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vDefend – Distributed Firewall is a security capability delivered byNSXwithin VMware Cloud Foundation. Although VCF components such as SDDC Manager, VCF Operations, and VCF Automation rely on licensing frameworks, the enforcement and activation ofNSX features—including Distributed Firewall—occur entirely withinNSX Manager.

To enablevDefend (Distributed Firewall), NSX Manager must detect a valid NSX license that includes security features. Without applying the correct license directly to NSX Manager:

The Distributed Firewall feature remains locked

vDefend cannot be enabled in workload domains

Security rules and micro-segmentation capability remain unavailable

VCF does not apply NSX security licensing at the SDDC Manager, VCF Automation, or VCF Operations layers. Instead, NSX Manager handles all feature entitlement checks internally.

Therefore, the new license must be installeddirectly in NSX Manager, under:

System → Licensing → NSX → Add License

Options A, C, and D are incorrect because none of those components control NSX feature activation.

The error:

“Internal Error: Failed to retrieve vim client”

occurs whenVCF Operations cannot establish a functional API session with vCenter. Thevim clientis the internal vSphere API client library used by VCF Operations to perform cluster actions such as modifying DRS settings, powering on/off workloads, or retrieving inventory.

When this error appears, VMware documentation identifies these common root causes:

Loss of connectivity between VCF Operations and vCenter

DNS resolution issues

Network interruption

Stale or expired authentication tokens

Credential mismatchIf the vCenter password was changed manually, VCF Operations may be unable to authenticate.

vCenter services restarting or unavailableIf vCenter backend services (vpxd, sts, etc.) are unstable, VCF Operations cannot establish a vim session.

Option A is incorrect—DRS automation state in the vSphere Client does not cause vim client retrieval errors.

Option B (vCenter overloaded by API requests) would cause timeouts, not a vim client initialization failure.

Option D (insufficient licensing) affects feature use, not API connectivity.

When VMware Cloud Foundation Operations performs actions on vCenter—such as powering on or off a VM—the tasks are initiatedthrough an integration service account, not the identity of the user logged into the VCF Operations UI. VCF Operations connects to vCenter using a configuredcollector or integration credential, typically a service account defined during initial setup.

VCF documentation clarifies that all automated or orchestrated tasks originating from VCF Operations use this trusted account to ensure consistent auditing, RBAC enforcement, and operational isolation from user identities. Therefore, in the vCenter task pane, the “Initiated By” field always reflects theVCF Operations → vCenter service account, even if the end-user triggered the action indirectly.

Option A is incorrect because the logged-in user does not directly interface with vCenter.

Option C refers to SDDC Manager’s integration account, which is unrelated to VCF Operations workflows.

Option D (administrator@vsphere.local) appears only when vCenter’s built-in admin performs the action.

In VCF 9.0, when deployingVCF Automationusing the VCF Installer in aSimple Deployment Model, the appliance requirestwo IP addresses:

Primary IP– Management interface

Secondary IP– Required for service separation and internal routing for Automation services

VMware’s JSON schema for VCF Installer enforces this requirement. If the second IP is missing, incorrectly formatted, or placed under the wrong JSON section, the installer validation will fail immediately with a JSON schema error before deployment begins.

This is one of themost common causesof validation failure for VCF Automation deployment.

Option A (component binaries missing) produces abundle downloaderror, not JSON schema failure.

Option C (NSX Manager size = large) is allowed and does not break JSON validation.

Option D (separate vDS for vSAN) is allowed if defined correctly and also does not cause JSON schema failure.

In VMware Cloud Foundation, deletion of a workload domain requires that VCF Operations can correctly discover and process the NSX components attached to that domain. The workload domain delete workflow explicitly includes removal of the NSX Manager and NSX Edge components associated with the domain, unless those NSX components are shared.

In earlier and current VCF guidance, VMware state that NSX Edge clusters for a workload domain must be removed using the documented/VCF-aware method (for example, using the NSX Edge removal process referenced in KB 78635, not by deleting objects directly in NSX Manager). If an administrator deletes theNSX Edge cluster directly in NSX Manager, the VCF inventory and orchestration logic still “believes” the Edge cluster exists. When the workload domain delete workflow reaches the stage“Gather input for deletion of NSX component”, it queries NSX / internal state for Edge cluster data. Because the underlying object has been manually removed, the returned structure is null, which results in an internal“Cannot read the array length because "<locall9>" is null”style error.

Using theNSX Edge Cluster Deployment Removal Toolas per documentation keeps VCF and NSX in sync and is thesupportedpath, so option A is not the likely cause. Network pools and shared NSX Manager configurations do not match the specific NSX-component array/null condition described.

Application Monitoring in VCF Operations uses Telegraf agents running inside virtual machines. These agents forward metrics to theCloud Proxy, which then sends them to the Operations analytics cluster. One of the most common reasons an agent stops reporting data—especially exactly24 hoursafter deployment—isclock drift or time mismatchbetween the VM (running the Telegraf agent) and the Cloud Proxy.

VCF Operations enforcesstrict timestamp validation. If the timestamps from the agent are outside the acceptable drift window, the Cloud Proxyrejectsincoming data as invalid. In this case, the Telegraf agents appear installed and functional, but no new metrics are received by the analytics engine.

This is a well-known issue documented in VMware Aria/VCF Operations agent-based monitoring, where:

Agents send metrics with local system time.

Cloud Proxy enforces time validation to prevent corrupt metric ingestion.

A drift >5 minutes commonly results inzero data collectiondespite healthy connectivity.

Options B and C cannot stop data flow after exactly 24 hours; they would preventinitialcollection. Option D (virtual hardware/tools compatibility) affects VM operations butnotTelegraf metric time-stamp validation.

In VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 Operations,tags created inside VCF Operations do not automatically appear in vCenter. Tags must be explicitly synchronized ("pushed") to the selected vCenter instance before they become usable for VM tagging within vCenter. This is because VCF Operations maintains its own metadata store for tags, super metrics, groups, and policies.

The correct workflow is:

Create the tag in VCF Operations.

Push (synchronize) the tag to the appropriate vCenter instance.

The tag then appears in vCenter’sTags & Custom Attributessection.

Administrators can then assign the tag to VMs.

If the push step is skipped, the tag exists only inside VCF Operations and cannot be referenced by vCenter, which is exactly the symptom described:tag not found when attempting to assign it to a VM.

Option A is incorrect because Custom Groups do not affect vCenter tag visibility.

Option B is incorrect because tag synchronization is not tied to a specific vCenter version as long as the vCenter is officially supported by VCF 9.x.

Option D is irrelevant—VMware Tools has nothing to do with tag visibility.

In VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 Automation, the visibility of debug-level information in Task Logs is controlled centrally by theProvider Administratorthrough theProvider Management portal. Debug logging is not enabled by default because it exposes verbose operational details intended primarily for troubleshooting. According to the VCF Automation architecture and operations model, advanced logging capabilities—including debug output—are gated behindfeature flags.

To enable debug-level information, the Provider Admin must navigate to:

Provider Management → Administration → Feature Flags → Display Debug Information

Once this flag is enabled, the system begins emitting additional diagnostic detail into Task Logs, improving insight into failures, orchestration flows, API calls, and service-to-service interactions. This aligns with VCF’s multi-tenant design, where only the Provider tier has permission to modify global settings that affect all Organizations.

Options A, C, and D are incorrect because Organization-level settings do not control system-wide logging, and the Events/Tasks or General Settings sections do not contain the mechanism for enabling debug output. Only theFeature Flagsection controls this capability.