VMware has released there vRealize Suite 2018.

vRealize Automation 7.5

What's new:

Modernized UI and Consumer UX

vRealize Automation has a new look and feel and streamlined flows for common self-service tasks.

• UI updated to VMware Clarity standard
  
• Larger catalog cards show more of the description
  
• Cleaner catalog view
  
  • Multiple instances of the same catalog item across business groups are now rolled up; the user selects the business group at request time
    
• Items and Requests tab merged into new Deployments tab
  
• Request details for decommissioned resources moved to the Administration tab
  
• Improved status of in-progress requests
  
• History view shows all requests associated with a single deployment over time
  
• Improved search capabilities across product menus and objects
  
• Contextual access to documentation from the product UI
  
• Home page and portlets are deprecated in this release
  
• Save button on requests is deprecated in this release
  

Improved Integration with vRealize Operations

This release introduces deployment dashboards for application owners and enhancements to intelligent workload placement capabilities via integration with vRealize Operations.

• Show deployment alerts and key metrics (CPU, memory, IOPS, and network) for machines in the deployment details view
  
• Enable optimization of vRealize Automation managed workloads to align with vRealize Operations placement policy
  
  • This builds on an earlier integration for optimizing initial placement to allow ongoing optimization of existing workloads
    

For information, see vRealize Operations Manager Based Monitoring and Continuous Optimization Using vRealize Operations Manager.

Configuration Automation Framework

Native integration with external Ansible Tower configuration management tool.

• OOTB support for Ansible Tower as first class citizens in vRealize Automation
  
• Drag and drop Ansible Tower object in the Blueprint design canvas
  
• Parameterize and support early and late binding/request time
  
• Dynamically select Ansible job templates,including playbooks, for application configuration 
  
• Support Day 2 actions to register or decommission machines
  

For information, see Create an Ansible Endpoint and Add an Ansible Component to a vSphere Blueprint.

NSX-T Data Center Native Integration

vRealize Automation now has native integration with NSX-T Data Center.

• OOTB support for NSX-T Data Center as first class citizen in vRealize Automation
  
• Drag and drop the following NSX-T Data Center services in the blueprint design canvas
  
  • On-demand load balancer
    
  • On-demand routed network
    
  • On-demand NAT 1-to-many network 
    
  • Existing security group
    
• Support Day 2 actions
  
  • Update security applied to a deployed VM
    
  • Change NAT rules for on-demand NAT network
    

For information, see Create a NSX-T Endpoint, Understanding NSX-T Deployment Topologies, and Designing Blueprints with NSX-T Settings.

Microsoft Azure Blueprint Enhancements

• Support for Azure Managed Disks
  
• Enhanced Support for Azure regions
  

For information, see Create a Microsoft Azure Endpoint and Create a Blueprint for Microsoft Azure.

 

Install, Upgrade, Migrate, and Patching Improvements

Certificate management improvements:

• API ability to retrieve certificate details​
  
• All certificate management operations are logged for auditing purposes​
  
• Pre-check run is automatically executed prior to certificate replacement
  
• Non-HttpActivation check was added for both DEM and Agent
  

Virtual appliance management interface updates:

• Automated migration from external vRO​
  
• Improved resiliency in deleting a node​ and in database failover​
  
• New prerequisites and validation checks added in upgrade​
  
• No longer need to disable the load balancer's secondary nodes or to remove the load balancer's health monitors during IaaS upgrade (vRA 7.4+) 
  

Patching:

• vRA API to get the progress of the patch being applied
  
  • vRealize Lifecyle Manager leverages this API​.
    
• Applying a hotfix is an idempotent operation​
  
  • For example, if the same hotfix is applied twice, there are no side effects on the product. The product can either ignore the already applied hotfix or return an appropriate status message.
    
• New metadata definitions for patch management commands​.
  
• Improve patch management UI (in VAMI)​.
  
• Standard versioning of patch builds.
  

For more information, see Installing or Upgrading vRealize Automation.

Troubleshooting Improvements

• Improvements to Force Delete/Re-Submit (failed/orphaned deployments)​
  
• Post-migration validation​
  
• Consistent log tracing across solution
  
• Expose trace-id to the vRealize Orchestrator plug-in API
  

vRO database clustering and configuration

• vRO database configuration moved to vRA VAMI​
  
• Embedded vRO database (Postgres) is now able to be clustered and supports failover
  

Custom Forms Improvements

• Support for vRealize business fields
  
• Out-of-the-box support for vRO context action parameters
  
• New editable drop-down component
  
• Ability to add or remove fields in storage datagrid
  

For more information about custom forms, see Customizing Blueprint Request Forms. 

Event Broker Improvements

• Improved failure/exception management by adding the ability to explicitly stop workflow execution of any subsequent workflows
• Enhance payload consumption mechanism by adding the ability to reuse and merge payload between the workflow subscriptions registered in the state

For more information, see Define Workflow Subscriptions Details and Assigning a Workflow to a Subscription.

Internationalization

vRealize Automation 7.5 is available in the following languages:

• English
• French
• German
• Spanish
• Japanese
• Korean
• Simplified Chinese
• Traditional Chinese
• Italian
• Russian
• Dutch
• Brazilian Portuguese

For more information about product language support, see the VMware Product Globalization Guide.

See the full release notes here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Automation/7.5/rn/vRealize-Automation-75-release-notes.html

VMware vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 2.0

What's new:

• Certificate Management

   

  • You can manage certificates used across vRealize product environments from a single place.
    
  • You can replace product certificates as Day-2 operation
    
  • Ability to specify certificates at both product and environment level
    
• Support for Patching

   

  • Seamless mechanism to automatically discover and apply product patches.
    
  • You can view and download the audit history of patches applied at both product and environment level.
    

• Content Management Enhancements

  • Support for vRealize Operations content – Support a first-class content with a dependency discovery for Dashboards, Reports, View, Alerts, Symptoms, Recommendations, Text, Topology, and Resource Kind Metrics. 
    
  • Support for deploying multiple contents – Ability to deploy multiple contents to respective endpoints in a single operation
    
  • Rich content filtering – Ability to filter content based on associated metadata such as tag, endpoint(s), content type, save and reuse filters.
    
  • Content Developer restricted to a read-only view of endpoints created by others. Release Manager roles will continue to have access over all endpoints. 
    

•  Other Improvements: 

  • Simpler process to onboard and subsequently manage existing product environments.
    
  • Support for deploying Windows machines from ISO or VM Templates as part of creating vRealize Automation instance.
    
  • Ability to import vCenter Servers in bulk. 
    
  • Ability to import and update passwords in bulk on vRealize Network Insight data sources. 
    
  • Notifications 
    
  • Ability to filter and export user requests. 
    

See the full release notes here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Suite/2018/rn/VMware-vRealize-Suite-Lifecycle-Manager-20-Release-Notes.html

vRealize Operations Manager 7.0

What's new:

Continuous Perfomance Optimization

• Fully automated workload balancing across clusters based on business intent, such as utilization, compliance, and license cost.
  
• Integration with vRealize Automation for initial and ongoing workload placement. You can visualize vRealize Operations Manager alerts and metrics in vRealize Automation. You can visualize KPIs for each workload in the deployment.
  
• Host-based placement to automate DRS, based on business intent and workload placement within a cluster.
  

Efficient Capacity Management

• Real-time predictive capacity and cost optimization.​
  
• Right-sizing workloads and reclaiming capacity.
  
• Multiple what-if scenarios to add workloads, procure hardware, and to migrate workloads to the cloud.
  

Intelligent Remediation

• Support of multiple clouds such as SDDC, AWS, and VMware Cloud on AWS.
  
• ​Support for PCI, HIPAA, DISA, CIS, FISMA, and ISO Security.
  
• Enhanced Wavefront integration for application operation.
  

Simplified Dashboard Creation and Sharing

• Simplified dashboard creation with an intuitive canvas and multiple out-of-the box widgets.
  
• ​Easy dashboard sharing and embedding to improve cross team collaboration and reporting.
  

Supported Management Packs: 

• The VMware Management Packs supported with vRealize Operations Manager 7.0 are:
  
  • vRealize Operations Management Pack for OpenStack 5.0
    
  • vRealize Operations Management Pack for AWS 3.0
    
  • VMware vRealize Operations Federation Management Pack 1.0.1 and above
    
  • VMware vRealize Operations Management Pack for vCloud Director 5.0 
    
• The 3rd party authored Management Packs that are supported with 7.0 are listed in the VMware Compatibility Guide.
  

See the full release notes here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Operations-Manager/7.0/rn/vRealize-Operations-Manager-70.html

vRealize Business for Cloud 7.5

Enhancements to Business Unit Mapping

• Mapping of users to business units has been simplified, you can now select the users with business controller role and map the user with the available business units as per your requirement.
  
• Default business units associated with a user are listed under Business Units > Selected section. You cannot modify the default business units associated with a business user.
  

Enhancements to Licensing Cost for Windows Server 2016

• New category in licensing costs for Windows 2016 is included, you can now enter cost per core.
  
• You can now identify and categorize the VMs either into pre 2016 (socket based) operating system, or post 2016 (core based) operating system
  

Enhancements to Customized Reports

• Filter and group-by options in reports can be used simultaneously. Earlier when you wanted to move from Groupby and Charts tab to Filter or vice versa, you would be prompted with a warning message, only on selecting Yes, the selected columns would be cleared and you would be able to navigate to the other tab.
  

Detailed API Documentation using Swagger

• You can now access the documentation for internal APIs using Swagger. You can access API documentation from https://<VRB>/itfm-cloud/swagger-ui.html.
  

Support for Patch Management

• vRealize Business for Cloud 7.5 now supports Patch management. Patch management involves installation and removal of software patches to fix existing issues and address security vulnerabilities.
  

Support for Certificate Management

• vRealize Business for Cloud 7.5 su pports certificate management through vRealize Life Cycle Manager. To know more about certificate management, refer vRealize Life Cycle Manager Documentation.
  

See the full release notes here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Business-for-Cloud/7.5/rn/vRBforCloud-75-release-notes.html

vRealize Log Insight 4.7

What's new:

vRealize Log Insight Server Features

• Enhanced certificate management capabilities
  
• Upgrade to Apache Cassandra version 3.11.2
  
• Increased security for  Apache Cassandra.  See https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/57901
  
• Internationalization of numbers, percent, and date information
  
• Optimization on vSphere integration and UI improvements
  

vRealize Log Insight REST API

• REST API documentation is available from  the product interface at http://<vRLI_host>/rest-api.
  

vRealize Log Insight Agent Features

• Added ability to provide SSL CA path as an environment variable (LIAGENT_SSL_CS_PATH)
  
• Added ability to list multiple directories in the same filelog section
  
• Added compression of rotated log files of the vRealize Log Insight agent
  

See the full release notes here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Log-Insight/4.7/rn/VMware-vRealize-Log-Insight-47-Release-Notes.html

VMware vRealize Orchestrator 7.5

What's new:

• With the updated Orchestrator Client you can:
  
  • Run and re-run workflows
    
  • Monitor performance data and real time tracking of the workflow execution
    
  • Import and export packages
    
  • Create and edit scheduled workflows
    
• Introducing a new method of the internal Postgres database clustering and migration vRealize Orchestrator through the VAMI interface
  
  • Database configuration is moved to VAMI
    
  • The embedded Postgres database is clusterable and supports failover
    
  • Join and remove cluster nodes operations are moved to the VAMI
    
• Troubleshooting
  
  • Export vRealize Orchestrator plug-in configuration with log bundle
    
  • Inspect inputs and outputs of the nested workflows after run is completed
    
  • The API to get filtered list of script actions by datatype given
    

See the full release notes: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Orchestrator/7.5/rn/vRealize-Orchestrator-75-Release-Notes.html