Short answer: The current release is VCF Usage Meter 9.1.1 (8 Sep 2026, build 25660887). Usage Meter 9.1 and 9.1.1 install as an in-place upgrade on top of 9.0 and later. Usage Meter 9.0.x installs in place on top of 4.7 and later. From 4.7 or 4.8, go to 9.0.x first and then to 9.1.1. From 4.4 to 4.6, upgrade to 4.8 first. Every step uses the upgrade ISO and upgrade-um.sh. The 9.0 step also needs an access token from the VCF Business Services console.
Usage Meter upgrade path at a glance
| Target release | Released / build | In-place upgrade supported from |
|---|---|---|
| VCF Usage Meter 9.1.1 | 8 Sep 2026 / 25660887 | 9.0 and later |
| VCF Usage Meter 9.1 | 12 May 2026 / 25386508 | 9.0 and later |
| VCF Usage Meter 9.0.1.100 | 9 Sep 2025 / 24937895 | 4.7 and later |
| VCF Usage Meter 9.0.1.0 | 17 Jul 2025 / 24798387 | 4.7 and later |
| VCF Usage Meter 9.0 | 7 May 2025 / 24699491 | 4.7 and later |
| vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 | 7 Feb 2024 / 23222951 | 4.4 and later |
Typical paths:
- 4.7 / 4.8 → 9.0.1.100 → 9.1.1. 9.1.x only accepts 9.0 or later as its source.
- 4.4–4.6 → 4.8 → 9.0.1.100 → 9.1.1. 9.0.x only accepts 4.7 or later.
- Any 9.0.x → 9.1.1 directly.
For appliances older than 4.4, the release notes cited here don’t document a path. Check with Broadcom support before you plan a redeployment.
VCF Usage Meter 9.0 upgrade: what changes
The move from 4.x to 9.0 is more than a version bump. According to the 9.0 release notes:
- Usage Meter management moves to the VCF Business Services console, and usage upload uses an OAuth app. Before you upgrade, generate an access token in that console.
upgrade-um.shasks for it and then asks you to confirm the tenant. - Registering and managing instances in offline mode is no longer supported. Usage Meter 4.8 had already dropped it. License categories and metering of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid management clusters are gone too.
- The appliance OS moves from Photon OS 4 to Photon OS 5, and the FIPS libraries adopt FIPS 140-3.
- New metering targets: VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 and the vDefend add-ons.
Usage Meter 9.1 adds metering of VCF Automation, detection of the AVI Load Balancer through NSX Manager, a cert-management.sh utility and a .tar.gz usage-file format. 9.1.1 is a security and bug-fix release.
How to upgrade Usage Meter (in-place, ISO)
The procedure has barely changed since 4.8. The steps below follow the 9.1 TechDocs page. Download the upgrade ISO, for example VCF_Usage_Meter-9.1.0.0-<BUILD_NUMBER>_Upgrade.iso, plus the optional .mf, .crt and .sign files, from the Usage Meter product page on the Broadcom Support Portal. You need a Broadcom support account with access to the product.
- Take a snapshot of the Usage Meter appliance.
- (Optional) Verify the download with
sha1sum -cagainst the.mffile, and check the signature withopensslas shown in the docs. - Connect the VM’s CD-ROM drive to the upgrade ISO.
- Log in as
rooton the console. Alternatively, enable SSH in the VAMI (https://<um-host>:5480→ Access), log in asusagemeterand runsu root. The upgrade turns SSH off again afterwards. - Mount the ISO and start the upgrade (commands below).
- Confirm that the snapshot exists. When upgrading to 9.0, also paste the access token and confirm the tenant. Answer
yto the reboot prompt. - Check the services. They should report
Online.
mkdir /root/upgrade
mount -o loop /dev/cdrom /root/upgrade
bash /root/upgrade/upgrade-um.sh
# after the reboot
bash /opt/vmware/cloudusagemetering/scripts/status.shIf upgrade-um.sh warns about a wrong hostname, fix the hostname first and regenerate or re-import the certificate. The certificate CN must match the appliance hostname. Otherwise you can have trouble logging in to the web UI afterwards. After a successful upgrade, don’t revert to the pre-upgrade snapshot. Broadcom warns that this breaks the automatic aggregation and reporting of monthly consumption data.
Known upgrade issues
- VM hangs, “The guest operating system has locked the CD-ROM door”. This is listed for 4.8 and 9.0.x. Workaround: VMware KB 2144053.
- Second network adapter swaps with the first after upgrading to 9.0 or 9.1. See KB 399671.
- SSH “REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!” on the first SSH login after upgrading to 9.0 (listed in the 9.0 release notes). The appliance host ID changes, so remove the old entry from your
known_hosts. - No account lockout after failed logins on 9.0 → 9.1 upgrades, because the PAM files keep their legacy content. 9.1 has a manual workaround, and 9.1.1 lists the issue as resolved.
- Upgrades from 4.x to 4.8 required you to accept the certificates of all metered products again in the web UI.
History: Usage Meter 4.8 and the Broadcom Advantage program
This post was first written in February 2024. VMware’s Cloud Provider blog announced Usage Meter 4.8 as the required version for VCSPs under the Broadcom Advantage program from 1 April 2024. The reasons given were full support for independent clusters and core-based metering. The 4.8 release notes list Aria re-branding, Photon OS 4, TLS 1.3 and updated FIPS libraries as its changes. Offline-mode registration and Horizon metering were dropped. My 4.8 upgrade used exactly the ISO procedure above and ended with this prompt:
The upgrade log is written to /opt/vmware/var/log/um-upgrade.log.
Sources
- VCF Usage Meter 9.1.1 Release Notes and 9.1 Release Notes
- VCF Usage Meter 9.0, 9.0.1.0 and 9.0.1.100 Release Notes
- In-Place Upgrade of VCF Usage Meter (9.1) and (9.0)
- Broadcom KB 399671, KB 2144053
- VMware Cloud Provider blog: Usage Meter 4.8 is now available for VCSPs’ core utilization; vCloud Usage Meter 4.8 Release Notes (archived docs.vmware.com copy; the 4.8 docs are no longer on TechDocs)
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