Feature Overview

This feature introduces official support for VMware Cloud Foundation 9 (VCF9) as a target platform for OpenShift Container Platform (OCP). This enables customers to deploy, manage, and upgrade OCP clusters on the VCF9 infrastructure, ensuring they can leverage the newest capabilities and improvements of the VMware stack while maintaining full feature parity and support from Red Hat.

Goals

The primary goal is to certify and support VCF9 for OCP installations and upgrades, providing a seamless experience for administrators across all installation methods.

The user will be able to:

• Successfully install OpenShift 4.17+ on VCF9 using all supported installation methods: Installer-Provisioned Infrastructure (IPI), User-Provisioned Infrastructure (UPI), Assisted Installer, and Agent-based Installer (ABI).
• Perform OCP cluster upgrades (z-stream and y-stream) on a VCF9 environment.
• Utilize all existing OCP on vSphere features with the same level of functionality as on previous vSphere 8.
• Use Hive or RHACM to manage OCP on VCF9.

VCF9 requires a minimum vSphere CSI driver 3.4.0 to support Kubernetes 1.30+, which means that below OpenShift versions can be supported:

• (PRIO 2) OpenShift 4.17
• (PRIO 2) OpenShift 4.18
• (PRIO 2) OpenShift 4.19
• (PRIO 1) OpenShift 4.20+

User Scenarios

• As an administrator, I want to install a new OpenShift Container Platform cluster on my organization's VCF 9 environment so that I can provide a certified, modern container platform for our development teams.
• As an administrator, I want to perform a minor (y-stream) upgrade of my OCP cluster running on VCF 9 so that I can access new OCP features without service disruption.
• As an administrator, I expect a feature parity for OpenShift deployed on vSphere 8 and VCF9.
• As an administrator, I can use Hive or RHACM to manage OCP clusters on VCF9.

Requirements

Functional Requirements:

• The OpenShift installer must successfully provision a cluster on a VCF9 environment using IPI, UPI, Assisted Installer, and ABI methods.
• Hive and RHACM can manage OCP clusters on VCF9 (as it is with vSphere 8).
• VCF 9 must be added to the list of supported platforms in the OCP documentation and supportability matrix.
• Feature parity must be maintained with existing vSphere 8.x support.
• OCP cluster upgrades must complete successfully on VCF 9.
• “Start small” with the distributed switches. 

Non-Functional Requirements:

• Validation: The Quality Engineering (QE) team must add VCF 9 to the standard test matrix for all subsequent OCP 4.17+ releases across all supported installer types.
• Performance: Standard performance and scale benchmarks must be executed against a VCF 9 environment to ensure there are no performance regressions compared to previous vSphere versions.
• Documentation: All relevant public documentation for installing and managing OCP on vSphere (including for all installer types) must be updated to include VCF9.
• Maintainability: Any code changes required to support VCF9 should not introduce significant technical debt or break compatibility with older, supported vSphere versions.

Questions to Answer

• Which VCF9 components will be used? It should be documented as a part of this feature.
• Are there any API changes in VCF9 in comparison to vSphere 8 which should be introduced?
• Are there any new test cases which should be added to properly validate VCF9?

Out of Scope

• Migration from vSphere 8 to VCF9.
• NSX (a customer is responsible for full management and configuration). OpenShift on VCF9 does not introduce any integration with NSX.
• Integration with any new, VCF9-specific features that are not part of the core vSphere API used by OCP.

Links

• [DRAFT] VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 (VCF9) Plan
• VMware Blog: VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0: What’s in it for the VCSPs
• VMware Blog: Now Available: VMware vSphere Foundation 9.0
• Current OCP on vSphere Documentation:Installing a cluster on vSphere