It’s been a while since I last covered VMware Cloud Director here on the blog, but after spending the last couple of weeks working intensively with vCD and NSX, I decided it was time to revisit it. In this post, VMware Cloud Director 10.6.1 – What’s New and How to Upgrade, we’ll explore the key changes introduced in v10.6, the improvements in v10.6.1, compare them to the previous v10.5 release, and walk you through the upgrade process.

Let’s start by listing some key features and improvements introduced in VMware Cloud Director 10.6.

Breaking Down the Key Features

1. Three-Tier Tenancy: Empowering Sub-Providers

VMware Cloud Director 10.6 introduces a hierarchical tenancy model, allowing service providers to delegate administrative control to sub-providers (e.g., resellers or MSPs). These sub-providers can manage their own subset of tenants with custom permissions, such as creating organizations, assigning resources, or configuring networks—all under the primary provider’s governance umbrella.

Why This Matters
For managed service providers (MSPs), this means offering white-labeled cloud services without sacrificing oversight. Enterprises can also use this model to segment departments or business units, ensuring resource autonomy while maintaining centralized compliance.

Example Use Case:
A global cloud provider partners with regional MSPs. Using three-tier tenancy, each MSP gets a dedicated sub-provider account to onboard local clients, while the primary provider retains visibility into resource usage and security policies.

The Sub-Provider Administrator role in VMware Cloud Director 10.6 allows delegated control over tenant creation and management, enabling a true three-tier cloud model.

2. Global Distributed Catalogs: Consistency Across Borders

With global catalogs, VMware Cloud Director 10.6 enables syncing VM templates, vApps, and media files across multiple VMware Cloud Director instances and vCenter servers. Leveraging shared storage replication (like vSAN or third-party solutions), updates to a template in one region automatically propagate globally.

Why This Matters
Imagine a financial institution deploying a compliance-hardened VM template. With global catalogs, every branch office—whether in Frankfurt or Singapore—instantly accesses the same certified template, eliminating manual syncs and version conflicts.

3. IPv6 Support: Future-Proofing Networks

The VMware Cloud Director appliance now fully operates in IPv6-only environments, a critical update for organizations transitioning from IPv4. This applies to management interfaces, API endpoints, and cell internal communication.

Why This Matters
As IPv4 addresses dwindle, industries like telecom and government are mandating IPv6 compliance. This update ensures the VMware Cloud Director aligns with modern network architectures while supporting hybrid cloud deployments.

4. Enhanced Kubernetes Management

VMware Cloud Director 10.6 deepens its integration with Kubernetes, allowing cluster administrators to assign granular access to namespaces. Tenant users can now deploy containerized applications in shared clusters without compromising isolation. The upgraded Content Hub Operator also uses WebSocket protocols for faster synchronization between VMware Cloud Director and Kubernetes clusters.

Why This Matters
Developers gain self-service access to Kubernetes resources, while IT teams maintain control over quotas and security. This is ideal for DevOps environments where agility and governance must coexist.

We can manage and Deploy containerized applications in shared clusters without compromising isolation in the Tenant portal.

5. Terraform Provider Improvements

The Terraform provider improvements extend automation capabilities in VCD environments. With broader resource support and improved stability, infrastructure can now be defined as code more reliably, even in multi-tenant setups. This is especially useful for automating repetitive provisioning tasks or integrating VCD into CI/CD pipelines.

• Extended Resource Management: Additional Terraform resources enhance infrastructure automation.
• Improved Stability: More reliable automated deployments with reduced operational risk.

6. vRealize Operations Manager Extension

The updated vROps extension offers better integration for monitoring resource consumption, health status, and performance metrics inside VCD. Providers can now offer visibility into tenant resource usage and proactively monitor issues, which improves support response and capacity planning.

• Advanced Monitoring: Enhanced dashboards for better visibility into resources.
• Optimized Reporting: Comprehensive analytics for proactive issue management.

7. VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator Plug-in

The VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator Plug-in in VMware Cloud Director 10.6 expands the scope of infrastructure automation, simplifying complex administrative tasks and ensuring smoother, integrated workflows across VMware environments.

• Expanded Automation: Complex tasks simplified with robust workflows.
• Improved Compatibility: Enhanced integration across VMware products.

8. Security and Compliance

VMware Cloud Director 10.6 prioritizes infrastructure security with strengthened protocols and refined identity management, providing improved protection and easier compliance management for cloud administrators.

• Enhanced Security Protocols: Strengthened infrastructure protection.
• Improved Identity Management: Streamlined authentication with better IdP integrations.

9. User Interface and Usability Enhancements

VMware continues refining the Cloud Director interface, focusing on increased performance and usability enhancements in version 10.6, significantly improving the administrative experience and operational efficiency.

• Better UI Performance: Improved responsiveness and reduced navigation complexity.
• Simplified Workflows: Faster execution of administrative tasks.

What’s Changed from VMware Cloud Director 10.5?

• PostgreSQL Requirement: PostgreSQL 13+ is now mandatory for improved query performance.
• Deprecations: AMQP/RabbitMQ was replaced by MQTT; local user accounts were deprecated.
• Scale Limits: Increased VM support to 55,000 per instance and 22,000 concurrent remote consoles.

How to Get Started with Key Features

Enabling Three-Tier Tenancy

1. Navigate to the Service Provider Admin Portal > Organizations.
2. Create a new sub-provider organization, assigning resource pools and networks.
3. Delegate rights via CLI:

Configuring Global Catalogs

1. Ensure shared storage is mounted across VCD instances.
2. Enable Distributed Catalog in settings.
3. Synchronize via API:

VMware Cloud Director 10.6.1 – Updates

Following the release of VMware Cloud Director 10.6 in the launch mile of 2024, in January 2025, VMware introduced version 10.6.1, bringing key enhancements, improved functionality, and critical security updates. This update refines certain features while maintaining the core improvements from 10.6.

Key Enhancements in VMware Cloud Director 10.6.1

Guest OS-Aware VM Placement

With 10.6.1, administrators can now place virtual machines (VMs) on specific hosts or clusters based on their guest operating system. This feature improves workload distribution and ensures compliance with OS-specific requirements.

Why This Matters:

• • Helps adhere to vendor licensing requirements, such as Microsoft’s licensing rules for Windows VMs.
  • Optimizes resource allocation by aligning workloads with the appropriate infrastructure.

Customized Segment Profile Templates for NSX Projects

Administrators can now copy customized segment profile templates created in VMware Cloud Director across multiple NSX projects. This update simplifies network management by maintaining standardized configurations across different projects.

Why This Matters:

• • Reduces manual work when applying segment profiles across projects.
  • Ensures consistency in network configurations, improving efficiency and reducing errors.

Bug Fixes and Security Updates

This release addresses several bugs and includes security updates to enhance VMware Cloud Director stability and reliability. The underlying appliance operating system and open-source components have been updated to align with the latest security standards.

Full details about version 10.6.1 can be found in the release notes.

How to Upgrade to VMware Cloud Director 10.6

I’ve previously covered detailed VMware Cloud Director upgrade steps in earlier blog posts, but here’s a quick, straightforward guide on upgrading your VMware Cloud Director (vCD).

1. Review Compatibility: Verify hardware and software compatibility.

1. How to Backup your Cloud Director Environment: Safeguard databases and configurations.

You can create a snapshot of your VMware Cloud Director (vCD) VM before proceeding with the upgrade, along with a full backup of your vCD cells to ensure data protection and recovery if needed. To do this, log in as root to the Appliance Management UI of the primary, standby, or application cell by accessing https://cell_eth0_ip_address:5480 in your browser.

Once logged in, VMware Cloud Director automatically creates backup files in the /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer/backups directory for versions 10.6 and later. If you are running an older version, backup files will be stored in /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer/pgdb-backup. Ensuring that both a snapshot and a backup are in place before upgrading minimizes risk and provides a reliable rollback option if necessary.

1. Schedule Maintenance: Minimize disruption.
2. Follow the Official Upgrade Guide: Use VMware’s official documentation Upgrade Appliance Guide.

Then start your upgrade.

First, Download the correct file to upgrade your vCD. In this case, was VMware_Cloud_Director_10.6.1.11753-24532678_update.tar.gz

Then, move the file to your vCD. We will use the most known tool, WinSCP.

Before proceeding with the upgrade process, the first step is to stop the VMware Cloud Director (vCD) Cells to ensure a clean and controlled upgrade. Once the cells are stopped, we then import and unpack the upgrade file, set it in the local repository, and proceed with the installation to upgrade VMware Cloud Director to version 10.6.1.

To stop the vCD Cells, run the following commands:

Once the services are stopped, we verify the contents of the /tmp directory to ensure there is enough space and that the necessary files are available:

Now, navigate to the VMware directory where the upgrade package is located:

Next, create a local update package directory, unpack the upgrade file, and set the repository location:

Now, check for available updates:

Finally, start the installation process:

Once the upgrade package has been successfully installed, the next step is to upgrade the database to ensure compatibility with the new VMware Cloud Director version. This is done by running the upgrade command:

After completing the database upgrade, the final step is to re-import all required certificates, particularly for vCenter and NSX, to ensure proper connectivity and trust between VMware Cloud Director and its integrated components. This can be done using the following command:

Upon execution, VMware Cloud Director will automatically detect and download the necessary certificates for the connected infrastructure components:

With all steps completed, your VMware Cloud Director is now fully upgraded to version 10.6.1. While the process is generally straightforward, you may encounter issues during the upgrade, such as certificate validation errors or other configuration problems. Addressing these requires deeper troubleshooting, which will be covered in a dedicated blog post focused solely on resolving common upgrade challenges in VMware Cloud Director.

Check the full details about this version in the Release Notes v10.6

Conclusion

VMware Cloud Director 10.6 and 10.6.1 are more than incremental upgrades, they represent a clear evolution of the platform toward becoming a core building block for modern private cloud infrastructure, especially when paired with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). The features introduced in this release address real-world needs around scalability, delegation, automation, and hybrid cloud readiness.

Introducing three-tier tenancy gives providers and large enterprises a flexible way to manage delegated environments, which is ideal for MSPs or internal segmentation. Global Distributed Catalogs simplify how templates and content are maintained across regions or instances. IPv6-only support, Kubernetes namespace enhancements, and tighter integration with Terraform and vRealize Operations show a strong focus on aligning VCD with modern infrastructure demands and operational models. What stands out more clearly in this release is how VCD is being shaped to work natively with VMware Cloud Foundation. Running VCD on top of VCF provides a fully integrated private cloud stack with workload domains, lifecycle automation, and a clear separation between management and tenant infrastructure. Whether using shared hosting models or dedicated VCF instances per tenant, this setup enables better standardization, policy control, and service delivery.

Cloud providers and enterprise IT teams can deliver services faster, with less manual overhead and more flexibility to scale or isolate workloads as needed. It’s also a step toward aligning VMware’s cloud tools with a more unified and consistent architecture.

If you’re running a previous version, like 10.5, upgrading to 10.6.1 is recommended—especially if you’re planning to expand your tenant model, improve content delivery with global catalogs, or bring your infrastructure closer to a full-stack VCF deployment. Just be sure to review the updated system requirements and deprecated components and test the upgrade process thoroughly in a lab before rolling it into production.

This release is not about flashy features. It’s about improving what already exists and advancing Cloud Director further into the core of VMware’s private cloud strategy.

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