Unable to change Provider VDC virtual hardware support beyond version 10

My environment:

vCloud Director 9.1.0.3 and ESXi 6.5.0.

This could happen regardless of what vCloud director and ESXi version you are on.

Provider VDC config: 

ESXi Version : 

So ideally I should be able to see the hardware version 13 in the vCloud director but I see only till version 10


Why does this happen : 

It’s most likely a user error depending on how vCenter is set up and what vCenter has reported to VCD as far as available HW versions

How to fix ? 

From vCenter FLEX UI, go to Datacenter, right click and select 'Edit Default VM Compatibility' and there select 'ESX 6.5 and later' (This config depends on your environment)
Then go to the cluster and right click and select 'Edit Default VM Compatibility' and there the value selected would be 'Use datacenter setting and host version'. This setting would take it from datacenter setting done above.

From the vCloud director , perform and refresh of the vCenter and try to create the Provider VDC and check the HW version.

If  the refresh does not do the trick then you will need to do a clean up of the inventory tables and have the updated entries added into the vCloud director database.

NOTE : Take a Backup of the vCD Database before performing this operation

- Stop the vCloud director service on all the cells.
https://docs.vmware.com/en/vCloud-Director/9.1/com.vmware.vcloud.install.doc/GUID-65C8B7B6-EC5E-4BDA-8564-56DD6671F5FE.html

- Run the below query on the vCD Database (Below query has been tested till vCD 9.5) . I understand the queries look scary but these are just inventory which gets repopulated automatically when the vCenter is connected to the vCloud director.

Delete from     vm_dstore_metrics_inv;
Delete from     managed_server_inv;
Delete from     vm_inv;
Delete from     datastore_inv;
Delete from     ccr_drs_rule_inv;
Delete from     resource_pool_inv;
Delete from     drs_rule_vm_inv;
Delete from     dv_switch_inv;
Delete from     network_inv;
Delete from     dv_portgroup_inv;
Delete from     custom_field_manager_inv;
Delete from     ccr_drs_host_group_inv;
Delete from     datacenter_inv;
Delete from     ccr_drs_host_group_host_inv;
Delete from     folder_inv;
Delete from     ccr_drs_vm_group_inv;
Delete from     compute_resource_inv;
Delete from     ccr_drs_vm_group_vm_inv;
Delete from     cluster_compute_resource_inv;
Delete from     ccr_drs_vm_host_rule_inv;
Delete from     storage_profile_inv;
Delete from     datastore_profile_inv;
Delete from     managed_server_network_inv;
Delete from     managed_server_datastore_inv;
Delete from     datacenter_network_inv;
Delete from     storage_pod_inv;
Delete from     task_inv;
Delete from     property_map;

- Start the vCloud director service on one of the cells
- Wait for the sync to complete
- Start the other cell(s) ( If any)


Hope it helps :)