This week, VMware released vCloud Director SP version 8.20 ( build 5070630 ) which marks the 8th Major Release for vCloud Director since 1.0 was released in 2010. Ever since 2010 the user interface give or take a few minor modifications and additions has been the same. It also required flash and java which has been a pain point for a long time and in someways unfairly contributed towards a negative perception around vCD on a whole. It’s been a long time coming but vCloud Director finally has a new web UI built on HTML5 however this new UI is only exposed when accessing the new NSX integration which is by far and away the biggest addition in this release.

This NSX integration has been in the works for a while now and has gone through a couple of iterations within the vCloud product team. Initially announced as Advanced Networking Services which was a decoupled implementation of NSX integration we now have a fully integrated solution that’s part of the vCloud Director installer. And while the UI additions only extend to NSX for the moment it’s brilliant to see what the development team have done with the Clarity UI (tbc). I’m going to take a closer look at the new NSX features in another post, but for the moment here are the release highlights of vCD SP 8.20.

New Features:

Advanced Edge Gateway and Distributed Firewall Configuration – This release introduces the vCloud Director Tenant Portal with an initial set of controls that you can use to configure Edge Gateways and NSX Distributed Firewalls in your organization.

– This release introduces the vCloud Director Tenant Portal with an initial set of controls that you can use to configure Edge Gateways and NSX Distributed Firewalls in your organization. New vCloud Director API for NSX – There is a new a proxy API that enables vCloud API clients to make requests to the NSX API. The vCloud Director API for NSX is designed to address NSX objects within the scope of a vCloud Director tenant organization.

– There is a new a proxy API that enables vCloud API clients to make requests to the NSX API. The vCloud Director API for NSX is designed to address NSX objects within the scope of a vCloud Director tenant organization. Role Administration at the Organization Level – From this release role objects exist in each organization. System administrators can use the vCloud Director Web Console or the vCloud API to create roles in any organization. Organization administrators can use the vCloud API to create roles that are local to their organization.

– From this release role objects exist in each organization. System administrators can use the vCloud Director Web Console or the vCloud API to create roles in any organization. Organization administrators can use the vCloud API to create roles that are local to their organization. Automatic Discovery and Import of vCenter VMs – Organization VDCs automatically discover vCenter VMs that exist in any resource pool that backs the vDC. A system administrator can use the vCloud API to specify vCetner resource pools for the vDC to adopt. vCenter VMs that exist in an adopted resource pool become available as discovered vApps in the new vDC.

– Organization VDCs automatically discover vCenter VMs that exist in any resource pool that backs the vDC. A system administrator can use the vCloud API to specify vCetner resource pools for the vDC to adopt. vCenter VMs that exist in an adopted resource pool become available as discovered vApps in the new vDC. Virtual Machine Host Affinity – A system administrator can create groups of VMs in a resource pool, then use VM-Host affinity rules to specify whether members of a VM group should be deployed on members of a vSphere host DRS Group.

– A system administrator can create groups of VMs in a resource pool, then use VM-Host affinity rules to specify whether members of a VM group should be deployed on members of a vSphere host DRS Group. Multi-Cell Upgrade – The upgrade utility now supports upgrading all the cells in your server group with a single operation.

You can see above that this release has some major new features that are more focused on tenant usability and allow more granular and segmented controls of networks, user access and VM discovery. The Automatic VM discovery and Import is a significant feature that goes along with the 8.10 feature of live VM imports and helps administrators import VM work loads into vCD from vCenter.

“VMware vCloud Director 8.20 is a significant release that adds enhanced functionality. Fully integrating VMware NSX into the platform allows edge gateways and distributed firewalls to be easily configured via the new HTML5 interface. Additional enhancements such as seamless cell upgrades and vCenter mapping illustrate VMware is committed to the platform and to vCloud Air Network partners.”

A list of known issues can be found in the release notes and i’d like to highlight the note around Virtual Machine memory for the vCD Cells…I had my NestedESXi lab instances crash due to memory pressures due to the fact the VMs where configured with only 5GB of RAM. vCloud Director SP 8.20 needs at least 6GB so ensure your cells are modified before you upgrade.

Well done the the vCloud Director Product and Development team for this significant release and I’ll look to dig into some of the new feature in detail in upcoming posts. You can also read the offical vCloud Blog release post here. I’m looking forward to what’s coming in the next release now…hopefully more functionality placed into the HTML5 UI and maybe integration with VMwareonAWS 😉

References:

http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/vcd/8-20/rel_notes_vcloud_director_8-20.html

https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vcd_sp_pubs.html

https://blogs.vmware.com/vcloud/2017/02/vmware-announces-general-availability-vcloud-director-8-20.html

Share this: Twitter

LinkedIn

Reddit

WhatsApp



Like this: Like Loading...