Estate Readiness Triage
Triage a VMware estate cluster by cluster: which clusters go as is, which need remediation, and which need replacing before VCF 9.1.
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
Take that number into the Upgrade Runway as your cluster count, and it will tell you whether there is time to move them.
How the verdicts are decided
- Replace. The CPU generation is very likely End of Life for ESX 9.x. Broadcom states that hardware in that state is not recognised by ESX 9.x during installation, and that upgrades from the previous release may also fail.
- Remediate. Something has to change first, but it is work rather than hardware: a boot device migration, an intermediate build hop, or a CPU in deprecated mode that will move once and then need replacing before the next major release.
- Check. The answer is not established from what you have entered. vSAN ESA device certification is per device per release, and an unknown CPU generation is the single answer that decides whether a cluster is a change window or a purchase order.
- Goes as is. Nothing entered here blocks it. That is not the same as a clean Compatibility Guide check, which is still yours to run.
What this cannot do
- It cannot read the Compatibility Guide for you. It triages on what you already know and tells you which clusters are worth the time of a real hardware check, which is the part that usually does not happen.
- It does not know your network and storage adapters. ESX 9.0 does not claim devices on the end of life list, and a host can upgrade cleanly and come back without its storage controller or its uplinks. Check adapters per model.
- CPU generations are grouped, not enumerated. Broadcom classifies by exact server model, and two servers with the same CPU family can land differently.
- Cascade Lake and Skylake-SP are the two generations Broadcom names directly. Skylake-SP was discontinued in VCF 9.0 and moved back to deprecated on 18 September 2026, which is a reminder that these states change.
CPU states and their consequences come from KB 428874, Deprecated CPU Systems and Servers in ESX 9.0, last updated 18 September 2026. Check your exact server model in the Broadcom Compatibility Guide.
The reasoning behind treating hardware as a per-cluster question rather than an estate-level one is in Will the hardware come with you? and The staged path from vSphere 8 to VCF 9.1.
Free to use, including with customers and in internal planning packs. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, so there is no account, no telemetry and nothing to clear afterwards. The other tools are at mohammadsiddiqui.com/tools.
A planning aid, not a commitment. Verify every classification against current Broadcom documentation before it reaches a plan.