actual point. Run the pieces separately and you maintain a compatibility
matrix by hand, and every update becomes its own project.

## What it is for

Private cloud in your own datacentre, built from standard blocks with an API in front of
them. VCF is aimed at estates large enough that operational effort and standardisation
outweigh the price of any single licence.

For three hosts in a branch office it is the wrong tool.

## What changed

Since Broadcom acquired VMware, VCF is the central offering and licensing is a per-core
subscription. Anyone coming from an older perpetual estate is not renewing the same
invoice. That belongs in the planning before the technical design does.