VMware vRealize Suite 8.3 Released

VMware has released vRealize Suite lifeCycle Manager 8.3, vRealize Automation 8.3, vRealize Operations Manager 8.3, vRealize Log Insight 8.3 and vRealize Orchestrator 8.3.

vRealize Suite lifeCycle Manager 8.3

What’s new:

• Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS 140-2) support
  • Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS 140-2) is supported by vRealize Automation 8.3, vRealize Log Insight 8.3, and vRealize Operations Manager 8.3, when deployed in FIPS-mode. The FIPS setting cannot be changed post deployment of the vRealize Suite products.
• vRealize Automation Salt Stack Config support
• Vertical scale-up support for vRealize Automation
• User experience enhancements
• Usability improvements for Content Management
  • Pipeline UI improvements
  • Release and test pipelines introduced
  • vRealize Automation Cloud as an endpoint support
  • vRealize Orchestrator software-as-a-service based endpoint support

See the full release notes here.

vRealize Automation 8.3

This version contains many new features that I have been looking forward to getting.

What’s new:

• Networking: NSX-V to NSX-T migration
• Networking: Additional properties in IPAM SDK action schema
• Networking: NSX-T Tier-1/ NSX-V ESG sharing within a deployment
• Networking: New NAT resource type for port forwarding (DNAT rules) support for NSX outbound networks
• Networking: Reconfigure On-Demand Security group – Iterative and Day 2 – NSX-T
• Networking: IPAM – Filtration for data collected networks
• Networking: Load Balancer – Health monitor settings for NSX-V and NSX-T
• Change deployment ownership day 2 action
• Deployment last request filter
• Property Groups
• Secrets in Cloud Templates and Extensibility
• vRA Terraform Provider updates
• Add custom properties while onboarding VMs
• Support disks with onboarding
• Change owner of migrated deployments
• Optimization of Reservation to Cloud Zone Migration
• Migration Assistant support for vRA 7.4
• Support Disk creation in to a SDRS datastore cluster
• Consider all matched storage profiles & data stores instead of only first
• Reuse Azure resource groups
• Networking: Change Security Group – Iterative deployment
• HCMP : Cloud zone capacity and consumption Insights
• vRA Vertical Scale
• Multi-tenancy
• Performance Improvements
• Active Directory per blueprint
• Resource utilization for consumers
• Improvements in Custom resource types and custom day2 actions
• Custom Forms enhancements
• Number of cores per socket for vSphere machines in VMware Cloud Templates
• Auto-enable Federated Catalog & Blueprints for Cloud customers
• SaltStack Config integration in vRealize Automation
• Notify cloud consumers for optimization and enable consumers to take action
• Non-overlapping cloud zones
• Documentation for resource action condition expression
• Support for Azure VMware Solution and Google Cloud VMware Engine
• Logging integration
• Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Support

See the full release notes here.

vRealize Operations Manager 8.3

What’s new:

• Product Enhancements
  • With this release, vRealize Operations Manager can run in Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 enabled mode for better security.
  • Here are the key features and capabilities added in vRealize Operations Manager 8.3:
  • Ability to enable FIPS mode during deployment or after upgrade from the Admin user interface. See Create a Node by Deploying an OVF, Enable FIPS – Admin UI, and vRealize Operations Manager Cluster and Node Maintenance.
  • Note: Enabling FIPS is a one-way action, and cannot be disabled after it is enabled. As a recommendation, always have a cluster snapshot/backup to be able to revert back if necessary.
    • vRealize Operations Manager in FIPS mode can operate with FIPS compliant end points. This means that vRealize Operations Manager in FIPS mode is tested with FIPS compliant end points only.
  • All the native management packs and compliance packs also support FIPS mode.
  • As a part of continuing to support the Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG), administrators now have an option to add a mandatory DoD notice and consent banner at login for all the users of the product. See Access Control: Login Message Tab.
  • With this release, vRealize Operations Manager and vRealize Operations Cloud will measure, report, and provide alerts on key configuration limits for VMware Cloud on AWS based on Configuration Maximums for VMware Cloud on AWS. See VMware Cloud on AWS Alert Definitions and VMC Configuration Maximums Dashboard.
  • Introduction of Cloud Management Assessment (CMA) which is the next generation of vSphere Optimization Assessment (VOA). This feature quickly shows the value of vRealize Operations Manager across vSphere, SDDC, hybrid, and multi-cloud.
• Exceptions of FIPS Compliance for this Release
  • The following components will not work in FIPS-enabled mode:
    • vRealize Application Remote Collector
    • HttpPostAdapter
    • RepositoryAdapter
    • Network Share Plugin
    • End Point Operations Management Solution
• Product Support Notices
  • End Point Operations Management Solution
    • The End Point Operations Management Solution has been deprecated with this release and will be unavailable for use after vRealize Operations 8.3.
  • vRealize Automation 7.x
    • vRealize Automation 7.x integration with vRealize Operations Manager 8.3 and onwards is dropped.
  • vCenter Server 6.0
    • Support for vCenter Server 6.0 has been dropped from vRealize Operations Manager 8.3 onwards.
• Basic Authentication
  • Basic authentication using the REST API is deprecated and disabled in vRealize Operations Manager 8.3 fresh deployments by default. Instances that have been upgraded to vRealize Operations Manager 8.3, will inherit the same properties before the upgrade. It is recommended that you use token-based authentication instead. If you still need to enable or disable basic authentication, see KB 77271.
• Metrics and Properties Modifications
  • The following KB article describes all the metrics and properties that have been modified in vRealize Operations Manager 8.3:
  • Metrics added in vRealize Operations Manager 8.3
• Instanced Metrics
  • Instanced metrics are disabled by default after deploying or upgrading to vRealize Operations Manager 8.2 or later after importing a policy from older versions. To re-enable instanced metrics in vRealize Operations Manager 8.2 or later, see KB 81119.
• Updated Management Packs
  • VMware Management Packs that are updated for vRealize Operations Manager 8.3 are:
  • VMware vRealize Operations Management Pack for CloudHealth 1.2
  • vRealize Operations Management Pack for NSX for vSphere 3.7
  • VMware vRealize Operations Management Pack for VMware Identity Manager 1.2
  • vRealize Operations Management Pack for SNMP 3.2
• See Management Packs for vRealize Operations Manager Documentation for more information. Refer to the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix for all VMware Management Packs supported with vRealize Operations Manager 8.3. The 3rd party authored Management Packs that are supported with 8.3 are listed in the VMware Compatibility Guide.

See the full release notes here.

vRealize Log Insight 8.3.

What’s new:

• Support for Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2: FIPS 140-2 is a U.S. and Canadian government standard that specifies security requirements for cryptographic modules. To learn more about the support for FIPS 140-2 in VMware products, see https://www.vmware.com/security/certifications/fips.html. You can now activate FIPS mode for vRealize Log Insight during deployment or after upgrade, from the Admin UI.
• Note: Once activated, FIPS mode cannot be disabled.
• You can configure the legal consent (DoD) displayed to users during login.
• Support for key-based SSH authentication, which is an alternative mechanism, and a more secure and easily automatable option as compared to the username and password authentication.
• Install automation with Log Insight Agent download without authentication: This feature provides an improved automation experience with a direct download of Log Insight Agent to a target system from the install script.
• Support of cross-domain group-based authentication for vIDM users: In a multi-domain environment with trust established among domains, user login is simplified for vIDM users that are part of a different domain.
• Time format standardization for log forwarding: You can customize an event date format to a standardized format. This feature provides flexibility during syslog type forwarding, especially in scenarios such as a missing timestamp in an ingested log.
• Inter-node data communication over SSL: The communication across the nodes in a cluster (port 59778, 16520:16580) through Apache Thrift is enhanced to optionally secure the connection with SSL. For more information, see https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/82299.

See the full release notes here.

vRealize Orchestrator 8.3

What’s new:

• Viewer role. This role includes view-only access to all vRealize Orchestrator objects and pages. Viewers cannot create, edit, or run workflows and other vRealize Orchestrator objects, such as actions, configurations, resources, policies, and scheduled tasks. The Viewer role is supported for vRealize Orchestrator deployments authenticated with vRealize Automation. See vRealize Orchestrator Roles and Groups.
• References and usage of content items. You can view object references and object usage in the vRealize Orchestrator Client. See Find Object References in Workflows.
• Usability improvements. You can now filter by Name, Type, and Description in the data grids of the Variables and Input/Output tabs. You can also sort for workflow parameters and variables.

See the full release notes here.