After you deploy the vCenter Server appliance, consider these post installation options before adding inventory for the vCenter Server to manage.

If you plan to install Windows 11 as a guest operating system on a virtual machine, you must configure a key provider. Installing Windows 11 requires a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0. When installing Windows 11 as a guest operating system on a virtual machine, instead of using a physical TPM, you can use a virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM). A vTPM is a software-based representation of a physical TPM 2.0 chip. A vTPM depends on virtual machine encryption to secure vital TPM data, and so requires that you configure a key provider. For information about the key providers supported by vSphere, see the Virtual Machine Encryption chapter in the vSphere Security documentation. The easiest way is to configure a VMware vSphere^® Native Key Provider™. vSphere Native Key Provider is included in all vSphere editions and does not require an external key server. For information about configuring a vSphere Native Key Provider, see Configuring and Managing vSphere Native Key Provider chapter in the vSphere Security documentation. As with all security solutions, consider the system design, implementation considerations, and tradeoffs of using vSphere Native Key Provider.

For information about configuring the vSphere Authentication Proxy service, see vSphere Security.

For information about upgrading vCenter Server, see vCenter Server Upgrade.