AI-driven performance optimization, capacity planning, cost visibility, and compliance for your VMware Cloud Foundation private cloud. Formerly vRealize Operations / Aria Operations.
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VCF Operations — Add-on for VMware Cloud Foundation
What is VCF Operations?
VCF Operations (formerly vRealize Operations / Aria Operations) is an add-on subscription for VMware Cloud Foundation that provides AI-driven analytics, capacity planning, cost management, and compliance automation for private cloud environments. It gives IT teams the operational intelligence to run VCF efficiently — knowing what to optimize, when to scale, where costs are going, and whether the environment is compliant.
Running a private cloud is only half the challenge. The other half is knowing whether it is running efficiently, within budget, and in compliance. Without operational visibility, teams overprovision resources, miss capacity issues, and spend weeks troubleshooting problems.
IT teams running large VCF environments often lack real-time visibility into performance bottlenecks and capacity trends. Problems surface as user complaints, not proactive alerts.
VCF Operations uses predictive analytics to identify issues before they affect workloads — reducing mean time to resolution by 20%.
Without cost tracking, private cloud environments suffer the same spend visibility problems as public cloud. Teams overprovision VMs, unused resources accumulate, and nobody knows what each department is actually consuming.
VCF Operations provides cost chargeback and showback reporting by team, project, or business unit — making cloud economics transparent.
Regulated environments require continuous monitoring against compliance frameworks like PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and DISA STIG. Manual audits are slow and configurations drift between checks.
VCF Operations continuously monitors compliance posture and provides automated remediation to bring environments back into alignment.
Organizations using VCF Operations report measurable improvements in operational efficiency and incident response across their private cloud environments.
Reduction in mean time to resolution (MTTR)
Improved operational efficiency
Core management pillars: Fleet, Operations, Security, Orchestration
"With VCF Automation we're providing a public cloud-like user experience to our researchers and faculty, while maintaining the security and governance our institution requires."
— EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne)
VCF Operations is the right fit when your team needs deeper visibility, cost controls, or compliance automation on top of the base VCF platform.
IT teams that need proactive capacity planning and rightsizing recommendations across their VCF environment. VCF Operations identifies oversized VMs, underutilized hosts, and capacity trends — so your team acts on data instead of guesswork.
Typical scenario: A 500-host VCF environment is running at 40% average CPU utilization. VCF Operations identifies 120 oversized VMs consuming 30% more resources than needed — freeing capacity without buying additional hardware.
Finance and IT teams that need to track private cloud costs by department, project, or business unit. VCF Operations provides chargeback and showback reporting so every team sees what they consume and what it costs.
Typical scenario: An enterprise running VCF across three data centers discovers that one business unit accounts for 45% of compute costs. Cost reports enable informed budget conversations instead of flat allocation models.
Security teams in regulated industries that need continuous compliance monitoring against PCI-DSS, HIPAA, DISA STIG, and CIS benchmarks. VCF Operations detects configuration drift and automates remediation workflows.
Typical scenario: A healthcare organization running VCF detects 15 hosts with HIPAA configuration drift. VCF Operations flags the violations and applies automated remediation — reducing audit preparation from weeks to hours.
Organizations planning workload migrations — whether repatriating from public cloud or consolidating data centers. VCF Operations integrates with VMware HCX to assess workload dependencies, sizing requirements, and migration readiness.
Typical scenario: An enterprise repatriating 200 VMs from AWS uses VCF Operations to map application dependencies, validate target capacity, and plan a phased migration schedule without disrupting production workloads.
VCF Operations is an add-on layer that sits above the base VCF platform. It provides management intelligence across compute, storage, networking, and third-party integrations.
VCF Operations connects with the hardware and tools your team already uses.
VCF Operations is sold as an add-on subscription to the VCF base platform. It is not available as a standalone product.
You need an active VMware Cloud Foundation subscription before adding Operations capabilities. Pricing is based on your core count.
This replaces the previous standalone vRealize Operations and Aria Operations licensing models.
ASK ABOUT LICENSINGOrganizations currently running vRealize Operations or Aria Operations on perpetual licenses need to transition to the VCF subscription model.
Broadcom offers migration paths for existing customers. Contact our team to understand your options and timeline.
DISCUSS MIGRATION OPTIONSThe VCF Operations add-on covers four management pillars:
Fleet Management — centralized lifecycle management across sites.
Operations Management — AI-driven analytics and capacity planning.
Security Management — compliance monitoring and drift remediation.
Orchestration — workflow automation and third-party integrations.
VIEW FULL DATASHEETDatasheets & Reports
VCF Operations Datasheet VCF Operations eBook Forrester Total Economic Impact StudyVCF Operations is the current name for what was previously known as vRealize Operations and then Aria Operations. The product has been rebranded and integrated as an add-on to the VMware Cloud Foundation platform.
The core capabilities remain similar — AI-driven analytics, capacity planning, cost management, and compliance — but VCF Operations is now tightly integrated with the VCF lifecycle management stack rather than being a separate standalone product.
No. VCF Operations is sold exclusively as an add-on subscription to VMware Cloud Foundation. You need an active VCF base platform subscription before adding Operations capabilities.
This is a change from the previous model where vRealize Operations / Aria Operations could be purchased independently. Organizations running standalone vSphere without VCF will need to evaluate the VCF platform transition.
Contact our team for pricing based on your core count and current licensing situation.
VCF Operations includes a SecOps dashboard with built-in compliance templates for PCI-DSS, HIPAA, DISA STIG, ISO 27001, and CIS benchmarks.
It continuously monitors your VCF environment against these frameworks, detects configuration drift, and provides automated remediation workflows to bring hosts and workloads back into compliance. This reduces audit preparation time significantly compared to manual compliance checks.
VCF Operations uses AI-driven analytics to identify oversized VMs, underutilized hosts, and wasted capacity across your environment. It provides specific rightsizing recommendations and reclamation opportunities.
The cost management module tracks resource consumption by team, project, or business unit — enabling chargeback and showback reporting. This gives finance and IT leadership visibility into where private cloud costs are going and which teams are consuming the most resources.
Organizations typically find significant savings by acting on rightsizing recommendations and using cost data to drive more efficient resource allocation.
Yes. VCF Operations integrates with hardware management platforms from Cisco UCS, Dell EMC, HPE, and Lenovo — providing end-to-end visibility from physical hardware through virtual infrastructure.
It also connects with ServiceNow for ITSM workflows, databases like Oracle DB and SQL Server for application-aware monitoring, and infrastructure-as-code platforms like Terraform.
The orchestration module includes built-in workflow automation with third-party connectors, enabling cross-platform automation without custom scripting.
VirtualizationWorks is an authorized VMware reseller. We help IT teams evaluate VCF Operations, understand licensing, and plan deployment alongside the VCF base platform.
