VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1 Released

VMware has released VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1, this version features some major new features and enhancements.

This version has support for the new VMware vSAN ESA and vSAN Max. It is also the backbone of the future VMware Private Generative AI, for now this is only guided for installing the product at the moment, so you can test it out.

What’s new:

• Support for vSAN ESA
  • vSAN ESA is an alternative, single-tier architecture designed ground-up for NVMe-based platforms to deliver higher performance with more predictable I/O latencies, higher space efficiency, per-object based data services, and native, high-performant snapshots.
• Non-DHCP option for Tunnel Endpoint (TEP) IP assignment
  • SDDC Manager now provides the option to select Static or DHCP-based IP assignments to Host TEPs for stretched clusters and L3 aware clusters.
• vSphere Distributed Services engine for Ready nodes
  • AMD-Pensando and NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPUs are now supported. Offloading the Virtual Distributed Switch (VDS) and NSX network and security functions to the hardware provides significant performance improvements for low latency and high bandwidth applications. NSX distributed firewall processing is also offloaded from the server CPUs to the network silicon.
• Multi-pNIC/Multi-vSphere Distributed Switch UI enhancements
  • VCF users can configure complex networking configurations, including more vSphere Distributed Switch and NSX switch-related configurations, through the SDDC Manager UI.
• Distributed Virtual Port Group Separation for management domain appliances
  • Enables the traffic isolation between management VMs (such as SDDC Manager, NSX Manager, and vCenter) and ESXi Management VMkernel interfaces
• Support for vSphere Lifecycle Manager images in management domain
  • VCF users can deploy management domain using vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) images during new VCF instance deployment
• Mixed-mode Support for Workload Domains
  • A VCF instance can exist in a mixed BOM state where the workload domains are on different VCF 5.x versions. Note: The management domain should be on the highest version in the instance.
• Asynchronous update of the pre-check files
  • The upgrade pre-checks can be updated asynchronously with new pre-checks using a pre-check file provided by VMware.
• Workload domain NSX integration
  • Support for multiple NSX enabled VDSs for Distributed Firewall use cases
• Tier-0/1 optional for VCF Edge cluster
  • When creating an Edge cluster with the VCF API, the Tier-0 and Tier-1 gateways are now optional.
• VCF Edge nodes support static or pooled IP
  • When creating or expanding an Edge cluster using VCF APIs, Edge node TEP configuration may come from an NSX IP pool or be specified statically as in earlier releases.
• Support for mixed license deployment
  • A combination of keyed and keyless licenses can be used within the same VCF instance.
• Integration with Workspace ONE Broker
  • Provides identity federation and SSO across vCenter, NSX, and SDDC Manager. VCF administrators can add Okta to Workspace ONE Broker as a Day-N operation using the SDDC Manger UI.

See the full release notes here.