VMware vRealize Automation 7.0 Released

VMware has released the new version of vRealize Automation. In this version they have made the installation much easier, and have integrated Applications Services.

This is what's in this release:

Streamlined and Automated Wizard-based Installation

• Introduced using the management agent to automate the installation of Windows components and to collect logs
• Automates the deployment of all vRealize Automation components
• Installation wizard based on deployment needs: Minimal (Express) and Enterprise (Distributed and High Availability) Installations

Simplified Deployment Architecture and High Availability Configuration

• Embedded authentication service by using VMware Identity Manager
• Converged Application Services in vRealize Automation Appliance
• Reduced minimal number of appliances for HA configuration
• Automated embedded PostgreSQL clustering with manual failover
• Automated embedded vRealize Orchestrator clustering

Enhanced Authentication Service

• Integrated user interface providing a common look and feel
  
• Enabled multiple features by new authentication service:
  
  • Support native Active Directory for all tenants
    
  • Multiple domains to single tenant
    
  • Single domain to multiple tenants
    
  • Full branding capabilities
    
  • Third-party SAML token support
    
  • Smart card support
    
  • Multi-factor authentication
    
  • Login auditing
    
  • Major scalability improvements
    
  • High availability support
    

Simplified Blueprint Authoring for Infrastructure and Applications

• Unified graphical canvas for designing machine and application blueprint with dependencies and network topology
  
• Software component (formerly software service in Application Services) authoring on vSphere, vCloud Air, vCloud Director, and Amazon AWS endpoints
  
• Extend or define external integrations in the canvas by using XaaS (formerly Advanced Service Design)
  
• Enable team collaboration and role segregation by enhancing and introducing fine-grain roles
  
• Single unified model for both machine and application blueprints:
  
  • Blueprint as code and human-readable
    
  • Create in editor of choice and stored in source control
    
  • Import and export in the same or multiple vRealize Automation 7.0 instances
    
• Customer-requested machine and application blueprints provided
  
• Additional blueprints available on the VMware Solutions Exchange
  

Simplified and Enhanced NSX Support for Blueprint Authoring and Deployment

• Dynamically configure NSX Network and micro-segmentation unique for each application
• Automated connectivity to existing or on-demand networks
• Micro-segmentation for application stack isolation
• Automated security policy enforcement by using NSX security policies, groups, and tags
• On-demand dedicated NSX load balancer

Simplified vRealize Automation REST API

• Simplified schema for API requests by switching to normal JSON model
• Follow-on request URIs and templates exposed as links in response bodies (HATEOAS)
• New APIs to support business group and reservation management
• Improved documentation and samples

Enhanced Cloud Support for vCloud Air and AWS

• Software component authoring for vCloud Air, vCloud Director, and Amazon AWS
  
• Simplified blueprint authoring for vCloud Air and vCloud Director
  
• Improved vCloud Air endpoint configuration:
  
  • First class endpoint with URL: https://vca.vmware.com
    
  • Single endpoint for all resources under the same account (subscription or on-demand)
    
  • Optional proxy configuration
    

Enhanced Management for Tenant, Business Group, Approval, and Entitlements

• Multi-tenancy support for custom property and property group (formerly build profiles)
• Business group managers can add managers, support roles, or users to their groups
• Assign approvals to software and machine components, which will be assessed when the catalog item is requested
• Dynamically assign approvals to the manager of the user
• Deletion of inactive approvals
• Entitlements can be more specific on catalog item and their actions

Event-Based Extensibility Provided by Event Broker

• Use vRealize Orchestrator workflows to subscribe any events triggered by any of the following events:
  
  • IaaS life cycle state and entity changes
    
  • Business groups management operations
    
  • Approval policy and pre- or post-approval actions
    
  • Blueprint operations
    
  • Other system operations
    
• Support custom events
  
• Support blocking and non-blocking subscriptions
  
• Provide administrative user interface for extensibility configurations
  
• Obsolete .NET based lifecycle callouts and provide upgrade proof extensibility and configurations
  

New CloudClient

• Content management (import and export blueprints between instances or tenants in vRealize Automation 7.0)
• Existing functionality updated for vRealize Automation 7.0 APIs

Enhanced Integration with vRealize Business

• Unified location in vRealize Business to define flexible pricing policies for:
  
  • Infrastructure resource, machine, and application blueprints
    
  • All type of endpoints in vRealize Automation
    
  • Any operational cost, one time cost and cost on custom properties
    
• Role-based showback reports in vRealize Business
  
• Fully leverage new features in vRealize Business
  

vRealize Orchestrator 7 New Features

• Introduce vRealize Orchestrator Control Center for easy monitoring and troubleshooting
  
  • Centralized Server administration and easy cluster setup
    
  • Workflow troubleshooting and enhanced log monitoring
    
• Significant Smart Client improvements including Workflow tagging UI, Client reconnect options and enhanced search capabilities
  
• vSphere 6.X vAPI endpoint support providing graphical debugging of plug-ins and embedded Code development support
  

Other Improvements

• Customizable columns in the table for a given type of custom resource defined in XaaS
• Accept a mix of license input, including vRealize Suite, vCloud Suite, and vRealize Automation Standalone
• Improved stability, quality, and performance