HCX 4.11.0 Upgrade and What it means for Current HCX Users

Overview

Azure VMware Solution is a VMware validated first party Azure service from Microsoft that provides private clouds containing VMware vSphere clusters built from dedicated bare-metal Azure infrastructure. It enables customers to leverage their existing investments in VMware skills and tools, allowing them to focus on developing and running their VMware-based workloads on Azure.

VMware HCX is the mobility and migration software used by the Azure VMware Solution to connect remote VMware vSphere environments to the Azure VMware Solution. These remote VMware vSphere environments can be on-premises, co-location or cloud-based instances.

Figure 1 – Azure VMware Solution with VMware HCX Service Mesh

Broadcom has announced the end-of-life (EOL) for VMware HCX version 4.10.x, effective July 27, 2025. To proactively address this change and ensure continued support, Microsoft will begin upgrading all Azure VMware Solution customers using HCX Manager to HCX version 4.11.0.

What Changes are introduced as part of HCX 4.11.0?

With the release of HCX 4.11.0, Broadcom has made significant changes to the way HCX will be available for download and upgrades.

Local Mode

From HCX 4.11.0 onwards, HCX will only be available in local mode. This means that HCX systems running 4.11.0 or later will no longer receive upgrade notifications under the System updates section from Broadcom. Once HCX systems are upgraded to 4.11.0 using the offline bundle they will operate in Local mode only.

Connection to VMware & Hybridity Depot.

As of 4.11.0 activation key-based licensing has been deprecated. Activation keys in HCX 4.11.0 will stop working 450 days after the upgrade to HCX 4.11.0 takes place. HCX systems running versions prior to 4.11.0 that are currently using the activation keys will stop working when connect.hcx.vmware.com is decommissioned later this year.  

Please note, the following HCX functionality is deprecated in HCX 4.11.0 and will be removed in a future release. HCX is 4.11.0 will no longer be supported as of December 24^th, 2025. Customers should plan to migrate to an alternative solution at the earliest if they use any of the following features.

• HCX V2T Migration
• HCX WAN Optimization
• HCX Disaster Recovery
• vCenter Server Plug-in for HCX
• HCX UI – Tracking page in Migration interface

What actions will customers need to take?

To ensure smooth migration, customers will be required to upgrade any paired HCX connectors and service mesh appliances to HCX 4.11.0. Furthermore, customers may be required to execute a resync operation on each HCX service mesh on both the source and connector sides to ensure that no errors have occurred due to the upgrade.

All Azure VMware Solution customers have now been notified of their preliminary scheduled upgrade date. Customers have the option to reschedule using the Azure VMware Solution portal but must complete this upgrade during US work hours before July 31.

Microsoft will only upgrade the HCX Cloud Manager, the on-prem HCX manager and service mesh appliances will need to be upgraded by the customer. Once upgraded, customers will find previous and current versions of the HCX connector bundles, including HCX 4.11.0, in their vSAN datastore for cluster-1, under a folder named “AVS_Official_HCX_Connector_Binaries” The HCX 4.11.0 bundle should be used by customers to upgrade their on-prem HCX connector.  

Summary

Microsoft is working towards upgrading all Azure VMware Solution customers that are using HCX by the end of July 2025. Customers are currently being notified of when their upcoming HCX upgrade will take place. For additional information on VMware HCX 4.11, please review the following Knowledge base article from Broadcom. Upgrade Bundle Download from 443 UI will Fail in All HCX versions prior to 4.11

If you are interested in the Azure VMware Solution, please use these resources to learn more about the service.

• Homepage: Azure VMware Solution
• Learn: Run VMware resources on Azure VMware Solution Training
• Documentation: Azure VMware Solution
• Azure CLI: Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI) Overview
• PowerShell module: Az.VMware Module
• Terraform provider: azurerm_vmware_private_cloud Terraform Registry
• GitHub repository: Azure/azure-vmware-solution
• Cloud Adoption Framework: Introduction to the Azure VMware Solution adoption scenario
• Network connectivity scenarios: Enterprise-scale network topology and connectivity for Azure VMware Solution
• Enterprise Scale Landing Zone: Enterprise-scale for Microsoft Azure VMware Solution
• Enterprise Scale GitHub repository: Azure/Enterprise-Scale-for-AZURE VMWARE SOLUTIONS
• VMware homepage: VMware to Azure Migration Solutions
• VMware Ports and Protocols for HCX VMware HCX - VMware Ports and Protocols 

Author Bios

Ricky Perez is a Senior Technical Program Manager in the Azure VMware Solution product group at Microsoft. His background is in solution architecture with experience in public cloud and core infrastructure services. 

Varun Hariharan is a Senior Product Manager on the Azure VMware Solution team at Microsoft, where he is focusing on observability and workload strategies for customers. His background is in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), log management, enterprise software, and DevOps.